> 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 take off. I like knowing that when I message someone on Signal, it's for their eyes only. It feels like this service starts fragmenting some of the privacy guarantees of the bridged providers.
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.
EDIT: for encryption fans, I've been wondering for a long time now: why would you trust ANY 3rd party with your so sensitive data instead of running your own service? Are you not aware of OMEMO for XMPP? (See https://omemo.top/ )
(Element CEO here). Honestly, it depends on your threat profile. Any kind of bridge has to inevitably MITM your conversations in order to work, and we’ve tried to spell that out in all the product info about Element One.
If you want to avoid your E2EE conversations on Signal or WhatsApp being relayed via a service like Element One (because you’re an activist or whatever), then your options are to not bridge at all, or run a bridge yourself. Clientside bridging may be an option in future, but reliably running a bridge in the background on mobile is somewhere between non-trivial and impossible.
Finally, we are currently crunching on getting E2EE to work nicely between the bridges and the Matrix clients (so bridged conversations are stored E2EE on the Element One server) and it should be coming in the coming weeks. It’s worth noting again that even when that lands the bridge will still necessarily be able to see bridged conversations at the point of bridging.
TL;DR: if you don’t trust Element with your Signal conversations for whatever reason, don’t hook up Signal to your Element One account :)
This reminds me how absurd it is that OSS projects are bridging Matrix, Discord, and IRC. These all have vastly different ToS and forms of encryption and user privacy. By doing this you can be taking an encrypted message on Matrix and implicitly agree to the ToS and reposting their message to something closed-source and with sketchy privacy like Discord, which defeats the purpose on why one would choose Matrix.
So then advocate for Signal to fully support third party clients, so that such functionality can be widely supported by multi protocol clients (ala pidgin) rather than needing centralized non-E2E bridges to cope with the administrative overhead of maintaining interoperability.
I concur. I really wouldn't mind anyone using this for whatsapp as I consider any message I send there is also available to 14-eyes, but bridge usage really should be disclosed to Signal users.
I got so excited for this until I read that, too. I wish there wasn't fragmentation like there is now but MITMing all my comms is definitely not a smart choice if I chose any of the comm systems it bridges based on privacy.
> this service starts fragmenting some of the privacy guarantees
There is no guarantee of privacy with communication between two consumer smartphones. Encrypted Signal-to-Signal messages have always been susceptible to capture on either end, by something like this bridge or a rogue (or non-rogue) app on either end with access to read device notifications.
I'm not saying that this service doesn't expose your messages to some additional risk, and should be used cautiously. But it is an illusion that just because the messaging protocol is using end-to-end encryption that the messages can't be intercepted.
Very good point on not wanting this to take off so that you know if you send it to someone, it is for their eyes only.
It does seem like since both Signal and Matrix are open source, including the servers, that there should be a path to let one a Signal user know if they are sending it to a Matrix bridge and the encryption is no more.
Also worth noting is that you do need to trust the person on the other end for Signal to have a chance at working, e.g. they can take screenshots or real camera pictures of the messages. So establishing trust with the recipient is rule #1, and this should go for if they are using a Matrix bridge with Element One too.
If privacy mattered that much to you, you wouldn't depend on Signal to encrypt your messages. You would encrypt them before handing them to Signal.
So you should have an encrypted message that you hand to Signal. Signal encrypts it again and hands it to the bridge. Eventually, whether at the bridge or at the other end or wherever, something decrypts the Signal message. Then the person you are communicating with applies the final decryption outside of Signal, Matrix, or whatever.
If this sounds terribly inconvenient to you, perhaps privacy is not as important as you claim. Security and convenience are almost always in conflict.
Come on. E2E encryption is about transmitting the content in transit and in the cloud (if there's a cloud). After people receive your text they can do anything with it.
> I like knowing that when I message someone on Signal, it's for their eyes only.
That's not how it works at all. E2E encryption only guarantees that your message is securely delivered to the other party, not that the other party can't do as they please with it. Signal messages are still stored in plain text on the end devices. They can still be backed up to the cloud (when I used Signal, all my chats were). Hell, photos/screenshots can still be taken of the app. If you want total security, you have to trust the delivery AND the end user. Bridging doesn't really change any of that.
