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Apple is likely to stop providing its encrypted cloud service to U.K. users

I currently use Telegram for my friends and family, but have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the UK Government is either reaching agreement for backdoors with messaging services, or is trying its hardest to.

I’m also on Element/Matrix. Before I try to get my contacts to join me on there, should I be aware of any privacy issues or is that a good place to head?

  • moxEnglish
    16•8 hours ago

    Matrix is good for private general messaging. The fact that it’s decentralised means it can also withstand things like government-ordered shutdowns or back doors, since there is no central point that controls the whole network.

    Two things to be aware of:

    • Some non-message bits (e.g. room topic text and membership) have not yet been moved to the encrypted channel, so those could be read by the administrator of a homeserver that participates in your chat room. Since most people care primarily about keeping the message content private, this is an acceptable trade-off to get all the things that Matrix offers.
    • The upcoming Matrix 2.0 features and design choices simplify the UI and fix some occasional errors. It might be worth waiting until this stuff officially lands in the client apps before bringing your contacts to Matrix, for a better experience all around.
    • @[email protected]English
      5•8 hours ago

      As long as you onboard them with the ElementX/SchildichatNext(better fork of element) mobile client, their experience and setup should be fairly future proof. Its still changing and growing for sure but the most important stuff is finally working now and the new call systems is a huge improvement.

      But yeah if you want zero metadata, your only choice is P2P stuff like Briar.

    • @rottingleafEnglish
      1•7 hours ago

      Government-ordered shutdowns do not work the way you think. Government doesn’t play by the rules, it makes rules for itself.

      Which means - they may, say, make a list of instances updated hourly, which automatically get blocked by ISPs.

      Free speech or not, it won’t withstand such.

      • moxEnglish
        2•6 hours ago

        Note that I said the network can withstand such things, not that it guarantees your connectivity to it when using a hostile ISP. No internet messaging service can do that.

      • @[email protected]English
        2•7 hours ago

        Are there any other messaging options that are more resistant to government ordered shutdowns than Matrix?

        • moxEnglish
          2•6 hours ago

          There are a few messaging systems that don’t rely on internet service. That usually means a peer-to-peer design using some form of radio link, which can work well for local gatherings (like protests), but these tend to be impractical for general use.

          • @[email protected]English
            2•5 hours ago

            Gotcha, so in summary, anything that relies on an internet service, such as Signal, Matrix, or Simplex, is vulnerable to government ordered blocks via black list that ISPs are compelled to enforce. Am I thinking of this right?

            • moxEnglish
              2•5 hours ago

              Thankfully, it’s not that simple.

              A centralised service is an easy target for a government. (This is where Signal stands.) A decentralised one is significantly harder, because the government would have to be constantly discovering and processing every node in the network as new ones appear. (This is where Matrix stands, although it doesn’t have many public servers yet.) Fully peer-to-peer decentralisation makes it harder still, because there are as many nodes as there are users, with network addresses that often change. (Some of these exist today, but are mostly experimental with few users. Matrix has done some proof-of-concept work in this area as well.)

              On top of decentralisation, tunnels like VPN and Tor can be helpful in avoiding ISP-imposed blocks.