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Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

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Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#841

Post by pimeys »

absorber wrote: post #802
feanaro wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that resource hungry anymore. Hovering stably around 500M RSS and 8% CPU for me right now. That's with ~25 users and a lot of federated, public rooms, some of them quite large.

What CPU are you running it on and how many cores are being used? Are you also in really large rooms like Techlore and Matrix HQ? Because I think I'm in all of the largest rooms (and a lot of the smaller ones)

I'm running my instance with lots of bridges in a 3-core 4GB server, paying about eight euros a month for it. Synapse runs just fine, but I'll probably switch to the Rust impl when it's done.

If you want to go cheaper and have only 300-400 Mbps of bandwidth, I've heard lots of good things about this provider:

https://contabo.com/en/vps/

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#842

Post by merb »

posguy wrote: post #375
rstuart4133 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android has it's own SIP stack. It's even exposed in the standard Android phone dialler from Google. In the settings for that app look under "calling accounts". https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/sip I haven't looked, but I'm sure just like Firebase, services get a special exemption to receive SIP notifications.

The Android SIP stack is pretty crummy. Last I tried to use it there was no support for TLS registration (leaving your calls unencrypted, barebacking the web) or for push notifications. Linphone, Zoiper, etc can show a badge in your notifications menu/top bar at all times and get semi-reliable access to run in the background, but expect to miss 5% to 20% of all incoming calls. Firebase push notifications are mandator…

> leaving your calls unencrypted, barebacking the web

btw. most of the time only the session is unencrypted, not the media. when sip uses sips it will encrypt both the session and the media. but the latter is pretty uncommon and most often you wil see unencrypted session and an encrypted rtp stream. this is still the default, even deutsche telekom does it like that by default, even in their commerical offerings like "cloud pbx", because you would need to pay extra for the encrypted session.

and btw. sip over tls mostly means that the call is encrypted, but the sip messages aren't.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#843

Post by Sunspark »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #736
Spivak wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s funny that they think Google cares at all about the implementation details of your service. The only thing that matters to app reviewers is what the user sees when they use it. If you make your app technically unmoderatable, impossible to remove illegal content, or impossible to respond to DMCA requests you don’t get to just throw your hands up.

> The only thing that matters to app reviewers is what the user sees when they use it. If that were true, web browsers would be in trouble.

I understand Google Chrome can be used to view objectionable illegal content.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#844

Post by remram »

feanaro wrote: post #783
absorber wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but IMO the Matrix team should _really_ focus on Dendrite since Synapse is extremely resource hungry and prevents a lot of people (including me) from running their own servers.

It's not that resource hungry anymore. Hovering stably around 500M RSS and 8% CPU for me right now. That's with ~25 users and a lot of federated, public rooms, some of them quite large.

8% CPU average actually sounds like a lot, unless your 25 users are chatting around the clock.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#846

Post by 22c »

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #13

Is this google starting to test the waters when it comes to arbitrarily kicking out software they personally don't like? (open source, decentralized, privacy oriented etc.) I might of course be exaggerating a bit here, keep that in mind. - Element and Matrix are growing but still not equipped to fight back at large against this, so it is unlikely to create too much negative press - If Google starts to catch too much…

>Is this google starting to test the waters

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_balloon

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#847

Post by tormeh »

brettwilcox wrote: post #374
Arathorn wrote: post #3

So we got notified by the developer console at 21:45 UTC that the app had been suspended, but still haven’t had an email to explain why - it’s 02:24 now. Our assumption that this is due to someone reporting abusive content in Matrix to Google, and Element catching the blame — although this is currently speculation. To be clear: Element is a Matrix client just as Chrome is a Web browser, and just as it’s possible to v…

I'm testing Element and Matrix at American Airlines. There are big players with clout that take issue to instability such as this. How can I rely on my company using Element when it gets pulled? Not cool Google... To the element team, reach out to me if you can't get the support you are looking for.

There are alternative clients: https://matrix.org/clients/

FluffyChat would be the main contender.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#849

Post by panarky »

skynet-9000 wrote: post #803
panarky wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you accept that (1) there is a substantial amount of mal-content that Google should censor, and (2) a key use case for federated messaging platforms is to evade censorship, and that (3) client applications can be functionally part of a federated messaging platform while legally separate from it, then those client applications are fair game to be censored when they deliver mal-content. Now I may disagree with parts…

While we're at it, should we ban email apps as well? And probably the Internet itself and go back to "safe" walled gardens like AOL, since there are almost certainly bad people on the net?

That's a textbook example of the logical fallacy commonly known as the slippery slope.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#850

Post by LocalH »

panarky wrote: post #785
tabbott wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really upset that this happened to you folks, and it's scary, because incident could just as easily have happened to us at Zulip (or any other OSS app that connects to self-hosted servers!). I expect we'll never get a useful explanation from Google for why this incident happened -- abuse teams, like fraud teams, are worried about the bad guys using the explanations to tune their tactics and so tend to never expla…

If you accept that (1) there is a substantial amount of mal-content that Google should censor, and (2) a key use case for federated messaging platforms is to evade censorship, and that (3) client applications can be functionally part of a federated messaging platform while legally separate from it, then those client applications are fair game to be censored when they deliver mal-content. Now I may disagree with parts…

By that logic, web browsers are not functionally separate from the federated Web, so all browsers should be banned until they start blocking objectionable sites.
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