Comment by zamalek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zamalek | Hacker News Reader

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> The Matrix ecosystem is the only thing I can think of, that could eventually replace IRC.

This seems like it should have been the logical conclusion. While IRC is a free protocol, this whole controversy has shown that you aren't ultimately in control of your channels. With Matrix/<other-federated>, it simply wouldn't be possible for a hostile actor to claim ownership of their channels (unless Gentoo itself were somehow the victim of a hostile takeover).

Libera certainly has a good few decades of trustworthy service, as Freenode once did, but the protocol is itself built on vulnerable assumptions. There's no way to guarantee that Libera won't have a dramawave of its own 15 years down the line.

> While on newer apps you are expected to keep up.

I completely agree with this. I've been auto-kicked from Matrix channels for inactivity/lurking, which is ridiculous. This could be solved with more client and server diversity - it wouldn't be hard to create an IRC-like experience on Matrix at all.

> With Matrix/<other-federated>, it simply wouldn't be possible for a hostile actor to claim ownership of their channels

Can't matrix.org staff hijack rooms hosted on the matrix.org homeserver?

Yes, my argument is for running your own server. The matrix.org wouldn't be able to do anything to the gentoo.org server. If you choose to use the matrix.org homeserver, then the risks are identical to IRC.

You can also run your own IRC server. Risks are the same either way.

IRC networks are a closed federation. The servers have to trust each other and all servers of a network are usually administered by the same staff. Matrix is an open federation like email. The servers just speak the same protocol to each other and messages flow even if the server admins never have any interaction.

Matrix’s rooms are decentralised and we have decentralised access control to stop this from happening in the general case. Only a malicious server admin on your own server can hijack like this (or the one running a bridge in the case of a bridged room). And with P2P Matrix, every client gets its own server, so at that point hijacks will be entirely impossible.

I don't understand how that's possible. When clicking a matrix.to link, there is a room name and a homeserver hostname, right? How does that homeserver not have complete control over what information about the room is sent to the client?

Users/rooms on the gentoo.org server can interact just fine with users/rooms on the matrix.org server. That's basically the whole point of Matrix.

You may be suggesting that matrix.org could, for example, block access to the gentoo.org server (or a subset of its rooms). In that scenario users could choose a new homeserver (and not necessarily the same one) in order to regain access, instead of the entire channel having to migrate.

In the incredibly unlikely event where every homeserver on the internet is blocking gentoo.org, gentoo.org could simply allow user registration.

With IRC you are forced to trust the network operator with both your account and channel. Matrix gives you the option to trust someone else with both, neither, or either.

The room name + hostname is just one of potentially many aliases for a room that can be resolved by any server that has a member in the room

That's good to know! Thanks

Autokicks for idling were mandated by freenode on their bridge (which makes sense otherwise you end up with loads of zombie connections from folks who have forgotten about their Matrix accounts).

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