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

element.io

131–140 of 422 posts

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

#131
post #122

Do they also host the WhatsApp native instance (Android VM)? That'd be great for those using Pinephones who still want easy access to WA. Otherwise the WA bridge would only work if you run a client yourself.

They do not. You need to have the app installed to your phone, which is a big no for me.

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

#132
post #119

I just have a really hard time understanding who this is targeting. If you're on average more willing to sacrifice privacy over ease of use, you're very likely not using Signal or Matrix anyway. So if you're not, but you're using both WhatsApp and Telegram, how is using two apps a big enough problem to set up a third one? Even if we disregard that, I can honestly say that I don't think using four separate apps is a p…

why would privacy enthusiasts not use Matrix, considering it's fairly easy to self-host?

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

#133
post #119

I just have a really hard time understanding who this is targeting. If you're on average more willing to sacrifice privacy over ease of use, you're very likely not using Signal or Matrix anyway. So if you're not, but you're using both WhatsApp and Telegram, how is using two apps a big enough problem to set up a third one? Even if we disregard that, I can honestly say that I don't think using four separate apps is a p…

I constantly miss messages on TG, WA and Signal because I forget to check them regularly. It also really irks me that my conversations are trapped in those platforms without a public API, and I’d like to gather them together on an open platform like Matrix, and access them from every/any Matrix client i choose. Hence the use case for Element One :)

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

#134

I already have a way to unify my messaging across different apps. It's called MacOS and cmd+tab. Sometimes on the road I use something called iOS. Sure it's not the same. But is it that different either? All messaging apps have their own native features, some have E2E encryption etc. Not sure if there's a common subset that is enjoyable enough to use that it's worth it. That being said, I do wonder what will be the "…

There is definitely a benefit to having a unified interface. The vast majority of the time I don't want to use each chat apps specific features, I just want to message people. And then sometimes I want to be distraction free and turn off notifications. This is much easier if everything is routed through one app. I'm also on macOS but I've been using Texts[1] for a few months and it has been a great experience. [1] ht…

Do you have an extra invite by any chance?

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

#135
post #97

> It’s also worth noting that end-to-end encryption is necessarily broken as messages to (and from) WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram pass across the bridge(s). The bridge(s) operates in Element’s trusted EMS environment, with no content scanning or datamining, but currently bridged conversations are not stored end-to-end encrypted in Matrix (they will be in the future). As a Signal user, I kind of don't want this to tak…

(Element CEO here). Honestly, it depends on your threat profile. Any kind of bridge has to inevitably MITM your conversations in order to work, and we’ve tried to spell that out in all the product info about Element One. If you want to avoid your E2EE conversations on Signal or WhatsApp being relayed via a service like Element One (because you’re an activist or whatever), then your options are to not bridge at all, o…

> Any kind of bridge has to inevitably MITM your conversations in order to work

Can't you just pass the encrypted message further without decrypting it? Of course, there needs to be the same decryption mechanism on both sides, but it doesn't make it impossible.

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

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data does not _reside_ unencrypted with End to Bridge Encryption : https://docs.mau.fi/bridges/general/end-to-bridge-encryption...

But the bridge is not hosted by me but by them. I need to trust matrix not to MITM me

Yes, in the same way that you need to trust Whatsapp not to MITM you. What's your perceived difference between these trust levels, other than one is something you pay for with money, and the other doesn't require money?

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

#137
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want this to take off. I'm tired of having to follow trends because people suddenly think there's a new shinyshinytrendy thing around: IRC to ICQ to MSN to Skype to Google Talk to Facebook Messenger to Whatsapp to Signal. Pidgin is good (I also miss the ancient Trillian, even though it was closed source), but limited to a local device. There are XMPP Transports as well for these (see https://git.eta.st/eta/whatsxmp…

I don’t run my own service for the same reason I don’t build my own car or I don’t do accounting for my company, I don’t have the time to learn how to do it nor doing it.

No, this is not the same. You want the utmost privacy, yet you still decide to trust someone over it.

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

#138

what about discord? :(

sadly, discord ToS forbid "self-botting", so the only legal option is to use a Discord bot, and that's far from seamless and requires guild admin cooperation, I assume that's why they aren't advertising it

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

#139
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want this to take off. I'm tired of having to follow trends because people suddenly think there's a new shinyshinytrendy thing around: IRC to ICQ to MSN to Skype to Google Talk to Facebook Messenger to Whatsapp to Signal. Pidgin is good (I also miss the ancient Trillian, even though it was closed source), but limited to a local device. There are XMPP Transports as well for these (see https://git.eta.st/eta/whatsxmp…

I don’t run my own service for the same reason I don’t build my own car or I don’t do accounting for my company, I don’t have the time to learn how to do it nor doing it.

That is the kind of comment that freaks me out on HACKER news.

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

#140
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it wasn't a "service" - it was a program. Unlike this thing. The main difference between this and Pidgin seems to be that you pay a monthly fee for someone to man-in-the-middle all your communications.

> you pay a monthly fee for someone to man-in-the-middle all your communications. All Matrix homeservers and bridges are open source. I self host some of them myself. Have been doing that long before Element One was a thing.

How can I verify you're running unmodified, unhooked source in your server if I'm a user?
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