Matrix was built to become the open communication of the web and serve everyone. But, as the Internet and email did, its network effect started with governments. Today, and as proven by the audience in the room, most European governments and several others are either using it or looking at implementing it for their communications. This talk will tell the story of how we got there and why.
I’ve just telling my normie friends who join to disable end to end encryption. If they’re on my homeserver it doesn’t matter, as we’re all communicating internally, and if their account is on m.org… Well… Just mind what you say? No different than chatting on Discord or WhatsApp, IMO.
People get annoyed about the setting up of devices, but that’s literally tied to a new type of feature you probably don’t need. And e2e shouldn’t be by default for most people who can’t even remember passwords - I still remember losing all my signal messages because I didn’t backup my recovery key and my one phone with it installed decided to, helpfully, clear out my data :)
Tl;DR being unintentionally forced to engage in e2ee is always going to be a bad experience. Our non-technical friends are coming from platforms without it, just forego it for the time being. (yes, I don’t care if WhatsApp or whatever claim to have it, if they own your keys it ain’t e2ee)
I disagree. In an age of such intensely pervasive spying, I think it’s only prudent to use encryption wherever possible. I think in the next decade or two, we’re going to start seeing the full implications of all the spying and data harvesting, especially with fascism rising in so many places. Just because your host and the country they operate in are trustworthy today doesn’t mean that can’t change and make your logs worth monitoring.
The person I was responding to was basically complaining about the complexity of enabling and working with crypto for non technical folk.
It’s always going to be hard if you’re trying to move people to a new platform and teach them e2ee best practices. .
If you disagree, then that means you’ve had more success with convincing your non technical friends and family to verify devices, e2ee passwords, and back them up! Great.
But for those who can’t seem to do so, seeing as how their friends and family are already offering up their data to the highest bidder by default, bringing them over to a homeserver you own and manage - without the use of e2ee locally - is absolutely a step up compared the alternative of just giving it all to WhatsApp.