I was getting login pages last week when attempting to start meetings.
Ironically, this led me to self-hosting Jitsi with the Jitsi Helm chart and putting it behind oauth2-proxy so my friends and I can use it. Deploying Jitsi with the Helm chart is remarkably simple and does not consume that much memory.
If anyone is interested in self-hosting: 2 GB is my RAM usage on idle when running videobridge, web-ui, prosody, and oauth2-proxy atop k3s in its default configuration. You do have to open a stupidly large range of ports to UDP traffic for videobridge, though. With that said, it's been a reliable solution and does not need me or my friends to create $BIGTECH account.
Glad to hear it’s gotten easier to run, back in peak covid times it was absolute nightmare fuel to self-host when it came time to update it. Even self hosting email is easier than Jitsi was at that time
> Earlier this year we saw an increase in the number of reports we received about some people using our service in ways that we cannot tolerate. To be more clear, this was not about some people merely saying things that others disliked.
That’s only slightly more clear, since it just says what’s not happening. Does anyone know what is happening? Does it involve potential violations of law, or is it just the TOS?
My guess would be pornography. That seems like the most obvious use of a video calling service, and something that would cause them to run afoul of various legal requirements (e.g. age verification / records keeping).
Given what they provided you can be sure it involved stuff like CP, human traffican, forced prostitution.
All things you don't want your company to be associated with so you don't name it.
If it would just have been things which are illegal but not that problematic like copyright violations or a bit of (legal, non forced) porn they might have spelled it out.
This is rough for Jitsi / 8x8. Requiring a login puts them at a level of "why not just use Google Meet?" to me unless you go through hoops to self host.
I'm down to experiment with self hosting, I just feel that most users out there won't be and it'll ding their user count. It might be for the best if it squashes the malpractice they are seeing.
Only the creator needs to have an account, not all users. If you like jitsi or don't want google, etc, then just start it and nobody else needs an account.
Why exactly do I still need a middleman in 2023 to talk to someone else's computer? Is NAT the only reason?
Also, why exactly did we introduce IPv6 again? Everything today is NAT-within-NAT-within-NAT (much of it using IPv4), and almost nobody has a publicly routable IP address. Was the whole transition just a massive waste of effort?
Peer to peer doesn't really work for group video calls, like more than 5 or so participants. As n goes up, each peer is sending n video/audio streams and receiving n video/audio streams. This will quickly saturate your/your peers network and burden your CPU doing video encoding.
Suffice it to say there are other things you can do besides just a central relaying server, but it's the most common architecture.
My ISP supports ipv6 and i have it configured - however their software on the router/AP is bad and does not allow setting up a firewall for ipv6. This is inherent with ipv4 NAT (with uPnP disabled).
So it forced me to use my own router - still the interface for ipv6 firewall is non-existent, but at least i can write firewall rules manually.
Why do I need firewall on router? Because devices on my network have services open on all interfaces - For example "smart" weather station has web service open for all to see. This is absolutely non-issue when only using ipv4 behind NAT.
Another issue is revealing of internal network topology to outside world - this is something that NAT hides really well.
STUN, TURN servers, NAT hole punching, proxies for especially unlucky situations, connection setup helper to allow finding people using human readable ways, trans-encoding of video if necessary because of different platforms working only well with different codecs, in case of many people meeting full p2p between all people also can be an issue (bandwidth and keeping them in sync)
Through a lot of their code isn't being a middleman but making the video streaming on all clients work, which is easy for some MVP hobby project but hard to make it actually work reliable across the many different devices and software versions used in the wield.
Then there are features like noise filters, background video filters etc.
Don't forget battery life, roaming, discoverability etc.
The days of everybody having exactly one computer with a rarely-changing IP address are over. These days, most people have a phone which changes its IP address a few times a day (when you leave your house and switch from WiFi to cellular and then go back.) If you wanted to be directly reachable, you'd need to share these changes publicly, which would make it pretty trivial to figure out when you leave home, who you visit, which cafes with free WiFi you frequent and which countries you go to for your business trips. The stalking potential here is enormous.
At least one part of the problem is the WebRTC design. It requires a middle man (or side channel) for session initiation. You can't host a static website that does WebRTC between peers because you can't just input an IP+Port to connect to a peer like you can do with real end-to-end protocols.
The demise of end-to-end connectivity brought on by NAT was a boon to capitalists who can now be middlemen and charge rent for it (either in the form of money or "engagement" aka advertising/spam, tracking, etc). They aren't particularly interested in going back to the old standard even if we now have the technology to do so.
Software that can take advantage of end-to-end connectivity is nowadays very rare, so even if tomorrow we magically had full IPv6 deployment worldwide, not much software would take advantage of it and I'm not sure there would be any commercial pressure to develop it.
