Matrix was built by Israeli intelligence & consumes so many resources that it’s not feasible to self-host on most budgets. As such it’s highly centralized & the community is still largely being ran by Matrix.org as the keeper of the implementation server, the most popular client, the specification, the largest server- which syncs back the metadata.
Mattermost is by-design centralized but it’s self-hostable & AGPL so I’m not sure where the closed-source accusation is coming from. At least it’s less wasteful than trying to be decentralized & if you wanted lightweight decentralization, you would reach for XMPP.
Well, that’s something I didn’t know, but it seems like they’ve been in the process of removing or giving the ability to remove the parts that communicate back to the main Matrix coordinators since 2019. And it’s been 2017 since they had funding from Amdocs. I’d certainly listen if someone says they’ve recently analyzed that sort of data going back to the organizations servers. It doesn’t look like it though.
At this point, the fact that it’s all opensource and the self-hosting options/configurations let you keep things internal now would make the point of its origin moot. TOR is another example of something that may have suspicious origins but because it’s public and OS, most people trust the privacy of its implementation.
There are ways do funding while being in the shadows. It’s absolutely conspiracy, but something I can see being of importance to spy agencies as Matrix is defacto centralized with all metadata & assets syncing back to the mothership. Signal also had their server code closed for a while, & I wouldn’t be surprised if something regarding US intelligence wasn‘t involved. I think you can trust these platforms more than most, but I’d prefer keeping an arm’s length until we are years removed & see open governance (something Matrix is slowly (finally) transitioning too, but other chat protocols have done for much longer).
Yah, I have my doubts about Signal as well, given the insistence, even now that the username function has been added, of needing a phone number to register. That doesn’t seem to fit with an application that’s supposed purpose is to be a private communications network and has been promoted for political change purposes in developing countries.
Matrix was built by Israeli intelligence & consumes so many resources that it’s not feasible to self-host on most budgets. As such it’s highly centralized & the community is still largely being ran by Matrix.org as the keeper of the implementation server, the most popular client, the specification, the largest server- which syncs back the metadata.
Mattermost is by-design centralized but it’s self-hostable & AGPL so I’m not sure where the closed-source accusation is coming from. At least it’s less wasteful than trying to be decentralized & if you wanted lightweight decentralization, you would reach for XMPP.
Source?
Proposal: https://web.archive.org/web/20141003202858/http://www.amdocs.com/Products/digital-lifestyle-services/Pages/unified-communications.aspx Amdocs Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdocs More on: https://hackea.org/notas/matrix.html#disturbing-history-or-maybe-just-fud
Thanks for the interesting rabbithole.
Well, that’s something I didn’t know, but it seems like they’ve been in the process of removing or giving the ability to remove the parts that communicate back to the main Matrix coordinators since 2019. And it’s been 2017 since they had funding from Amdocs. I’d certainly listen if someone says they’ve recently analyzed that sort of data going back to the organizations servers. It doesn’t look like it though.
At this point, the fact that it’s all opensource and the self-hosting options/configurations let you keep things internal now would make the point of its origin moot. TOR is another example of something that may have suspicious origins but because it’s public and OS, most people trust the privacy of its implementation.
There are ways do funding while being in the shadows. It’s absolutely conspiracy, but something I can see being of importance to spy agencies as Matrix is defacto centralized with all metadata & assets syncing back to the mothership. Signal also had their server code closed for a while, & I wouldn’t be surprised if something regarding US intelligence wasn‘t involved. I think you can trust these platforms more than most, but I’d prefer keeping an arm’s length until we are years removed & see open governance (something Matrix is slowly (finally) transitioning too, but other chat protocols have done for much longer).
Yah, I have my doubts about Signal as well, given the insistence, even now that the username function has been added, of needing a phone number to register. That doesn’t seem to fit with an application that’s supposed purpose is to be a private communications network and has been promoted for political change purposes in developing countries.