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Decentralize Messaging

rodarmor.com

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Re: Decentralize Messaging

#61

Post by 013a »

skyfaller wrote: post #47
rolleiflex wrote: post #39

This is what I’m working on with Aether ( https://getaether.net ). A mass-communication method owned by no one, like email is owned by no one. It’s a modern, decentralised Usenet. I used to call it ‘email for mass communication’ but it confused people, since it’s not based on email, so I stopped calling it that. That’s the goal though. I also gave a talk on it at the Internet Archive last week, if you want a quick in…

"In Aether, spam prevention is accomplished by requiring proofs of work". Now, I recognize that regular e-mail uses proof of work as a spam prevention measure these days, so I don't want to be too harsh on a decentralized alternative. That said, I've watched the energy expenditures of Bitcoin etc. with alarm, and I've become very concerned about the sustainability of anything using proof of work if it should become p…

Which is higher: the energy cost of bitcoin mining, or the energy cost of the spam industry?

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#62

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

pmlnr wrote: post #56
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 is not BS, but not for the given reasons (heavy battery use/weird deliverability issues). 'Not handling mobile clients well' is true. Did you ever wonder why there are no (to date) XMPP clients on iOS that are not complete and utter shit? As a person who has first-hand knowledge of the matter, managing a team member tasked with the development of an iOS XMPP app (which is supposed to be NOT complete and utter shit)…

Ah. You were thinking ios as mobile. ios is not the only mobile. Xmpp is fine on android.

Well, not really fine. You should trust me in this, because our Android xmpp app is closing on 2 million installations on Google Play. There are a lot of problems maintaining a persistent connection, and Google makes it harder with each new version of Android. And if we go for push notifications, without persistent connection, the problems are the same as with iOS.

To counter this and make XMPP work well on mobile and in browsers, we had to develop our own server and a bunch of new protocol extensions.

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#63

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

ryukafalz wrote: post #28
jacob019 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps Apple deserves some of the blame here? Is the protocol just too chatty?

My understanding is it's because XMPP expects the client to be able to maintain a connection to the server, which is typically not possible on iOS. Apps on iOS are generally not permitted to run in the background, with a few limited exceptions.

Yes, exactly. And while currently there are ways to maintain a connection to a server on Android, it is clear that the platform is going to restrict this capability even further. Even now, if you run a background process, and start doing some memory-intensive operation, like taking a picture, your app is unceremoniously offloaded from memory, making you unable to receive messages, until the service permits a restart.

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#64

Post by max_ »

Social media has more problems besides the need to “decentralize”

The biggest problem with social media is how it is ruining our mental health.

It’s sad that almost no one looking in to this.

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#65

Post by pmlnr »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #62
pmlnr wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah. You were thinking ios as mobile. ios is not the only mobile. Xmpp is fine on android.

Well, not really fine. You should trust me in this, because our Android xmpp app is closing on 2 million installations on Google Play. There are a lot of problems maintaining a persistent connection, and Google makes it harder with each new version of Android. And if we go for push notifications, without persistent connection, the problems are the same as with iOS. To counter this and make XMPP work well on mobile an…

I believe there are problems, and a million thanks for maintaining clients.

Real question: for email, I use K9, which supports IMAP Push, which, as far as I know, needs a live connection as well. Do you know if they are struggling as well, or is the xmpp push and imap push significantly different in some way?

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#66

Post by edhelas »

> These extensions could include:

    delivery receipts => XEP-0184: Message Delivery Receipts
    optional read receipts => same as above
    user presence information => XMPP RFC
    binary serialization for efficiency and extensibility => XEP-0231: Bits of Binary
    end-to-end encryption => XEP-0373: OpenPGP for XMPP, XEP-0384: OMEMO Encryption, XEP-0378: OTR Discovery
    WebRTC signalling for negotiating VOIP and video chat => XEP-0343: Signaling WebRTC datachannels in Jingle
    signed introduction tokens to reduce spam => ?
    a standard extension mechanism => https://xmpp.org/extensions/
Can we just stop prettending that XMPP is not ready and/or outdated, all those things are there, used and implemented in more clients than Matrix has.

Doing decentralized social media, on XMPP, is possible. Take XEP-0060: Publish-Subscribe, add Atom 1.0 (yes it's the power of XML, you can put a standard in another) and boom you have a social network with feeds, comments, subscriptions and everything, fully ready.

I'm doing that for years with Movim https://movim.eu/. The several major XMPP servers are handling that perfectly as well. How many Matrix servers are out there ? One, that is still in beta (Synapse).

XMPP is standard (IETF wise), is already massively deployed, is used by universities, governments, companies…, is exensible, is stable and is maintained by a big and motivated community.

Don't reinvent the wheel once more, just implement the standards.

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#67

Post by _f9cu »

rolleiflex wrote: post #39

This is what I’m working on with Aether ( https://getaether.net ). A mass-communication method owned by no one, like email is owned by no one. It’s a modern, decentralised Usenet. I used to call it ‘email for mass communication’ but it confused people, since it’s not based on email, so I stopped calling it that. That’s the goal though. I also gave a talk on it at the Internet Archive last week, if you want a quick in…

Can you share tech design diagram?

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#68

Post by KaiserPro »

zzo38computer wrote: post #24
dmix wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like gtalk using XMPP?

XMPP uses XML. IRC is simpler and can be used without any specialized software, and was designed like that, so that you can use without specialized software (I have used IRC on computers before installing a IRC client)

typing PONG every ten minutes isn't entirely practicable

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#69

Post by rzzzt »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #63
ryukafalz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is it's because XMPP expects the client to be able to maintain a connection to the server, which is typically not possible on iOS. Apps on iOS are generally not permitted to run in the background, with a few limited exceptions.

Yes, exactly. And while currently there are ways to maintain a connection to a server on Android, it is clear that the platform is going to restrict this capability even further. Even now, if you run a background process, and start doing some memory-intensive operation, like taking a picture, your app is unceremoniously offloaded from memory, making you unable to receive messages, until the service permits a restart.

But one could open and close a desktop XMPP app as well at arbitrary times. What is the difference?

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#70

Post by ajconway »

edhelas wrote: post #66

> These extensions could include: delivery receipts => XEP-0184: Message Delivery Receipts optional read receipts => same as above user presence information => XMPP RFC binary serialization for efficiency and extensibility => XEP-0231: Bits of Binary end-to-end encryption => XEP-0373: OpenPGP for XMPP, XEP-0384: OMEMO Encryption, XEP-0378: OTR Discovery WebRTC signalling for negotiating VOIP and video chat => XEP-034…

How do you handle push notifications with XMPP?

> How many Matrix servers are out there

On a side note, that's not fair. Every project has to start somewhere and it might be difficult to gain traction. It doesn't mean that it has no chance of evolving into the greatest thing possible in its market, dwarfing once popular competition, simply because it didn't come first.

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