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WhatsApp goes down for users globally

theguardian.com

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Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#211

Post by asim »

rakoo wrote: post #207
asim wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but matrix is a convoluted mess. Speaking from experience, when there's a deep focus on protocols and technical architecture before usability it becomes incredibly hard for the consumer side to get started. It's still very much a DIY thing and the promise of Element hosted offerings kind of just defies the point of the federated design for what most came into it for, self hosting. Honestly, we just need a d…

> Honestly, we just need a drop dead simple chat client/server that can be self hosted XMPP, again and again. But that's not a solution, because the problem is absolutely not technical.

The problem is developers pushing a technical choice of protocol with little regard for user experience. How does the XMPP protocol improve on the user experience? It doesn't unless you have a client/server implementation that can be deployed and showcases that power. Think SMTP and email. You want XMPP to work, find a simple way to showcase they power.

I've run the original jabberd server for an organizations internal chat server along with all the open source bells and whistles that go with it. Let me tell you I didn't once see the value of that except to save money and for privacy. But it was an organisation. If we want open federated communication the standout thing has to be the ease of use, the quality of experience and to actually highlight it's benefits. Right now I don't see that.

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#212

Post by noahtallen »

lloeki wrote: post #187
lima wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite is true - of all the major messengers, Telegram is the least secure. It uses a homebrew encryption scheme and does not have E2E encryption (yes, you can enable E2E for individual chats, but nobody uses it because it breaks most features). Not to mention the weird corporate structure, lack of transparency, failed crypto token launch, dishonest marketing...

> It uses a homebrew encryption scheme Please stop with that. At some point every encryption scheme was "homebrew" (or rather, new). MTProto 1.0 had flaws, which were addressed in 2.0. The latter has been independently formally verified to be secure[0]. > Telegram is the least secure. Against who? What is your threat model? Such absolutist blanket statements are useless by design. > of all the major messengers Which…

The other contender here is iMessage, which is likely more secure, but has such a terrible UX it’s not worth using. Their architecture is really poorly thought out and imitates SMS when it doesn’t need to.

For example, if you travel internationally with a different SIM card, iMessage doesn’t allow your main phone number to be used for iMessage any more.

Another terrible “feature” is that to have a complete history of your chats, you need to back up to iCloud. Even for plaintext messages. And uploading photos will quickly blow through your iCloud storage.

Telegram, on the other hand, maintains your complete searchable message history including media for free, and when your phone number changes, it just asks “hey did your phone number change?” You press no, and the experience is completely identical.

Whereas when your phone number goes away on iMessage, you’ll have to fiddle around with settings to get something else working, your contacts will be fucked, and people will have issues sending you messages, etc.

In telegram, the model is that my messages are associated with me. In iMessage, the model is that my messages are associated with my device and SIM card. I think the latter model is boneheaded for a personal messaging app. Which means that iMessage is fundamentally problematic.

Sorry for my iMessage rant, but I do love telegram :)

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#214

Post by tut-urut-utut »

ale42 wrote: post #71
noio wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find phone numbers awesome because you actually "own" them to some degree. (i.e. you can take your number to a new provider). Moving to a different messenger app with the same phone number means I can at least still find some of my network there. Only email on your own domain would have that feature. I don't really care if they sell my phone number, it's already out there, I don't consider it private data anymore.

Quite true. It would be better, though, to be able to use an instant messaging system using a simple identifier lie an e-mail address, as an alternative to a phone number. Simply because there are quite some people out there who mainly want to message on a computer, and want to keep only some kind of messages on their phones.

Delta Chat.

It’s basically an email client disguised as a messenger.

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#215

Post by genpfault »

cookiengineer wrote: post #191
chagaif wrote: post #26

Time to talk about matrix.org and Element not Signal and definitely not Telegram...

I'd disagree. In terms of privacy and anonymity, Matrix is an unguaranteeable nightmare. Just all the IRC bridges alone are a worst case scenario on what can happen with your data. I'd rather recommend Briar [1] which is really end to end encrypted, and works even offline via bluetooth or Wi-Fi LAN. [1] https://briarproject.org/

Sadness[1] :(

https://code.briarproject.org/briar/briar/-/wikis/FAQ#can-i-...