Even if your Mac and iPhone had IPv6 and were end-to-end connectable, Apple would rather have you use FaceTime with an Apple account rather than just type in the IP address/DNS of the other side and call them directly. Same with all the other tech companies.
Is it the first user to join the meeting (so it could be the host or a guest)? Or is it the person who created the room (and may likely be the first person to join the room)? I’m glad to get this answer here, but it’d be useful to document this on your help or support pages and share the link as well.
A bonus to self-hosting is now you’ll have an XMPP server you & your chatmates & org can use for decentralized, federated chat—may as well add a new virtualhost & ditch that proprietary chat option.
I hadn't really used it recently but I'm honestly surprised that they went that long without requiring authentication. If you know a bit about mitigation of various abuse patterns it's kinda crazy that they managed to not needing to require it until now.
Through I hope they have a way for registered people to invite someone to join a meeting without a login (through with a bunch of limitations, like them being responsible for the person joining).
For example so that in case of a remote job interview the company can give them to the interviewee.
I no longer have any Big Tech accounts and I've not had a Zoom account for all the reasons why many of us want to rid ourselves of those environments. It's people like me who actually need Jitsi.
What makes it worse, I've been almost successful in weening friends and colleagues off Zoom and that's no easy task. Now it's all for nought.
Does this mean that Riot.im/Element.io Matrix.org homeserver accounts on the web application won't be able to use the service automagically for video calls of greater than 2?
You can still create room without login. Just click "book a meeting URL" at https://meet.jit.si/ which redirects to https://moderated.jitsi.net/ and there you can create room without any authorization.
I guess those services already treat identity seriously, making a trade off where you swap some end user privacy for a free as in beer system that on the whole tries to prevent sock puppet accounts.
Using email login doesn't archive that (and is more work).
Using providers like Facebook, Google, GitHub is good enough, through
e.g. in case of GitHub definitely not perfect. But good enough is good enough.
I just which there would be more anonymity protecting *independent* auth providers you could widely use (which still could allow you to properly ban someone).
I had a video conference scheduled a few days ago with Jitsi. Ran into this problem so we quickly searched for an alternative. We couldn't get www.experte.com working. Tried we.team and it worked great. In fact, it didn't have the frequent freezing we had been experiencing with Jitsi.
[+] [-] koito17|2 years ago|reply
Ironically, this led me to self-hosting Jitsi with the Jitsi Helm chart and putting it behind oauth2-proxy so my friends and I can use it. Deploying Jitsi with the Helm chart is remarkably simple and does not consume that much memory.
If anyone is interested in self-hosting: 2 GB is my RAM usage on idle when running videobridge, web-ui, prosody, and oauth2-proxy atop k3s in its default configuration. You do have to open a stupidly large range of ports to UDP traffic for videobridge, though. With that said, it's been a reliable solution and does not need me or my friends to create $BIGTECH account.
[+] [-] ezst|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WhyNotHugo|2 years ago|reply
This gets worse if you only have a few calls per month. The cost and management overhead doesn't scale at all.
[+] [-] unmole|2 years ago|reply
So, who is the OAuth provider?
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kiririn|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnicholas|2 years ago|reply
That’s only slightly more clear, since it just says what’s not happening. Does anyone know what is happening? Does it involve potential violations of law, or is it just the TOS?
[+] [-] zootboy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dathinab|2 years ago|reply
All things you don't want your company to be associated with so you don't name it.
If it would just have been things which are illegal but not that problematic like copyright violations or a bit of (legal, non forced) porn they might have spelled it out.
[+] [-] creshal|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrillgore|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway290|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] otachack|2 years ago|reply
I'm down to experiment with self hosting, I just feel that most users out there won't be and it'll ding their user count. It might be for the best if it squashes the malpractice they are seeing.
[+] [-] cryptonector|2 years ago|reply
Because... it's not Google? For some people that may be a plus.
[+] [-] greenpresident|2 years ago|reply
https://pads.ccc.de/jitsiliste
[+] [-] wouldbecouldbe|2 years ago|reply
I hosted my own instance once via digital ocean; they have a preconfigured vps droplet that works pretty much instanously
[+] [-] voiper1|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] p-e-w|2 years ago|reply
Also, why exactly did we introduce IPv6 again? Everything today is NAT-within-NAT-within-NAT (much of it using IPv4), and almost nobody has a publicly routable IP address. Was the whole transition just a massive waste of effort?
[+] [-] 7sidedmarble|2 years ago|reply
Suffice it to say there are other things you can do besides just a central relaying server, but it's the most common architecture.