> 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?
I used Pidgin a lot. I always found it very convenient to have everything in one place and UI. Better one client than MSN + AOL + ICQ + IRC + Yahoo! + XMPP.
In the last few years I haven't used it much, but that's because it just doesn't support the popular messaging apps of the day (or maybe it now does, I haven't checked in a while).
Also, as others have pointed out, Pidgin is not and never has been a "service", it's just a library (libpurple) that implements various protocols, with Pidgin as the GUI (they also make Finch, a TUI).
I thought about all that libpurple did back then, including OTR encryption that worked perfectly fine with others.
These days I think that most services try to make money with stuff that was built decades ago already, and they're just keeping the reinventing cycle spinning.
Anyone remember the franz app [1] ...which finally led to the hardfork of ferdi? [2] I feel that element one is franz all over again.
Brief history: when Hangouts was going away and Google Chat coming in, I pitched Matrix to my friends as a better alternative that didn't require unique phone numbers, awkward desktop limitations, and a better federated future. We stuck with Google Chat because inertia and networks suck that way.
I revisited the instance I had setup and got the mautrix-googlechat bridge working. It's pretty nice but one friend lamented that he did not have the technical skills to self-host such a thing. And here comes this announcement! Sadly, there is a major hurdle: neither Google Chat nor SMS/GVoice are listed here and those are the major protocols that my social group uses.
At the same time, my social group is conservative in adopting new core technologies and wary of cloud lock-in for critical roles (Google being both an unfortunate anchor and precipitator of that). I'm not sure adding those protocols would tip the balance.
The fact that content sent to signal and Whatsapp resides unencrypted at the matrix homeserver makes this product completely useless to me.
I don't think I want to sacrifice the security for having all my chats in one place.
If they can fix that I might reconsider.
They already reverse engineered the Whatsapp protocol. I see little reason why it can't live in the client? I don't really follow why they move the bridge to the homeserver.
I'm happy to see that element found another potential revenue stream, but will people pay the 5$/month to unify their messaging?
I don't know about others but it's not that much of a pain point for me, and I'm using all of the apps they mention - WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram as well as few others like IRC and Discord.
Does anyone know what this product is based on? Is it just a ready-made image with all the bridges preconfigured (and prerequisites such as a small android vm for a viable whatsapp bridge), or has there been some evolution on the existing package? Is there documentation on what was done to achieve this?
Purely on the content of the article: Given that the messages are not stored encrypted locally and that this service is connected to the US, I do not see how it can be viable for the privacy-conscious.
> Purely on the content of the article: Given that the messages are not stored encrypted locally and that this service is connected to the US, I do not see how it can be viable for the privacy-conscious.
Matrix chats (direct and group) are E2E by default. There is no bridge that will let you keep E2E encryption between Signal/WhatsApp and another service - it has to be broken somewhere. I believe Element is a UK company.
> However, in addition to being a fast, snappy Matrix account, it also comes with unlimited personal bridging to Whatsapp, Signal and Telegram thanks to mautrix-whatsapp/signal/telegram!
I've been running the Signal bridge for a couple of months and it seems pretty unstable. Sometimes it stops delivering messages and I have to restart either signald or the bridge. At other times, it broke completely and started working again only after a couple of days, when I updated signald.
I haven't tried the WhatsApp bridge yet because it needs to go through my phone or an Android VM. WhatsApp recently announced support for using WhatsApp Web without the need to have your phone online, but I don't think it's available for everyone yet.
So this service consists basically in paying to compromise E2EE, adding an attack vector, storing my otherwise encrypted conversations on centralised servers, using an arguably worse client with less features just for the convenience of not having to open 3 separate apps? Who is this for?
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 problem. I don't even think using ten different apps is a problem, because it's mostly transparent to the user anyway. You get (configurable) notifications from all of them when you need to care about something, and the "sharing" feature on both iOS and Android these days is normally smart enough to figure out who, or at least which app, you want to share something to -- so for me this "multi app confusion" is already pretty well solved on an OS level, at least on mobile.