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#216

Post by MattJ100 »

asim wrote: post #211
rakoo wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly, we just need a drop dead simple chat client/server that can be self hosted XMPP, again and again. But that's not a solution, because the problem is absolutely not technical.

The problem is developers pushing a technical choice of protocol with little regard for user experience. How does the XMPP protocol improve on the user experience? It doesn't unless you have a client/server implementation that can be deployed and showcases that power. Think SMTP and email. You want XMPP to work, find a simple way to showcase they power. I've run the original jabberd server for an organizations intern…

What you are describing is basically the gap that Snikket aims to fill - although for personal communication, it's not particularly aimed at organizations (I think the requirements for that are different, and there are many existing options already).

I know at least one project aiming to fill the same gap for organizations though (again, using XMPP), but pre-release currently: https://prose.org/

I'm a firm believer in essentially what you said: The protocol doesn't matter, it's all about the products and what they can do and how easy they are to deploy and use.

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#217

Post by rakoo »

asim wrote: post #211
rakoo wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly, we just need a drop dead simple chat client/server that can be self hosted XMPP, again and again. But that's not a solution, because the problem is absolutely not technical.

The problem is developers pushing a technical choice of protocol with little regard for user experience. How does the XMPP protocol improve on the user experience? It doesn't unless you have a client/server implementation that can be deployed and showcases that power. Think SMTP and email. You want XMPP to work, find a simple way to showcase they power. I've run the original jabberd server for an organizations intern…

I'm sorry but if your point of data is the original jabberd server then you are not up to date with the experience you can have today. And the experience today is good, whether you use Prosody, Metronome, ejabberd and probably others, and when you chat with Conversations. You have all the bells and whistles of social networking with Movim.

It' s not necessarily a better user experience but it provides a far better user independence, and that definitely counts.

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#218

Post by mmcnl »

lloeki wrote: post #187
lima wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite is true - of all the major messengers, Telegram is the least secure. It uses a homebrew encryption scheme and does not have E2E encryption (yes, you can enable E2E for individual chats, but nobody uses it because it breaks most features). Not to mention the weird corporate structure, lack of transparency, failed crypto token launch, dishonest marketing...

> It uses a homebrew encryption scheme Please stop with that. At some point every encryption scheme was "homebrew" (or rather, new). MTProto 1.0 had flaws, which were addressed in 2.0. The latter has been independently formally verified to be secure[0]. > Telegram is the least secure. Against who? What is your threat model? Such absolutist blanket statements are useless by design. > of all the major messengers Which…

Your reasoning basically reduces to: I trust Telegram and I don't trust Meta. Security-wise WhatsApp is way more secure than Telegram because it uses the open-source Signal protocol [0].

[0] https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-Whitepap...

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#219

Post by Steltek »

asim wrote: post #165
ddevault wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, my criticisms of Matrix are that it puts usability (or at least UI/UX) before the technical details.

The project was founded in 2014. It was heavily focused on building a federated protocol before there was anything related to end usability. Maybe they've just flubbed the implementation and done a poor job of it, I don't know. I can tell you from the external perspective it's not doing a great job at anything technical or end UX. WhatsApp nailed distribution, Signal does privacy well, Telegram is simple and scalable…

Matrix does decentralization/federation well? The problem is that it's a philosophical/political goal and most people place other values (social cachet, ease of use, total cost) above that.

Another problem is that a focus on federation limits your appeal to people who like to self-host things.

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#220

Post by Steltek »

sneak wrote: post #73
chagaif wrote: post #26

Time to talk about matrix.org and Element not Signal and definitely not Telegram...

Matrix/Element iOS builds send all notifications (by Apple's design) through centralized developer-run servers that wake up your client app to talk to your homeserver. There's no way for you to avoid SPOFs for notifications on Apple devices, because APNS is designed so that the only way you can wake up an app to talk to an API is via notifications sent from the developer of that app. This means that if the APNS serve…

This is a problem with iOS, not Matrix or any other chat protocol. If you want more freedom and control over your communications, you wouldn't choose iOS anyway.
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