matrix-react-sdk VS matrix-spec-proposals

There's already an (old pull request)[https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/pull/9240] out for custom emotes for the element client but is blocked by acceptance of spec and other minor issues with code style.

You are completely misinterpreting my quote, which makes me question whether you are acting in good faith.

Totally agreed that Signal servers cannot just add a device to a group chat.

What I saying was: in any system, you have to verify users for security in general. Having verified users in Matrix, you then get a massive red warning if an unverified device is added to their accounts. Given we have cross-signing (i.e. users are heavily encouraged to verify their own devices when they log in), you can be sure that such unverified devices are malicious and take appropriate action.

The obvious thing we could do is to go one step further (as we used to, until we backed it out in https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/pull/3837) and stop messages from flowing until the unverified device has been dealt with. Even better would be to make group membership controlled by the clients, so the server can't add devices at all. And we're working on this, as part of shifting the implementations over to the audited matrix-rust-sdk-crypto implementation to avoid having to solve the problem in quadruplicate.

> I would challenge you to get one reputable cryptographer to back what you’re claiming about these vulnerabilities and your proposed fixes.

Hopefully someone will pop up here and confirm that I'm not talking shit :) Failing that, you'll have to wait for the next Least Authority audit - we have another independent public audit queued once this wave of work finishes to address the "To me Matrix isn't secure" polemicists. You can see the previous one (on the crypto layer, rather than the group membership layer) at https://matrix.org/blog/2022/05/16/independent-public-audit-... fwiw.

1. We are about to replace the composer in Element with a sparkly new (optional) wysiwyg editor in the coming weeks: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-wysiwyg

2. totally agreed. we are completely reworking the crypto UX; there’s already https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/pull/8228 asa proof of concept of what’s to come.

3. glad you like Cinny - it’s written by ajbura, whose dayjob is at Element and built the UI for Third Room. Element is not “the official app” - it’s just the one that happens to be written by folks from the Matrix core team. If you prefer Cinny, knock yourself out. Meanwhile we’re frantically improving Element too.

Unlike any open source projects to which I've contributed, this project involves 2 other repos, matrix-react-sdk and matrix-js-sdk. As explained in the Development guide in the element-web repo, I need those 2 SDKs in order to build Element successfully for code contribution.

> Also, you can do toggle mute via hotkey (which we have a draft for at https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/pull/2280), but this is surely a bonus feature.

Proper Push-To-Talk with global hotkey is one of those features that doesn't seem important but when you need it (organizing Raids in games, big meetings, etc) it makes a world of difference. That and lack of click to join voice rooms is definitely making it harder to move gaming groups over.

Encryption is now enabled by default for 1:1 chats. There's an MR for adding GIF support but looks like they are not interested in it.

This is a really common failure mode - people forget to explicitly assert that the other modifiers are off when checking for a modifier being on. I had to go through and fix all the ones in matrix-react-sdk (element web) a few years ago: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/pull/825/file...

Exposing the desktopCapturer to the render process and then using it inside the web app

Not only are they actually very closely linked, in that Element operates matrix.org, but to a new user (told to try Matrix -- what is this Element thing?) there's no difference.

I onboarded a family member onto my Matrix server with FluffyChat as the client. This person is a power user, fairly technical, yet still refers to the chat as "FluffyChat" and although I've explained several times that choosing FluffyChat was maybe a mistake and they should use Element, it never seems to really click that multiple clients are possible.

And really, they aren't possible. They have different subsets of features.

If you want to see a trash can fire, just try to follow the discussion for adding custom emoji to Matrix: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/195...

it's been going on for years. It's a feature the competitors have had for half a decade, as long as this discussion has been ongoing. I've been watching this issue for half a decade thinking "surely they'll decide on something" but mostly all I've been convinced of is this: Matrix is design by committee in all of the worst aspects and at every level of design. If anything gets done at all, it's a convoluted mess, and it's a miracle that it even happens.

I wish community software developers would focus their attention.. somewhere else.

So Matrix also has account portability (almost) - https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/keg... and https://github.com/devonh/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/cryptoI..., implemented in Dendrite. Unfortunately dev is paused on it currently thanks to lack of $ though.

The AP approach (prioritising portable identities over portable account data) is cute though, and perhaps we should have prioritised that as an alternative to fullblown cryptographic IDs & account portability.

Luckily, it doesn't matter what individuals expect. There is written documentation on what the foundation is supposed to do or not to do: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/mai...

Notably, "Code Core Team members must arrange their own funding for their time", which I understand as such that the Foundation does not pay directly the developers (same as other standards organizations like IETF).

Main tasks of Matrix.org Foundation is maintaining the spec, documentation, owning IP, promotion and the matrix.org home server. The home server is "generously hosted" by UpCloud (i.e. is not using New Vector EMS), at least according to the matrix.org website.

Looking again at MSC1779, I noticed it says that one function of The Matrix.org Foundation is "Owns the copyright of the reference implementations of Matrix (i.e. everything in https://github.com/matrix-org). By assigning copyright to the Foundation, it’s protected against New Vector ever being tempted to relicense it." That protection apparently wasn't very effective, but also notably, New Vector and their leadership clearly have shown to not stand behind the goals of the Foundation. As the leadership of New Vector is also part of the leadership of the Foundation, I see some huge potential for COI here.

The main remaining Nebuchadnezzar issue is mitigating server-controlled group membership. The first step has been to kill off the 1st gen E2EE implementations, which were responsible for the implementation vulns found by RHUL - and we should hopefully conclude that next week by moving everything into the matrix-rust-sdk crypto create implmentation: https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/21972#issuec... is the tracker.

Then, we can address the harder server-controlled group membership issue in one place. First step will be to improve device verification & trust so that trust is the default, not the exception, to make it easier to spot and warn about unexpected devices in the room. The full solution is then either MSC3917 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/fay...) - or potentially to switch everything to MLS.

We're working on MLS anyway in parallel to RHUL mitigation work; you can see the progress at https://arewemlsyet.com, and it's looking good.

I'm guessing you're not interested in doing a podcast on "yay we converged our crypto implementations on a single robust Rust implementation so we can fix the remaining bugs in one place", but as soon as the server-controlled group membership thing is solved we'll be in touch. Work has also gone much slower than hoped on this, thanks to the joys of funding open source.

https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/keg... is how we’re doing it, and it’s being implemented currently in Dendrite.

Matrix already has key-based identity in the works at https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/keg... (and implemented in Dendrite at https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3A...). Matrix is set up to let folks go wild and change fundamentals like this; basically every Matrix Spec Change (MSC) is a small fork, which then gets merged into the main spec if it can be proven to work well in the wild.

Gitter seems to have moved to being a Matrix instance (or maybe it always has? it didn't look like Matrix when I used it circa 2016), but matrix feels half-baked and is just a bunch of hacks put together. For example

- Can't "mark all as read" on a space. probably because rooms within a space are only tangentially related,

- No custom emojis or sticker packs (their proposal for this is to create rooms to house custom emojis/sticker packs[0])

Not a great bet to go to keybase with the Zoom acquisition https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28814210

0: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/195...

We’re currently working on account portability (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/401...) and experimenting with glueing bluesky style DIDs onto it (so as to provide DMs for bluesky via Matrix, should they want them)

slow moving but there is discussions https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/1998