I think "on average more willing to sacrifice privacy over ease of use" is probably a reasonable description of me. I'm not a fan at all of FB though, I have absolutely no trust in them at all. As such, I tried to get my world moved from WhatsApp to Signal. Inevitably I didn't succeed completely (although more than I expected) but now I'm split between those two. Plus I have some people who only communicate via FB messenger, and a few friends on Discord.
To message someone I first have to remember which platform they prefer and then find it in my folder of chat apps. It's not an insurmountable problem obviously, but it does add friction. If I can have that all in one place, cross-platform with a decent UX then that's definitely worth $5 a month to me, plus all the bonuses:
* I am actually moving in a more privacy focused direction. Yes I understand the caveats with bridges, but being on Matrix means that I can start a (slow) process of moving my interactions onto it
* I don't have to worry about backing up my Signal messages (which is a pain to have automatically sync 'offsite' from your phone)
* I can use it as my IRC client (with message history hanging around), etc.
Let me put it another way - I've wanted to be on Matrix for a while but haven't quite managed it. I like the decentralised philosophy, both from a technical perspective and a privacy one but every time I've signed up it hasn't been worth it and/or it's too painful. This gets it over the hump for me (if it's as promised).
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 :)
If I can enhance understanding on any level, FYI FWIW I will sign up for this likely.
1. Yes - In this context I prefer convenience over impractical/unrealized encryption. (Not privacy - I find Whatsapp, which hinges on my personal private phone number, far less "private", than other traditional messenger apps which I can sign up for anonymously; and for my use cases it's not a realized encryption, as people I talk to have no concept of security and I should assume anything I send to them has been scrubbed by malware and any other apps they've intentionally installed and agreed to).
2. Dozen apps are annoying impractical and I darn tooting well do Not have their notifications enabled. I'll agree that Android sharing is awesome; my experience with iPhone sharing has been Far more limited.
3. Whatsapp is darn near impossible to effectively use multi-device. If this will let me chat to my in-laws (who are stuck on Whatsapp not for any privacy or encryption reasons but because "everybody uses it") from comfort of my computers and keyboards, reliably, then this is a shut up & take my money proposition.
3a. Anybody about to comment "But whatsapp works on computers", see my other replies:)
What's the point of this? Matrix, Signal, and Telegram all have open source clients, so you could make a client that used the native protocols and not route your messages through this third party's servers. Like Pidgin, Miranda IM, Trillian, and others. But I guess a monthly fee and cloud services are the more modern approach.
> 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).
They store everything encrypted but this may open the door for legal requests to get access.
How safe is this to use? Couldn't WhatsApp or Signal detect you're routing everything to a shared hosting server somewhere and ban your account as a bot, stating the fact you're probably breaking some ToS clause?
Conspiracy: Element has been taken over secretly by the US government, and Element One bridges will now have access to all the encrypted messages across multiple platforms that people assume are only destined for the recipient.
It's brilliant actually. The more I think about it, the more that Matrix bridges seem like a perfect NSA tool. It's a man-in-the-middle attack of grand proportions, hidden in plain sight.
It doesn't look to be as good as it sounds. Privacy matters aside, you still have to keep WhatsApp installed on your phone.
> To connect your WhatsApp account, scan the QR code below:
> Open WhatsApp on your mobile device.
> Go to "Linked devices"
> Press "Link a device".
> Scan the code below.
Would pay money to get rid of Facebook software in my devices.
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 stuff like IRC, too. The fix is getting rid of WhatsApp. Signal is fine, the non-native desktop applications (i.e. fat and ugly Electron with Chrome behind) needs a rewrite with Gtk and Qt.
I fully understand that for many, this is not an acceptable security risk. It may have technical compromises.