[+] [-] hatch_q|2 years ago|reply
My ISP supports ipv6 and i have it configured - however their software on the router/AP is bad and does not allow setting up a firewall for ipv6. This is inherent with ipv4 NAT (with uPnP disabled). So it forced me to use my own router - still the interface for ipv6 firewall is non-existent, but at least i can write firewall rules manually.
Why do I need firewall on router? Because devices on my network have services open on all interfaces - For example "smart" weather station has web service open for all to see. This is absolutely non-issue when only using ipv4 behind NAT.
Another issue is revealing of internal network topology to outside world - this is something that NAT hides really well.
[+] [-] dathinab|2 years ago|reply
Through a lot of their code isn't being a middleman but making the video streaming on all clients work, which is easy for some MVP hobby project but hard to make it actually work reliable across the many different devices and software versions used in the wield.
Then there are features like noise filters, background video filters etc.
[+] [-] miki123211|2 years ago|reply
The days of everybody having exactly one computer with a rarely-changing IP address are over. These days, most people have a phone which changes its IP address a few times a day (when you leave your house and switch from WiFi to cellular and then go back.) If you wanted to be directly reachable, you'd need to share these changes publicly, which would make it pretty trivial to figure out when you leave home, who you visit, which cafes with free WiFi you frequent and which countries you go to for your business trips. The stalking potential here is enormous.
[+] [-] boramalper|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] creshal|2 years ago|reply
I sure wish my (small, rural) ISP finally did. They're still "evaluating" it.
[+] [-] the8472|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xzjis|2 years ago|reply
https://github.com/miroslavpejic85/mirotalk
It's even faster for 1 on 1 conversations, but as others said, if there are too much participants it will be slower.
[+] [-] Nextgrid|2 years ago|reply
The demise of end-to-end connectivity brought on by NAT was a boon to capitalists who can now be middlemen and charge rent for it (either in the form of money or "engagement" aka advertising/spam, tracking, etc). They aren't particularly interested in going back to the old standard even if we now have the technology to do so.
Software that can take advantage of end-to-end connectivity is nowadays very rare, so even if tomorrow we magically had full IPv6 deployment worldwide, not much software would take advantage of it and I'm not sure there would be any commercial pressure to develop it.
Even if your Mac and iPhone had IPv6 and were end-to-end connectable, Apple would rather have you use FaceTime with an Apple account rather than just type in the IP address/DNS of the other side and call them directly. Same with all the other tech companies.
[+] [-] sourcepluck|2 years ago|reply
If one becomes an associate member of the FSF, one of the perks is access to a Jitsi server that they run.
It's two clicks and you're in, easy peasy. I'm very grateful. I give classes over webcam and it does not let me down.
[+] [-] raybb|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] saghul|2 years ago|reply
We’ll keep moving forward making (hopefully) the best open source meetings tool out there.
To answer a few recurring questions:
- Only the first user needs to be authenticated
- This change does not affect the self-hosted deployments, you can choose what auth (or none at all) to use
[+] [-] AnonC|2 years ago|reply
Is it the first user to join the meeting (so it could be the host or a guest)? Or is it the person who created the room (and may likely be the first person to join the room)? I’m glad to get this answer here, but it’d be useful to document this on your help or support pages and share the link as well.
[+] [-] solarkraft|2 years ago|reply
The beauty of Jitsi Meet was that any URL was a valid room. That was such great UX.
Of course, other Jitsi Meet instances still exist. But this will probably still influence the project's direction.
[+] [-] Roark66|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toastal|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] istillwritecode|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dathinab|2 years ago|reply
Through I hope they have a way for registered people to invite someone to join a meeting without a login (through with a bunch of limitations, like them being responsible for the person joining).
For example so that in case of a remote job interview the company can give them to the interviewee.
[+] [-] pietroppeter|2 years ago|reply
if I understand correctly the creator of the meeting needs to have an account but other people can still join without it?
[+] [-] hilbert42|2 years ago|reply
What makes it worse, I've been almost successful in weening friends and colleagues off Zoom and that's no easy task. Now it's all for nought.
Damn nuisance really.
[+] [-] aembleton|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] playday|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superkuh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enkursigilo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jokoon|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quickthrower2|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dathinab|2 years ago|reply
Using email login doesn't archive that (and is more work).
Using providers like Facebook, Google, GitHub is good enough, through e.g. in case of GitHub definitely not perfect. But good enough is good enough.
I just which there would be more anonymity protecting *independent* auth providers you could widely use (which still could allow you to properly ban someone).
[+] [-] wrp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saurik|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CatWChainsaw|2 years ago|reply
KYC has gotten wildly out of control.