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Element (Matrix) launches Chatterbox, end-to-end encrypted embedded chat

element.io

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Re: Element (Matrix) launches Chatterbox, end-to-end encrypted embedded chat

#31

Post by halostatue »

Arathorn wrote: post #26
theogravity wrote: post #22

I'm not familiar with pricing in this space, but $3.80 / MAU (says $3 for element product, then 0.80 for the chatterbox product on top) seems really expensive that you would have very specific use-cases (government, hospitals?) to use the product to want to pay the price for it.

It’s $3/MAU for the users who are using a fullblown Matrix client like Element on the server. Meanwhile users who are coming in via the lightweight Chatterbox client are only $0.80/MAU. And users who come in via federation are free. We’ll see how the pricing fares in practice.

Yeah. I can’t see any of the clients who are using our live chat solution paying almost $1/customer for chat. That would raise the bills of many of our clients by thousands of dollars a month.

Re: Element (Matrix) launches Chatterbox, end-to-end encrypted embedded chat

#32

Post by rvz »

Legogris wrote: post #23
Arathorn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is like saying “i tried the web, and it’s extremely slow”. what server were you using? and which client on which platform?

Not the person you're replying to but following up on an identical past thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30996203 > Linux, x86_64. Getting the same behavior across distros and installations. It is still very much the case. To emphasize, we have for the past couple of years used Matrix routinely on: * Multiple client implementations * Multiple OSs (Linux/Android/iOS) * Multiple accounts and profiles * Mult…

That is the problem with defining Linux Desktop support as I have said this many times before. It has been more than 20 years and the same fragmentation and inconsistency issues are still here. It is not early days anymore.

It works fine on macOS as mentioned in that thread, especially with 4000 rooms on both Firefox and Chrome and supporting that is simple with a predictable desktop stack. The Linux Desktop however is eternally plagued with these issues and the support and testing is very expensive.

It is a serious and fundamental problem with multiple alternative of alternatives of system components to test and the problem [0] may still happen deeper in the desktop stack and looking for the root cause is like finding a silver needle in the sky and would require a mixture or part time / full time devs to test or debug literally everything that is in the stack to reproduce or actually find it.

The fact that it works fine on macOS and it hasn't been solved on Linux yet, tell us that defining Linux Desktop support and targeting / supporting 100% of Linux Desktop users is an impossibility. It's a very expensive contraption to support, unlike the users on Windows and macOS.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30983400

Re: Element (Matrix) launches Chatterbox, end-to-end encrypted embedded chat

#33

Post by encryptluks2 »

Legogris wrote: post #23
Arathorn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is like saying “i tried the web, and it’s extremely slow”. what server were you using? and which client on which platform?

Not the person you're replying to but following up on an identical past thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30996203 > Linux, x86_64. Getting the same behavior across distros and installations. It is still very much the case. To emphasize, we have for the past couple of years used Matrix routinely on: * Multiple client implementations * Multiple OSs (Linux/Android/iOS) * Multiple accounts and profiles * Mult…

Probably because the app is a bloated piece of junk

Re: Element (Matrix) launches Chatterbox, end-to-end encrypted embedded chat

#34

Post by Pakdef »

tcfhgj wrote: post #7
warning26 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it have export? Signal's complete inability to any kind of history backup is a dealbreaker for me.

Element has. The app on the other side I think it's unlikely that this chatbox has export functionality

> Element has

it has if the the person who you are chatting with didn't already delete their comment (unless you host your own server and modified it to keep a log of everything)

Re: Element (Matrix) launches Chatterbox, end-to-end encrypted embedded chat

#35

Post by Pakdef »

jeroenhd wrote: post #19
tcfhgj wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Element has. The app on the other side I think it's unlikely that this chatbox has export functionality

With E2EE I don't think you can even implement a reliable export on the server side. It seems like Element is limited to only exporting a single room, though. You need something like https://gitlab.com/argit/matrix-recorder/ to export all messages, it seems.

> With E2EE I don't think you can even implement a reliable export on the server side.

Can't you use your client key(s)?

Re: Element (Matrix) launches Chatterbox, end-to-end encrypted embedded chat

#36

Post by jimmygrapes »

tcfhgj wrote: post #5

How does E2EE work here? How can the user know their communication isn't being intercepted?

This is my question, too.

From TFA:

>there’s no need for them to register or create an account just because it’s E2EE, and it still supports persistent messaging.

How does that work? Arathorn in a sibling comment says that there's out of band something, which I interpret to mean some verification process, but for the life of me I can't imagine what that process might be or how it might work without any sort of account... unless the client generates a unique a key per user session and coordinates the key exchange with a single host server behind the scenes to encrypt that session's data?

What am I missing?

Re: Element (Matrix) launches Chatterbox, end-to-end encrypted embedded chat

#37

Post by lawl »

woojoo666 wrote: post #29
remram wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the user check that, if they are running untrusted clients embedded on untrusted sites? Who is the adversary that the addition of end-to-end encryption is supposed to defeat?

If the business doesn't want to host the chat server themselves, they can have a 3rd party provider host it (like Matrix.org) without worrying about the 3rd party having access to the messages Edit: sorry I should have clarified that I was answering your second question. As for the first question, the user still has to trust the business to a certain extent

But they host the software, you already have to trust them.

This threat model just does not make sense.

Re: Element (Matrix) launches Chatterbox, end-to-end encrypted embedded chat

#38

Post by tcfhgj »

lawl wrote: post #37
woojoo666 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the business doesn't want to host the chat server themselves, they can have a 3rd party provider host it (like Matrix.org) without worrying about the 3rd party having access to the messages Edit: sorry I should have clarified that I was answering your second question. As for the first question, the user still has to trust the business to a certain extent

But they host the software, you already have to trust them. This threat model just does not make sense.

The software = chat box? Could be hosted by yourself, too

Re: Element (Matrix) launches Chatterbox, end-to-end encrypted embedded chat

#39

Post by Legogris »

rvz wrote: post #32
Legogris wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you're replying to but following up on an identical past thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30996203 > Linux, x86_64. Getting the same behavior across distros and installations. It is still very much the case. To emphasize, we have for the past couple of years used Matrix routinely on: * Multiple client implementations * Multiple OSs (Linux/Android/iOS) * Multiple accounts and profiles * Mult…

That is the problem with defining Linux Desktop support as I have said this many times before. It has been more than 20 years and the same fragmentation and inconsistency issues are still here. It is not early days anymore. It works fine on macOS as mentioned in that thread, especially with 4000 rooms on both Firefox and Chrome and supporting that is simple with a predictable desktop stack. The Linux Desktop however…

For all is warts, electron does make things like this more consistent across distros end environments, as shown in the reproducibility of this issue.
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