For me, Whatsapp is used by my non-technical in-laws for the simple reason of "because everybody uses it". I find whatsapp extremely impractical (I communicate better via large ergonomic keyboard on my computer, vs via 1.5"-wide screen; to each their own), so anything that makes Whatsapp and other proliferation of incompatible annoying chat services easier... yes, yes, please yes :)
I am in the Beeper beta. Beeper supports Matrix, Whatsapp, Signal, and Telegram, but also Slack, Discord, Hangouts, Instagram, Linkedin, Facebook Messenger, SMS, Twitter, and crucially, iMessage on non-Apple devices! It is a beta but it works pretty well so far. AMA
One thing I didn't spot, does this tier allow you to use a custom domain name on Matrix, or will you be :matrix.org still? $5/mo is an interesting price point for me if it can do that, I don't need the bridges but I could support the project this way.
[+] [-] tao_oat|4 years ago|reply
As a Signal user, I kind of don't want this to take off. I like knowing that when I message someone on Signal, it's for their eyes only. It feels like this service starts fragmenting some of the privacy guarantees of the bridged providers.
[+] [-] pmlnr|4 years ago|reply
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/whatsxmpp , https://gitlab.com/nicocool84/spectrum2_signald , but sadly https://spectrum.im/ is surprisingly finicky to set up.)
EDIT: for encryption fans, I've been wondering for a long time now: why would you trust ANY 3rd party with your so sensitive data instead of running your own service? Are you not aware of OMEMO for XMPP? (See https://omemo.top/ )
[+] [-] trenchgun|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] phicoh|4 years ago|reply
But as far as I know, signal wants to be walled garden. So then it is expected that people create work arounds.
[+] [-] Arathorn|4 years ago|reply
If you want to avoid your E2EE conversations on Signal or WhatsApp being relayed via a service like Element One (because you’re an activist or whatever), then your options are to not bridge at all, or run a bridge yourself. Clientside bridging may be an option in future, but reliably running a bridge in the background on mobile is somewhere between non-trivial and impossible.
Finally, we are currently crunching on getting E2EE to work nicely between the bridges and the Matrix clients (so bridged conversations are stored E2EE on the Element One server) and it should be coming in the coming weeks. It’s worth noting again that even when that lands the bridge will still necessarily be able to see bridged conversations at the point of bridging.
TL;DR: if you don’t trust Element with your Signal conversations for whatever reason, don’t hook up Signal to your Element One account :)
[+] [-] toastal|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teekert|4 years ago|reply
I didn't dive into it, but can you also self-host this? Looking forward to some docker-compose snippets in that case :)
[+] [-] mindslight|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lvass|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ergl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barbazoo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yosito|4 years ago|reply
There is no guarantee of privacy with communication between two consumer smartphones. Encrypted Signal-to-Signal messages have always been susceptible to capture on either end, by something like this bridge or a rogue (or non-rogue) app on either end with access to read device notifications.
I'm not saying that this service doesn't expose your messages to some additional risk, and should be used cautiously. But it is an illusion that just because the messaging protocol is using end-to-end encryption that the messages can't be intercepted.
[+] [-] ElijahLynn|4 years ago|reply
It does seem like since both Signal and Matrix are open source, including the servers, that there should be a path to let one a Signal user know if they are sending it to a Matrix bridge and the encryption is no more.
Also worth noting is that you do need to trust the person on the other end for Signal to have a chance at working, e.g. they can take screenshots or real camera pictures of the messages. So establishing trust with the recipient is rule #1, and this should go for if they are using a Matrix bridge with Element One too.
[+] [-] freeopinion|4 years ago|reply
So you should have an encrypted message that you hand to Signal. Signal encrypts it again and hands it to the bridge. Eventually, whether at the bridge or at the other end or wherever, something decrypts the Signal message. Then the person you are communicating with applies the final decryption outside of Signal, Matrix, or whatever.
If this sounds terribly inconvenient to you, perhaps privacy is not as important as you claim. Security and convenience are almost always in conflict.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Iv|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ymolodtsov|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zuck9|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pkulak|4 years ago|reply
That's not how it works at all. E2E encryption only guarantees that your message is securely delivered to the other party, not that the other party can't do as they please with it. Signal messages are still stored in plain text on the end devices. They can still be backed up to the cloud (when I used Signal, all my chats were). Hell, photos/screenshots can still be taken of the app. If you want total security, you have to trust the delivery AND the end user. Bridging doesn't really change any of that.
