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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

#171

Post by TheRealPomax »

pmlnr wrote: post #110
tao_oat wrote: 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…

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…

Because your own service is not an alternative if you actually need to secure-message others because of the line of work you're in, or the regime you're under. The idea that "just do it yourself" is more secure than a company that can't just be walked into and have their computers taken without it causing a huge problem for everyone from your mom to heads of state is a bit naive.

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

#172

Post by zfnmxt »

pimeys wrote: post #91
johnisgood wrote: post #78

Any plans on making this free, or self-hosted?

It is possible. I've been running my own for a year, but it takes quite a hefty server at least with Synapse, and it's not cheaper compared to the quite nice 5 euros a month pricing here. If you want to give it a try, this is what I used: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy

You can run Synapse on a cheapo VPS for <$5/month; it doesn't exactly require much.

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

#174

Post by hnarn »

Arathorn wrote: post #133
hnarn wrote: 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 :)

Why do you need to “check them” in the first place though?

And yes, I can understand that for some people the inability to easily transfer and collect those conversations is a problem, but for many people (imo probably more people) the ephemeral nature of these messages is a feature, not a problem to be solved. At least that’s why I use Signal over Messenger, for example.

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

#175

Post by pmlnr »

jacob019 wrote: post #166
pmlnr wrote: 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 wrote a bridge between signald and prosody (without spectrum) so I can use xmpp clients with signal. Async python, only non-standard library dependency is slixmpp. It's working well.

I've seen your project! Congrats, it is very nice. I stopped fiddling with transports because signald doesn't compile/run on freebsd (some of the java libs behind it rely on native libs which have problems compiling), and for now I've put it aside.

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

#176

Post by noirbot »

pmlnr wrote: post #137
loriverkutya wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't want "the utmost privacy". I want something better than raw SMS. I'm not an international secret agent. I encrypt things out of principal more than because I really care if some government force reads them. If a nation-state decides I'm of interest to them for malicious reasons, I'm probably screwed either way.

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

#177

Post by allset_ »

throw10920 wrote: post #155
trenchgun wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know that when you message someone on Signal it's for their eyes only. What you know is that unless their device is compromised, it is up to them to decide who can read the messages that you send to them. Thus the situation with the bridge is not in reality different from the situation now.

Exactly - someone could be running a (the?) third-party Signal client, or they could be intercepting the Google push notifications that Signal sends using one of those Play Services compatibility layers, or they could do one of the low-tech things of showing their device with your messages on it to someone else in-person. Although, to be fair, all of those things are far more difficult than using Element One, so ther…

The messages are encrypted end to end so compromising push notifications doesn't get you anything. That's the problem with this bridge, it adds a new server with access to the unencrypted messages.

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

#178

Post by zfnmxt »

hnarn wrote: post #174
Arathorn wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

Why do you need to “check them” in the first place though? And yes, I can understand that for some people the inability to easily transfer and collect those conversations is a problem, but for many people (imo probably more people) the ephemeral nature of these messages is a feature, not a problem to be solved. At least that’s why I use Signal over Messenger, for example.

> Why do you need to “check them” in the first place though?

I have this problem; most Android apps send background notifications via Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging instead of rolling their own services. (Signal is an exception to this.)

So, if you're unwilling to use Google Play services (or us an OS which doesn't support it), you're fucked and will not receive background notifications. The primary reason I use bridges with Matrix is not to unify my messaging experience into one app, it's to get notifications on my phone.

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

#179

Post by briffle »

dTal wrote: post #40
personjerry wrote: post #35

Back in the day before the rise of Facebook, there was an open source service that combined all the popular messaging protocols - MSN, AoL, IRC, etc. It was called Pidgin[0], and it never got particularly big. I see the same thing here. While it's interesting, I'm failing to see what the use case is. What's the niche that needs this solved in a big way? [0] https://www.pidgin.im/

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.

Can you run Pidgin on your phone and tablet and laptop and move between them?

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

#180

Post by anthk »

arp242 wrote: post #66
ho_schi wrote: post #55

This kind of stuff never works reliable of even fully. Because? There is no standard. And especially Telegram and WhatsApp will have absolutely no interest in keeping it working reliable. If you send your data anyway over this questionable services you're already in a concerning situation adding more possibilities for failure doesn't help. I use Matrix and it is certainly a good thing and the connections to other stu…

> especially Telegram and WhatsApp will have absolutely no interest in keeping it working reliable. Telegram at least seems to have pretty decent libraries available to communicate with their API. I don't know how often it breaks, but I've been using the "tg" CLI Telegram client in the last week, and it seems to work fairly well (better than their own web interface anyway). I looked a bit at writing my own as I have…

I use Telegram with Bitlbee perfectly, with sic as the IRC client, it's magical.
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