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Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

element.io

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Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#2
The fact that content sent to signal and Whatsapp resides unencrypted at the matrix homeserver makes this product completely useless to me.

I don't think I want to sacrifice the security for having all my chats in one place.

If they can fix that I might reconsider.

They already reverse engineered the Whatsapp protocol. I see little reason why it can't live in the client? I don't really follow why they move the bridge to the homeserver.

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#3
I'm happy to see that element found another potential revenue stream, but will people pay the 5$/month to unify their messaging?

I don't know about others but it's not that much of a pain point for me, and I'm using all of the apps they mention - WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram as well as few others like IRC and Discord.

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#4

The fact that content sent to signal and Whatsapp resides unencrypted at the matrix homeserver makes this product completely useless to me. I don't think I want to sacrifice the security for having all my chats in one place. If they can fix that I might reconsider. They already reverse engineered the Whatsapp protocol. I see little reason why it can't live in the client? I don't really follow why they move the bridge…

Why don't you encrypt your hard drive?

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#6

The fact that content sent to signal and Whatsapp resides unencrypted at the matrix homeserver makes this product completely useless to me. I don't think I want to sacrifice the security for having all my chats in one place. If they can fix that I might reconsider. They already reverse engineered the Whatsapp protocol. I see little reason why it can't live in the client? I don't really follow why they move the bridge…

Why don't you encrypt your hard drive?

What problem do you feel this would solve?

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#7
Does anyone know what this product is based on? Is it just a ready-made image with all the bridges preconfigured (and prerequisites such as a small android vm for a viable whatsapp bridge), or has there been some evolution on the existing package? Is there documentation on what was done to achieve this?

Purely on the content of the article: Given that the messages are not stored encrypted locally and that this service is connected to the US, I do not see how it can be viable for the privacy-conscious.

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#8

The fact that content sent to signal and Whatsapp resides unencrypted at the matrix homeserver makes this product completely useless to me. I don't think I want to sacrifice the security for having all my chats in one place. If they can fix that I might reconsider. They already reverse engineered the Whatsapp protocol. I see little reason why it can't live in the client? I don't really follow why they move the bridge…

WhatsApp's backups are already stored unencrypted* on Google Drive if you use that feature.

* Encrypted with a private key which Google have access to.

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#9

The fact that content sent to signal and Whatsapp resides unencrypted at the matrix homeserver makes this product completely useless to me. I don't think I want to sacrifice the security for having all my chats in one place. If they can fix that I might reconsider. They already reverse engineered the Whatsapp protocol. I see little reason why it can't live in the client? I don't really follow why they move the bridge…

> They already reverse engineered the Whatsapp protocol. I see little reason why it can't live in the client? I don't really follow why they move the bridge to the homeserver.

Matrix bridges are rather complex. They rely on a combination of private APIs (WhatsApp), Chrome extension scraping (LINE), bots (Telegram), mobile clients (Android SMS), and jailbroken iPhones (iMessage).

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#10

The fact that content sent to signal and Whatsapp resides unencrypted at the matrix homeserver makes this product completely useless to me. I don't think I want to sacrifice the security for having all my chats in one place. If they can fix that I might reconsider. They already reverse engineered the Whatsapp protocol. I see little reason why it can't live in the client? I don't really follow why they move the bridge…

they haven't, they simply host a VM with Whatsapp and connect to it via Whatsapp Web
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