[+] [-] personjerry|4 years ago|reply
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/
[+] [-] dTal|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] arp242|4 years ago|reply
I used Pidgin a lot. I always found it very convenient to have everything in one place and UI. Better one client than MSN + AOL + ICQ + IRC + Yahoo! + XMPP.
In the last few years I haven't used it much, but that's because it just doesn't support the popular messaging apps of the day (or maybe it now does, I haven't checked in a while).
Also, as others have pointed out, Pidgin is not and never has been a "service", it's just a library (libpurple) that implements various protocols, with Pidgin as the GUI (they also make Finch, a TUI).
[+] [-] cookiengineer|4 years ago|reply
These days I think that most services try to make money with stuff that was built decades ago already, and they're just keeping the reinventing cycle spinning.
Anyone remember the franz app [1] ...which finally led to the hardfork of ferdi? [2] I feel that element one is franz all over again.
[1] https://meetfranz.com
[2] https://github.com/getferdi/ferdi
[+] [-] Steltek|4 years ago|reply
Brief history: when Hangouts was going away and Google Chat coming in, I pitched Matrix to my friends as a better alternative that didn't require unique phone numbers, awkward desktop limitations, and a better federated future. We stuck with Google Chat because inertia and networks suck that way.
I revisited the instance I had setup and got the mautrix-googlechat bridge working. It's pretty nice but one friend lamented that he did not have the technical skills to self-host such a thing. And here comes this announcement! Sadly, there is a major hurdle: neither Google Chat nor SMS/GVoice are listed here and those are the major protocols that my social group uses.
At the same time, my social group is conservative in adopting new core technologies and wary of cloud lock-in for critical roles (Google being both an unfortunate anchor and precipitator of that). I'm not sure adding those protocols would tip the balance.
[+] [-] scrollaway|4 years ago|reply
https://www.beeper.com/
[+] [-] arianvanp|4 years ago|reply
I don't think I want to sacrifice the security for having all my chats in one place.
If they can fix that I might reconsider.
They already reverse engineered the Whatsapp protocol. I see little reason why it can't live in the client? I don't really follow why they move the bridge to the homeserver.
[+] [-] maltalex|4 years ago|reply
I don't know about others but it's not that much of a pain point for me, and I'm using all of the apps they mention - WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram as well as few others like IRC and Discord.
[+] [-] krageon|4 years ago|reply
Purely on the content of the article: Given that the messages are not stored encrypted locally and that this service is connected to the US, I do not see how it can be viable for the privacy-conscious.
[+] [-] jakecopp|4 years ago|reply
Matrix chats (direct and group) are E2E by default. There is no bridge that will let you keep E2E encryption between Signal/WhatsApp and another service - it has to be broken somewhere. I believe Element is a UK company.
The blog post on This Week In Matrix states it uses modified versions of the open source (and self hostable) Mautrix bridges which are primarily built by tulir [2] of Beeper [3]: https://matrix.org/blog/category/this-week-in-matrix#element...
> However, in addition to being a fast, snappy Matrix account, it also comes with unlimited personal bridging to Whatsapp, Signal and Telegram thanks to mautrix-whatsapp/signal/telegram!
[2]:https://github.com/tulir [3]: https://www.beeper.com/
[+] [-] GrayShade|4 years ago|reply
I haven't tried the WhatsApp bridge yet because it needs to go through my phone or an Android VM. WhatsApp recently announced support for using WhatsApp Web without the need to have your phone online, but I don't think it's available for everyone yet.
[+] [-] miguelrochefort|4 years ago|reply
It's very likely based on https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
[+] [-] craigmart|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hnarn|4 years ago|reply
Even if we disregard that, I can honestly say that I don't think using four separate apps is a problem. I don't even think using ten different apps is a problem, because it's mostly transparent to the user anyway. You get (configurable) notifications from all of them when you need to care about something, and the "sharing" feature on both iOS and Android these days is normally smart enough to figure out who, or at least which app, you want to share something to -- so for me this "multi app confusion" is already pretty well solved on an OS level, at least on mobile.
