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Comment by AndrewUnmuted | Hacker News Reader

This confuses me. Those individuals who are

> very privacy and security leaning in nature

were not already on Matrix?

Nope, and show reluctance to even bother trying. We communicate via Signal, which unlike Matrix has favored adoption even outside tech circles in the past few years.

Also isn't E2EE new to Matrix? My understanding is also that they don't handle group privacy the same way that Signal does (which granted, is a new feature as well). I'll also say that in a space that is evolving quickly, a centralized system where I can know that people are on a version similar to me is pretty important. I don't have any fear of Moxie turning and pushing backdoor keys into everyone's app.

> Also isn't E2EE new to Matrix?

It was turned on by default in May of 2020. It was available before then.

> I don't have any fear of Moxie turning and pushing backdoor keys into everyone's app.

He could, though, and you have to trust him not to. I see that as a problem.

> It was turned on by default in May of 2020. It was available before then.

Thanks! I do think default matters though. Do you know how they handle groups and metadata?

> He could, though, and you have to trust him not to. I see that as a problem.

Personally I don't. At the end of the day we have to trust a lot of people for society to operate. I'll stay on Signal where I can get my non privacy concerned friends connecting while all signs point to the opposite of Moxie turning. Especially considering the tradeoff of how the space is moving so fast currently. Maybe I'll revisit when no metadata E2EE group chats are widespread and Matrix creates a very simple server setup. Federation makes sense to me for mature technologies, but not for fast moving technologies.

Rubber hoses still exist. I think GP was trying to correctly point out that having a single point of failure is a weakness in any system, cryptographic or otherwise.

But Moxie's point in the blog post that is referenced is that with federated systems you have a lot of failure points. You can't keep everyone on the latest update in a federated system. You need all those actors to function perfectly, most of whom aren't going to be experts. This makes federated systems not great for anyone but experts.

> federated systems [..] have a lot of failure points

They sure do, but you also have access to all the parts needed to maintain your own instance and so does everyone else. Failures, when they happen, are limited to instance who aren't "functioning perfectly" instead of extending to every user of a centralized system.

Just to keep everyone reading this thread on the same page: The point of failure being discussed here is the human factor. See comment ancestors for context.

> Just to keep everyone reading this thread on the same page: The point of failure being discussed here is the human factor.

Thanks for reiterating this, because I think it is a key thing people who are scanning this thread are missing.

I think this is actually the argument for a centralized system though. At least for something that's a replacement to text messaging. I think the issue with a federated system is that most people don't know how to run a server, even pretty technical people. So this makes sense as a slack replacement, but not text messaging. At least to me.

> Nope, and show reluctance to even bother trying. We communicate via Signal

Not all of us. Many of us realize the benefits of federation and the security implications of having a single point of failure.

My reply wasn't meant generically, sorry if it didn't come across - I was replying to the question about my friends in this category, not making any sort of statement about others.

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