Anyone else getting a Cisco - warning about malware.opendns.com on the Wiki? wiki.coi-dev.org. It's blocked to me at work on this url. wiki.coi-dev.org&server=lon16&prefs=&tagging=&nref
COI – Chat Over IMAP
51–60 of 259 posts
Re: COI – Chat Over IMAP
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have a description of the client but I could not find a description of the optional server-side enhancements (besides that it should be advertised via CAPABILITY).
Chat over IMAP seem a bit misleading title. Their proposition is to add additional info in MIME headers. Or later some of them like Message-Id with chat info. So seem more related to MIME and SMTP. A client app can get those headers with different protocols too. MAPI, EWS, JMAP, etc.
We are working on server specs, the idea is that certain functionality like WebPush, WebRTC calls, channels require the servers to support COI.
Re: COI – Chat Over IMAP
#53Are Google, Apple, Microsoft, and other large email providers likely to implement a protocol like this into their own servers? It seems like a major conflict of interest, and without them it is a massive portion of the market that will never see this service work.
If I interpret the homepage correctly clients/servers without extra COI enhancements will just receive the messages as emails. Not ideal, but in any client with threading (gmail, apple), it would work decently i guess.
According to the spec (https://confluence-public.open-xchange.com/display/CoiW/COI+...) clients are expected to ask the IMAP server using a CAPABILITY command whether it supports COI extensions. Whether or not the server does support COI, messages are indeed standard mails with an extra Chat-Version: header and the requirement that Message-Ids start with "coi$".
So an existing server need not do anything to support COI clients. But a malicious server could easily decide to reject them, or to filter out COI-specific stuff from messages. I don't think it's likely, but it sometimes big corporations and governments get paranoid about weird things ("network load!!1!") and take technical measures to block them.
Re: COI – Chat Over IMAP
#54> With XMPP and Matrix.org -based services you would still need to convince everyone to join your new network. Easy in theory, very complex in practice! I think they missed the the bit where Matrix is called Matrix because it bridges (matrixes) the existing networks (Slack, IRC, Telegram, Discord, XMPP, etc) in, rather than needing to convince everyone to join. But no matter, we'll just provide a COI bridge if this t…
Very true, but have you tried just reaching out to someone via email on Matrix in practice? I tried with Riot and am not able to do that. Maybe just a bug, but if you want the real Matrix experience, you need a Matrix account. Don't get me wrong, I do love Matrix, but I also love XMPP - both not spectacular successes so far. AFAIK, the French Matrix version is even locked down and does not federate across the network…
You can reach out to folks by email in Riot by hitting "start chat" and entering an email address. I'm not sure how much easier we can make that ;)
We should run a general purpose email bridge though, and in fact there's a massive public sector outfit asking for such a thing currently so it'll probably happen sooner than later.
In terms of Matrix not being a spectacular success - well, that's a matter of perspective. The intention for France is absolutely for it to federate with the public network (once there's are sufficient border gateways in place). And France is far from the only high profile Matrix deployment out there, it's just one that we can speak about. But eitherway, COI looks cool, and I hope it helps OX sell more mail servers :)
Re: COI – Chat Over IMAP
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think most people who use WhatsApp don't even know what E2E encryption is and use it only because their peers are using it.
The pivotal reason people use WhatsApp is because it can be used without paying (with money that is), and because up to 90% of people in any country use it¹. That's it. Facebook could remove E2E today, and lose only a fraction of its WhatsApp users. Of course many little annoyances might mean that a competitor may step up, but WhatsApp is incumbent, and this is no longer about features or technology. It's all about t…
Not to forget that WhatsApp started out without E2E and didn't implement E2E for quite a while.
WhatsApp simply won the race by being there early on and getting the critical mass. From there on out people are locked in, because everyone else is there.
Re: COI – Chat Over IMAP
#56It is very difficult to build a decent email client with IMAP. So initially thought it is a no-sense. But after reading the while proposition seem very intriguing. Although it is based on email adoption will be very difficult.
> It is very difficult to build a decent email client with IMAP Why do you say that? I've implemented a couple of embedded IMAP clients over the years and I always found it pretty OK to work with?
One issue is that not everyone uses IMAP. What's with POP3 users (they still exist) and Exchange users?
Re: COI – Chat Over IMAP
#57> With XMPP and Matrix.org -based services you would still need to convince everyone to join your new network. Easy in theory, very complex in practice! I think they missed the the bit where Matrix is called Matrix because it bridges (matrixes) the existing networks (Slack, IRC, Telegram, Discord, XMPP, etc) in, rather than needing to convince everyone to join. But no matter, we'll just provide a COI bridge if this t…
>Discord
Yet, there is no option to bridge without involving the administrator of all servers you want to talk to.
That and I had a very bad experience with the other bridges. Outside of IRC it's basically unusable.
Re: COI – Chat Over IMAP
#58"COI uses an email address and any IMAP server as its infrastructure. This means it can already connect 3.8 billion users - anyone with an email address"
Email IMAP even though most email providers do provide access to IMAP, this is greatly oversimplified.
Re: COI – Chat Over IMAP
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think that means the developers don’t consider it important; it means that the people that want E2E aren’t necessarily in their primary audience. The prime target of this protocol isn’t power users and developers; it’s the overwhelming majority of users that stick to siloed messaging because it’s convenient, and everyone has it. First and foremost, they need to be shown that this is more convenient, and has a…
I would argue that every user wants E2E, they just don't know (enough) about it. E2E should be the default.
It can’t be default because the protocol is degradable by design. I would agree that they could advocate a method to harmonize all COI-aware IMAP servers. But it’s hard to get E2E encryption in a heterogeneous, legacy environment.
Re: COI – Chat Over IMAP
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought you can’t encrypt data at rest on an imap server? Apple even says this in their security guide... right?
You can in theory. But you have to choose: Either your data is encrypted or it's searchable. So in practice you prefer searchability. Someone will probably say something about homomorphic encryption. Not deployed AFAIK, and deploying will be difficult if you want to ensure that you can search your encrypted mail but others cannot.
You can just search on the client after decrypting.