[matrix] encrypted chats

I've always wondered why Discord is free. It offers group video chat, screen share, and modest file sharing to millions of people. Its the most popular platform for communication in the gaming community, and becoming more popular with other communities as well, especially with the youth.

Its hard for me to imagine how much Discord costs to run. I haven't done any research on how its funded or who owns it, to be honest... but since I first started using it, that old axiom always gnawed at me: if its free, you're the product.

Recently Discord announced that they would begin to require certain accounts to upload their IDs and / or scan their faces in order to continue to use the platform. I understand the need to keep kids safe, but I also understand that systems of power use our biggest fears to justify their expansion and extract more control. Its been long established that government wants to connect our online presence with a government ID.

even more recently: Instagram announced that they will discontinue their encrypted chat feature

Beyond the governmental conspiracies, I have a practical concern: when it seems that every month there is another massive corporate data breach, why should I trust Discord with my (or my child's) biometric data?

Obviously, compromises must be made when dealing with sensitive data on medical or finance services... but a platform for chatting about video games? You want to scan my face? My kid's face?

My good friend - also not a teenager, but similarly skeptical of the government and corporate imperative to suck up all our data - recommended Matrix protocol.

Let me try to explain it in simple terms: its a protocol for chatting. It features encrypted, federated chats and video calls. Federated means that no one actually "owns" the platform, it is a network of interconnected servers, and any single chat room can be shared or distributed across multiple servers. You may have heard of Mastadon, a federated micro-blogging system that became popular after Elon bought Twitter. If Mastadon is federated Twitter, Matrix is federated Discord.

The Matrix protocol is open-source, meaning the code is open to anyone to audit, unlike products we pay for that are a sealed box of mystery code. The protocol is managed by "The Matrix Foundation", who controls how the code can be licensed - more recently, regulating its (re)use in for-profit companies by requiring any forks of the code to be published as open-source as well.

The foundation hosts a node on the matrix network, matrix.org, where they allow users to create free accounts and create chat rooms. And anyone can host their own node.

The creators of Matrix also founded a company called Element, which sells support and hosting for enterprises in order to fund the efforts of Matrix foundation. It is also the largest contributor to the open sourced development of Matrix.

BTW: it is typical for larger open-source projects to have a for profit company pushing their development forward. In the case of linux, the open-source kernel (dont call it an operating system) that runs products like Android and SteamOS, it is also managed by a foundation, but has been pushed forward over the years by companies like Intel, AMD, Google, Red Hat, and more recently, Valve.

Element also created a client in order to actually use the matrix protocol, which has a desktop, mobile, and browser-based version. There are quite a few community run clients available as well, but I've yet to try anything else besides Element.

Although I'm sure their intentions are quite pure, I wasn't satisfied to use the matrix.org node to host my chat server, so I hosted my own node. It is federated with matrix.org, meaning you can create an account on the matrix.org node and connect to my server, and add me as a friend. Accounts on my node are limited to my family.

On my matrix node, I even set up a chat bridge to Meta - Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp - so that I can talk to my friends in IG without having to actually use the app on my phone, and so that I don't get sucked into my feed.. There are bridges for Signal, Slack, Telegram, iMessage, and more...

That said, creating a node is not for the faint of heart, from a technical level. I have experienced many hours of madness setting up my matrix server. If you're not a technical person with a high tolerance for punishment, just make an account on the matrix.org node.

Now, I guess for me the question is, do I post a guide on how to make a node? As with most open source projects, each person has their own unique environment and preferences, and it can be hard to helpfully address every possible permutation. Guess I could just post my configuration as a starting point.. Maybe I will, maybe I wont...

IN THE MEANTIME - why don't you add me as a friend?