[+] [-] rkangel|4 years ago|reply
I think "on average more willing to sacrifice privacy over ease of use" is probably a reasonable description of me. I'm not a fan at all of FB though, I have absolutely no trust in them at all. As such, I tried to get my world moved from WhatsApp to Signal. Inevitably I didn't succeed completely (although more than I expected) but now I'm split between those two. Plus I have some people who only communicate via FB messenger, and a few friends on Discord.
To message someone I first have to remember which platform they prefer and then find it in my folder of chat apps. It's not an insurmountable problem obviously, but it does add friction. If I can have that all in one place, cross-platform with a decent UX then that's definitely worth $5 a month to me, plus all the bonuses:
* I am actually moving in a more privacy focused direction. Yes I understand the caveats with bridges, but being on Matrix means that I can start a (slow) process of moving my interactions onto it * I don't have to worry about backing up my Signal messages (which is a pain to have automatically sync 'offsite' from your phone) * I can use it as my IRC client (with message history hanging around), etc.
Let me put it another way - I've wanted to be on Matrix for a while but haven't quite managed it. I like the decentralised philosophy, both from a technical perspective and a privacy one but every time I've signed up it hasn't been worth it and/or it's too painful. This gets it over the hump for me (if it's as promised).
[+] [-] Arathorn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NikolaNovak|4 years ago|reply
1. Yes - In this context I prefer convenience over impractical/unrealized encryption. (Not privacy - I find Whatsapp, which hinges on my personal private phone number, far less "private", than other traditional messenger apps which I can sign up for anonymously; and for my use cases it's not a realized encryption, as people I talk to have no concept of security and I should assume anything I send to them has been scrubbed by malware and any other apps they've intentionally installed and agreed to).
2. Dozen apps are annoying impractical and I darn tooting well do Not have their notifications enabled. I'll agree that Android sharing is awesome; my experience with iPhone sharing has been Far more limited.
3. Whatsapp is darn near impossible to effectively use multi-device. If this will let me chat to my in-laws (who are stuck on Whatsapp not for any privacy or encryption reasons but because "everybody uses it") from comfort of my computers and keyboards, reliably, then this is a shut up & take my money proposition.
3a. Anybody about to comment "But whatsapp works on computers", see my other replies:)
[+] [-] chayleaf|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sorenjan|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mfer|4 years ago|reply
> 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).
They store everything encrypted but this may open the door for legal requests to get access.
[+] [-] worble|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Thorentis|4 years ago|reply
It's brilliant actually. The more I think about it, the more that Matrix bridges seem like a perfect NSA tool. It's a man-in-the-middle attack of grand proportions, hidden in plain sight.
[+] [-] ulzeraj|4 years ago|reply
> To connect your WhatsApp account, scan the QR code below: > Open WhatsApp on your mobile device. > Go to "Linked devices" > Press "Link a device". > Scan the code below.
Would pay money to get rid of Facebook software in my devices.
[+] [-] ho_schi|4 years ago|reply
I use Matrix and it is certainly a good thing and the connections to other stuff like IRC, too. The fix is getting rid of WhatsApp. Signal is fine, the non-native desktop applications (i.e. fat and ugly Electron with Chrome behind) needs a rewrite with Gtk and Qt.
[+] [-] ekianjo|4 years ago|reply
https://boilingsteam.com/how-to-bridge-discord-in-matrix/
[+] [-] NikolaNovak|4 years ago|reply
For me, Whatsapp is used by my non-technical in-laws for the simple reason of "because everybody uses it". I find whatsapp extremely impractical (I communicate better via large ergonomic keyboard on my computer, vs via 1.5"-wide screen; to each their own), so anything that makes Whatsapp and other proliferation of incompatible annoying chat services easier... yes, yes, please yes :)
[+] [-] miguelrochefort|4 years ago|reply
https://www.beeper.com/
[+] [-] solarkraft|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] modeless|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ndymium|4 years ago|reply