this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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Privacy

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I recently saw Alex's video about XMPP and I got curious.

I am using Element and Schildichat a bit, trying Element X and curious about the new Development here. It seems vibrant, they rewrite stuff in rust, the Apps are fancy and all.

But I tried Conversations and it seems based too, has transparent encryption, it is damn fast, usable, supports groups and files and all. Probably doesnt use the latest fancy Android SDKs but it seems solid.

I was surprised about how fast it was, as Matrix drastically varies per server. But also I found many dead communities, and in general I dont see XMPP at all, while many Projects (if not using Discord, bruh...) have a Matrix room.

How secure is OMEMO in todays standards? Or OpenPGP, compared to Matrix or Signal Encryption? I heard it also has rotating keys and all.

There are other things, like permission systems, chosen federation, privacy, bridge support and more, that are interesting. Are there advanced modern WebUIs for XMPP you like?

I saw that it uses up waaay less resources, why is that? Really, is "simply encrypted mail" somehow worse in an important way?

Similar to IRC, where I never found nice usable apps for my taste, I thought XMPP was deprecated, but that doesnt seem so?

What can you tell me about XMPP, is it modern, secure, privacy friendly?

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[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No you fail to see the vital difference that the Matrix Foundation process is only open to paying members and that a single for-profit company is currently absolutly dominating the Foundation board that has the final say.

On the XSF anyone can easily become a member and get voted in a fair democratic election into the council. I know that several members are just community members with no corporate backing and they have the same if not more weight in the decision making as everyone else.

[–] slacktoid@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Then outline the ways they are different and source it.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I just did, and you can look up the how little oversight and accountability there really here: https://matrix.org/membership/

To look up who the guardians and core spec team is you can scroll to the bottom here: https://matrix.org/about/ (Note that basically all of them are very closely affiliated the Element the for-profit company).

Tl;dr the Matrix Foundation is a sham to hide that Element the company calls all the shots and has no interested at all in an truly open standards process.