I keep reading this title, and thinking that it's going to propose a final solution to the vim vs emacs debate, or tabs vs spaces, or one of the other fonts of engineer discord.
Let's Reverse Engineer Discord
81–90 of 115 posts
Re: Let's Reverse Engineer Discord
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah my company has the worst time with Skype, but nobody takes you seriously if you mention Discord even though it’s much more reliable and has more features.
Bring up Microsoft Teams maybe.
Teams is pretty good (and I suspect partly ripped off from Discord), but I don't believe it has the casual voice channel feature the parent wanted. You still have to manually initiate calls, like with Skype.
Re: Let's Reverse Engineer Discord
#83This is common and necessary for WebRTC SFUs, which perhaps is why Discord does it to support the least common denominator of their web browser based clients. Edit: Yep, I thought I remembered reading this. Their voice servers are WebRTC SFUs. So this is basically state-of-the-art when it comes to voice over WebRTC. End to end encryption in WebRTC is not possible if you are using a SFU. https://blog.discordapp.com/ho…
End to end encryption in WebRTC is indeed possible even if you are using an SFU, this is achieved via Privacy Enhanced RTP Conferencing (PERC). [1]. https://www.callstats.io/blog/2018/06/01/examining-srtp-doub...
No, it’s not, because PERC is a proposal and is not implemented in any browsers.
Re: Let's Reverse Engineer Discord
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure why they haven't tried the business communications angle with an alternate branded Slack competitor. As a remote worker on an almost entirely remote team, we would benefit from a sort of voice channel huddle on-demand or even just watercooler chatting. There is something more casual about jumping into a premade voice channel where people may already be chatting than starting a Webex or initiating a Slack…
Yeah my company has the worst time with Skype, but nobody takes you seriously if you mention Discord even though it’s much more reliable and has more features.
What enterprise support plans exist for Discord? Is there a support person you can call if something goes down during a business-critical timeframe? Can HR or other staff access chat logs of their employees? If so, how far back do the chat logs go? A day? A month? Forever? How long will it take to train staff on using this software? Some people get really freaked out by a new UI - they don't think about what they're doing, they just memorize button clicks. So if you change from Skype to Discord, they need to re-memorize the button clicks / patterns / flows, which can take weeks. Some employees really are that slow. Does discord work with existing VOIP phones the company has purchased? Or will those assets need to be retired early due to not being compatible?
There's more to choosing enterprise software than just the features and reliability. My guess is that Skype was included for free in an existing Microsoft contract (Windows 10 PC's, or Office), whereas discord would require an entirely new contract.
Re: Let's Reverse Engineer Discord
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Discord trying to take on Epic and Steam to create a marketplace was perhaps the worst move I've seen in the past few years. Steam is entrenched and Epic is printing money. Discord needs to capitalize on its greatest asset: a massive community. To me, the obvious path forward is doing Patreon like features for servers and perhaps trying to break into the streaming market.
Honestly I'm surprised they didn't try to enter the space by buying an existing competitor. GoG, or Humble maybe. It might also be possible they're trying to build critical mass to get bought by some gaming company. Perhaps Amazon for Twitch integration? MS in some bold attempt to buy a userbase for their PC game store?
I don't think it's possible for them to buy GoG or Humble. GoG is was created by and is owned by CD Projekt, and Humble is owned by IGN.
Re: Let's Reverse Engineer Discord
#86The article links to https://github.com/tenable/DiscordClient but this has been deleted. Does someone have a mirror?
I'm confused. The link in your comment leads to a live repo.
Re: Let's Reverse Engineer Discord
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Discord trying to take on Epic and Steam to create a marketplace was perhaps the worst move I've seen in the past few years. Steam is entrenched and Epic is printing money. Discord needs to capitalize on its greatest asset: a massive community. To me, the obvious path forward is doing Patreon like features for servers and perhaps trying to break into the streaming market.
Honestly I'm surprised they didn't try to enter the space by buying an existing competitor. GoG, or Humble maybe. It might also be possible they're trying to build critical mass to get bought by some gaming company. Perhaps Amazon for Twitch integration? MS in some bold attempt to buy a userbase for their PC game store?
Realistically, I don't think they could have purchased either of those.
GOG is a rather niche store with a strategy contrary to Epic Games (in fact, there is this popular item on a functionality wishlist: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/do_not_get_bought_by_epic_...). For most customers, GOG is a secondary store mostly due to its DRM policy which I don't see a chance of Epic Games keeping if they were to purchase the store (if anything, due to Fortnite). GOG isn't really profitable currently, but selling it to Epic Games of all companies would risk PR and could cause skilled developers to leave CD Projekt. It wouldn't make sense for both Epic Games and CD Project.
Meanwhile, Humble Store does pretty well, and I don't think IGN is interested in selling it.
Re: Let's Reverse Engineer Discord
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you are paying $0.00 for the service? And in this case they are dropping malformed data, which could easily protect their users from malware that exploits weaknesses in the media codecs.
I find this notion that you should be absolved of all responsibilities just because you give it away for free to be completely wrong. They should still be transparent about what they are doing. This notion also does not translate very well to things which are not related to IT. I use a very large number of things in my daily life which I am not paying for but I still expect them to work and be safe. Or would be it be…
How is Discord not being transparent here? They never claimed they were E2E encrypted, and the WebRTC spec doesn’t support one to many encrypted streams.
It doesn’t seem fair to burn Discord at the stake for a feature they never claimed to provide.
Re: Let's Reverse Engineer Discord
#89The problem is... There still isn't a clear business model for discord, the advantages of having premium (nitro) are almost non-existing. That's not an excuse for privacy, I know... They tried to create a small competitor to Steam's game marketplace but it didn't work out. They're back to the drawing table. Honestly, that's actually really good for free users, like myself, because we can simply use discord's wide arr…
I'm not sure why they haven't tried the business communications angle with an alternate branded Slack competitor. As a remote worker on an almost entirely remote team, we would benefit from a sort of voice channel huddle on-demand or even just watercooler chatting. There is something more casual about jumping into a premade voice channel where people may already be chatting than starting a Webex or initiating a Slack…
> Of course no one would go for it as its branded, but having a forked version that doesn't bear any resemblance should be doable with minimum work.
Exactly this. I'd likely pay for a corporate branded Discord software that was named different and didn't use my personal Discord ID.
Re: Let's Reverse Engineer Discord
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you are paying $0.00 for the service? And in this case they are dropping malformed data, which could easily protect their users from malware that exploits weaknesses in the media codecs.
I find this notion that you should be absolved of all responsibilities just because you give it away for free to be completely wrong. They should still be transparent about what they are doing. This notion also does not translate very well to things which are not related to IT. I use a very large number of things in my daily life which I am not paying for but I still expect them to work and be safe. Or would be it be…
> Or would be it be fine if I take an elevator and it falls down and kills me? Or whoops, I got a free candy which turned out to contain toxins. I
Those things are paid for by someone who is expressively giving you rights to those goods/services. Just because Method Gaming is paying for their discord server so you can enjoy your free service, doesn't mean they are necessarily aware that you are using their paid-for server resources. OTOH, if I am renting an apartment from a building (which I pay for) and someone comes to visit me in the elevator, I expect that the elevator cost I pay for through my rent is safe enough for you travel in.
> guess I didn't pay for the service so why do I have some expectations for it to work or be safe?
Safe != privacy. The issue is not necessarily security (although there is an implication there as well), but more so it's privacy.