ono
Key points off the top of my head:
- Both Signal and Matrix have solid cryptography. (In fact, the Matrix Megolm protocol is built upon Signal’s Olm protocol.)
- Signal’s client is open-source, but not its server. Matrix clients and servers are open-source. (Note that open server code is less important than open client code when end-to-end encryption is used.)
- Both have had security audits, and presumably will have more in the future.
- Both have cross-platform support. Matrix has a greater variety of clients, and last time I checked, the desktop clients were better than Signal’s.
- Signal prides itself on minimizing metadata exposure. Matrix started later, and hasn’t yet moved all metadata (e.g. reactions, group membership?) to an encrypted channel. (Note that metadata protection can’t ever be complete for either one of them, because an attacker that can gain access to the servers could just as well gain access to the routers, and correlate packets at the network level.)
- Signal is a centralized service (hosted by Amazon last time I checked), meaning all traffic flows through one place and can be shut down or monitored there. Matrix is federated, much like Lemmy.
- Signal does not offer self-hosting. Matrix does. (One might do this to be sure they always have a copy of their past messages, or to be independent of public server outages, or to be the sole keeper of data and metadata in conversations between local users.)
- Signal requires a phone number, which makes having an anonymous account challenging for many people. Matrix doesn’t require anything, but some Matrix servers require an email address for account recovery purposes.
- Signal apparently integrates cryptocurrency payments. Matrix does not.
The most obvious security vulnerability that I can think of is that the person you are communicating with (or, conceivably, oneself, as well) is using an insecure/compromised application that may be leaking information.
Indeed, end-to-end encryption is unable to protect the endpoints. That’s true of both messengers.
Since you brought it up, note that smartphones generally run system-level software that is controlled by the OS maker, meaning that Google or Apple have the ability to monitor those endpoints. Signal’s approach to addressing this is to offer a Google-free build of their app, if you can find it, buried on their web site and with a scary-looking warning against using it. Matrix publishes their apps on F-Droid, so there’s an easy Google-free option. Of course, most of the people using either messenger will have downloaded from the big app stores, so even if your phone and app are Google-free, it’s likely that most of your contacts’ phones are not. I believe Matrix has an advantage here, simply because their Google-free builds are easier to find and keep updated, and are therefore probably in use by more people.
It is annoying, especially for those of us who are diligent about our existing factors and unlikely to be compromised, but the sad reality is that most people aren’t that diligent and supply chain attacks are a serious problem that needs addressing.
For your own projects, it might be worth considering a move away from GitHub. (I’ve been thinking about it since Microsoft bought them.) Codeberg looks like a good alternative.
For participating on existing projects, I suppose the silver lining is that they chose standard TOTP, instead of some awful proprietary system. I can use whatever open-source code generator I like.
It’s a decimal floating point specifier with a precision sub-specifier.
It’s simple: My SSD can only fit so many 100-300 GB games, while I already have hard drives with plenty of free space.
(Also, running Linux means that an SSD doesn’t help game performance much anyway, outside of initial loading time.)
You can get a 2TB M.2 for around $100.
More like $150-200 if you want a good one.
If you’ve got the specs for new games, there’s no excuse.
What a very privileged perspective. I don’t have much money, but most new games are playable on my existing hardware if I tune the graphics settings. I would rather spend what money have on things like food and heat. (Or if the basics are covered, then maybe a newish game.)
The Matrix network is the closest you’re likely to get to Discord’s features.
Nheko is a Matrix client that I believe can do screen sharing.
Eventually, whatever Matrix clients support Element Call might be what you want, but it’s in beta for now.
Jitsi Meet might also be worth a look, although its (optional) end-to-end encryption was too demanding for some laptops last time I tried it.
I can only imagine how poorly games will run if the Switch has to devote resources to Denuvo as well.
Pokemon Go added code obfuscation (I forgot the name of the company that provided it) some months after it was first released. Phones started running very hot, battery life dropped drastically, and people who played a lot had to replace their batteries (or phones) in a fraction of their normal lifetime. Also, as you imagined, performance dropped significantly.
I bought one during the clearance sale for the price of shipping, assuming that it would be abandoned but maybe still useful as a low-power linux server. I guess I ought to set it up and take advantage of it.
Thanks, Valve, for not letting these things become instant e-waste.
- Terrible format for archiving knowledge
- Terrible tool for retrieving knowledge
- Locks community access behind a corporate license agreement
- Hands control of community-created content to a corporation
- Prevents indexing by web search engines
- Antithetical to interoperability
- Privacy-hostile
A web forum is far better in most cases. If you can’t manage to run your own, there are plenty of lemmy servers that will do it for you. Even an email list (with searchable archives) would be better than Discord.
If you have collaborative documents that outgrow the forum format, use a wiki.
If real-time chat is needed, irc or matrix.
A project hosting its community on Discord is a project that won’t get my contributions.