Earlier quoted context omitted.
Waaaaaaat?! That could definitely be better known.
TIL :|
Hang in, there.
Matrix.org hacked
251–260 of 277 posts
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
That gives a 404 now. I'm not enormously happy with GitHub's willingness to completely hide bug reports like this...
I agree. IIRC, the ability to delete Issues is new. There used to be a "Beta" label beside the delete button and prior to that I don't think it was possible (or at least not as easily?). Looks like it wasn't cached by Google either.
archive.org has it!
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess the point is that you cannot protect anything from the future if you don't just destroy it completely.
On that note, the matrix.org server currently doesn't delete messages from rooms that have become empty. It probably would be a good idea to do so.
Does synapse allow that for self hosted?
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you misunderstand why the keys were deleted. The keys get deleted on the client when you log out. This is sensible, because if you log out on a device, you probably don't want to keep the keys around in your browser storage. When the users session is destructed on the server, existing clients get a 403 error and told that their session is logged out. When that happens, they go through the normal logout routin…
If user sessions are that important, then there's no way Matrix should be killing them and instead that behavior has to become a design and operations constraint. Imagine if this was facebook. Or whatsapp. Or signal and this was the result. They would be crucified ( justifiably ). But for some reason we are giving Matrix a pass.
There is currently a bug open in Riot to allow users to save their keys if there was a forced logout by the server (right now, if you try to log out and don't have key backups set up Riot will warn you and ask you to set up key backups).
But, your comparison with other messaging apps aren't really a fair comparison (other than "they are messaging apps"). The reason why they don't have these issues is because they don't provide features that Matrix does -- and those features make it harder for Matrix to implement something as simply others they might. For example, Signal stores all your messages locally and doesn't provide a way for new devices to get your history -- Matrix doesn't store messages locally long-term and all your devices have access to your history. In addition, there is no "log out" with Signal unless you unlink your device.
The reason why Matrix doesn't have e2e by default yet is because they want to ensure issues like this don't happen to every user.
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
To avoid perverse incentives, you should also build in some reward for the developers/operators. As in: If the server gets hacked, the money goes to the whitehat. If the server does not get hacked for $TIMEFRAME, the money goes to the people responsible for its security.
Seems like asking for trouble. Basically you're putting a thousand dollars cash in your house, then telling the world I have a thousand dollars cash in my house, if you find a way to break in and take it, it's yours, I won't make a fuss because you're doing me a favor by exposing a vulnerability. Just please don't take the other valuables and ... oh yeah, please don't mess with any of my family members and maybe plea…
You only get the 1000 Euros if you didn't do any of the harmful things you mentioned.
It is not"cash" in the house
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
While you bring up valid concerns about the Matrix team's security hygiene, the point of an open standard is that anyone can (try to) spot flaws in it, and anyone can (try to) create their own implementation. I myself am waiting for a healthy ecosystem of servers and clients to spring up before starting to rely on Matrix for anything non-ephemeral - even if it takes years. Perhaps I'll even try my hand at writing a c…
> myself am waiting for a healthy ecosystem of servers and clients to spring up before starting to rely on Matrix Good luck with that. Right now there's only the centralized matrix.org server, or actually there isn't because it's down. If you want open standards and multiple servers (or your own) use XMPP period. It's not so much a technical question as it is the attitude of "hey we're implementing our own chat proto…
> Right now there's only the centralized matrix.org server
That's just blatantly false. Approximately 50% of Matrix users are on other homeservers.
> It's not so much a technical question as it is the attitude of "hey we're implementing our own chat protocol cause XML sucks".
This is just a strawman. Every single talk by Arathorn explains, in great detail, why Matrix is not just "XMPP but JSON". Maybe you disagree with their reasons, but then you should argue against their reasons not some other reasons that you came up with.
> That said, if the matrix protocol can actually manage to attract users and multiple implementations some years down the road
Given the recent hack it looks like Matrix has about ~10 million users federating with each other (if 50% of them are on Matrix.org and Matrix.org has 5 million users) -- and this doesn't count bridged users which aren't using Matrix but are benefiting from the ecosystem.
And there are also several implementations. Riot is the most popular and polished one, but there's a whole bunch of others[1].
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#257It's "usless use of cat". He/she should have gone: `grep arathorn users.txt | head -1` Instead of: `cat users.txt | grep arathorn | head -n1` Hackers these days.
It's a "useless use of head". He/she should have gone: `grep -m1 arathorn users` Instead of: `grep arathorn users.txt | head -1` Commenters these days.
Cool!
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would agree with that. We need something that works now, not when someone finally manages to reign in the Matrix protocol.As it stands I cannot send a friend an invite to Matrix and expect them to like it one bit (which turns out, is what reality looks like).
"I need...", "We need..." The world doesn't really care about what you need. It simply doesn't work like that. If you have a need, do something about it and help out.
I'm aware the world doesn't care but I simply don't have to time among other projects and my actual job to write a ground up chat application plus federated protocol from the ground up. The "just write it yourself" attitude is frankly insulting to the end user who can't code at all.
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#259I lost all my messages with my girlfriend (of course).
Can anyone clarify: if I use their "server key backup" and set a passphrase, I am now two passwords away from giving the next hacker read access to all my messages, is that right?
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
If user sessions are that important, then there's no way Matrix should be killing them and instead that behavior has to become a design and operations constraint. Imagine if this was facebook. Or whatsapp. Or signal and this was the result. They would be crucified ( justifiably ). But for some reason we are giving Matrix a pass.
There is currently a bug open in Riot to allow users to save their keys if there was a forced logout by the server (right now, if you try to log out and don't have key backups set up Riot will warn you and ask you to set up key backups). But, your comparison with other messaging apps aren't really a fair comparison (other than "they are messaging apps"). The reason why they don't have these issues is because they don…
Maybe I'm not clear -- destroying any user's data without user's explicit authorization is unacceptable for any non-joke of a system.
If users' keys are linked to the session key then the system has to be designed in a way that the centralized session key store is protected like a pot of gold. That's a design constraint and dictates operational constraints.
> Matrix doesn't store messages locally long-term and all your devices have access to your history. In addition, there is no "log out" with Signal unless you unlink your device.
If one designs this kind of a system, one accepts the security constraints this system has. That's a basic competence or in this case a lack of it.