Matrix conference: On current developments, the state of open source and more

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Supporters of the protocol, other open-source providers such as openDesk and Nextcloud, as well as the Swiss Post and the Swedish social security fund “Försäkringskassan” of the local social security system, met at this year's Matrix conference. Among other things, they discussed their experiences with their instances based on the Matrix protocol, as well as Matrix's future plans.

Reporting vulnerabilities and contributing code helps

Everyone agreed that the open-source community has a hard time, partly because many use the code for commercial purposes but do not contribute to the survival of free software, even under the GNU Affero General Public License. Hoever, 'giving back' does not always have to be of a material nature; reporting vulnerabilities also helps. According to Nextcloud CEO Frank Karlitschek, who was also present at the conference, a high level of security is one of the main advantages of open source software. When using it, however, it is 'important to work closely with the relevant manufacturer or the community in order to have access to all security patches', says Karlitschek.

No cooperation with autocratic states

According to Matthew Hodgson, the co-founder of Matrix, there are currently 16 governments that use Matrix-based software for their communications – in Germany, these include the German Armed Forces and the healthcare sector. There have also been inquiries from autocratic states who wanted to implement chat control in their country for several reasons. 'We don’t sell to those types of regimes anyway', Hodgson said. He said that a lot of populism is currently being practiced by some politicians to establish surveillance states.

The AI-supported searches of chats demanded by governments would only make things worse, as the model's activities are unpredictable, as shown by the recent case of a journalist wrongly declared a criminal.

However, the founders, like the majority of messenger operators, want to continue to defend themselves against privacy invasions in the future. In Russia, for example, Element was blocked because it refused to comply with the demand to store copies of pkeep copies of plaintext for five years, according to Hodgson. When asked about the arrest of the Telegram founder, it was said that conversations are not encrypted anyway, so Telegram has access to the conversation data and therefore has to uphold law enforcement requests.

When asked about the latest developments in the Digital Markets Act, Amandine Le Pape, co-founder of Matrix and Element, said it was surprising that Meta is so far the only gatekeeper that has been forced to provide interoperability. The others have so far been able to talk their way out of it. Nevertheless, Le Pape is sure that the EU Commission will continue to push the project. Signal and Element will not use the option to connect with WhatsApp for the time being, although Element is continuing to explore it.

What's new with Element X?

An update in Element X brings new features and is significantly more powerful than its previous version. The app's performance is said to have improved thanks to a new implementation in Rust. Logging in via a QR code should enable user-friendly session verification, and it is still possible by matching an emoji sequence or entering a security token. With 'Invisible Crypto', end-to-end encryption should remain practically invisible to users. It is also possible to be logged in multiple devices at the same time.

Cross-instance communication is also possible, in a similar way to Mastodons federated system. The self-hostable Element communication solutions introduced last year offers instant messaging and video calls for up to 200 users in the free version 'Element Starter'. According to Florian Heese, Expert Cluster Lead, Element Call provides end-to-end encrypted, decentralized and federated video conferencing. 'By seamlessly connecting the web single page application with Element Web and Element X, users can easily join calls by simply clicking on a link in their calendar invitation,' explains Heese. 'Best of all, every call is protected by end-to-end encryption, ensuring privacy and security at every step'.

The Business version costs €5 per user per month. There are also 'Enterprise' and 'Sovereign' versions. The latter is intended for large implementations in the public sector or for governments. From the business version onwards, simplified authentication is possible via Native OpenID Connect – thanks to the new Matrix Authentication Service (MAS), it is also possible via free open source software.

(mack)