Comment by cyphar
7 years ago
Matrix works, and has fairly easy-to-use clients (and I've switched a few non-technical folks without too much trouble). It's also an open protocol, not just an app.
The main criticism (and I'm preemptively responding to tptacek here) is that they haven't yet made E2EE the default (though this should happen in a few weeks now that cross-signing appears to be done). I also think the key backup system should be much better explained -- there is a usability bug open for it and I've posted some suggestions.
Use Matrix if you want to contribute to Matrix or are an enthusiast about what Matrix is trying to do. But don't use it as a secure messenger, or tell at-risk people to use it. It may someday be a serious option for secure messaging, but it is not that today.
I'm not a Matrix hater, but I think Matrix's cheering section gets the project in trouble, since their answers about privacy and security are demonstrably worse than those of other secure messengers. All Matrix is trying to do is build a modern, generalized IRC with optional built-in encryption, which is a project congenial and relevant to my own interests (my only funded startup tried to do the same thing!). That's great, as long as you're not trying to get people to use it to hide things from governments.
Is there a specific issue other than "it's not the default" that precludes it from secure messaging? This is the thing I don't understand about your position -- you have been saying for a very long time that "it's not ready yet" but as far as I can see the default-to-unencrypted setup is the main issue you have with it? I get that asking a journalist to use it right now is a bad idea, but if E2EE was the default today what other issues do you see?
From my PoV, Matrix has many features that might actually end up increasing security over Signal's design. Just as an example, you cannot blacklist or even get alerted to new devices being added to an E2EE conversation with Signal (and if you look at things like the Assistance and Access legislation here in Australia, that is a serious concern). With Matrix you do detect it and can blacklist the other device (and with cross-signing being done very soon, you can also be sure that verification of devices will be a rare event). I also think the new emoji-based verification is a massive improvement over Signal's "safety numbers" setup.
I'd also be interested to hear Thomas clarify this. I saw a recent thread on Twitter where he and bascule were talking about it and it still wasn't super clear, but one specific point I recall is that Matrix has a significant amount of metadata stored on the server side which constructs a social graph. As opposed to something like Signal which has close to nothing stored on the server.
To me this seems like an issue of use case. If my goal is to be able to talk to my family and friends, and I don't care that it's known that I'm talking to them as long as the contents of the messages are private, that is fine for me. For a case with more stringent requirements, I can see Matrix not being a good recommendation in its current design.
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> Use Matrix if you want to contribute to Matrix or are an enthusiast about what Matrix is trying to do. But don't use it as a secure messenger, or tell at-risk people to use it.
Also replying to this (likely too late!) in the hopes of a little clarification. In particular, "don't use it as a secure messenger" seems like strange advice in view of the fact that there don't seem to be any better options. That is to say, there are no options that fulfill all three of these requirements:
1. Full support for group chat with end-to-end encryption between all participants. (Matrix even includes cryptographic controls on how much history is shared, though that's not a requirement.)
2. Completely open source with no centrally controlled servers.
3. Does not require any PII (including a phone number) to begin using.
As far as I know, every messenger fails on at least one of these counts, and many fail at all three. It's one thing to criticize Matrix (there are a lot of things about it that suck right now, to the point that I'd never recommend it to a casual user), but to do so without any alternative doesn't seem helpful.
Have I missed something better?