But Daniel, you might ask, won't the criminals just use Conversations then? Yes, they already do. And thank you for realizing why chat control is stupid.
We are not going to write open letters on how we are heroically going to withdraw from Europe. We will stay here continuing to operate as usual. We are infrastructure.
EU Chat Control won't apply to the federated Jabber/XMPP ecosystem. #Conversations_im is used by various militaries, police forces and intelligence agencies in Europe. They will make sure it won't get any client side scanning.
@Goffi In short: The exact scope would be left for whoever wants to tackle this to figure out.
Initially I thought we can parse URIs (which are already clickable in #Conversations_im) and display them nicely. "Alice is requesting 2 Euro", "Bob wants to sent you 10 Euro". However URIs are not self contained and need to be resolved by the exchange (via network). It's either IPC with the Wallet to ask the wallet to resolve them or just integrate the Wallet into Conversations. Why not the latter?!
Yes, indeed a public go-to server is good, (we operate one for #Conversations_im as well) and people who donate to the Matrix Foundation might want to be aware that large chunks of their money go towards keeping the lights on at this service, rather then spec writing, code or otherwise strengthening the ecosystem (With the notable expectations of running the Matrix Conference)
Well, yes. But tried @Monal these days and they did a pretty well job. Works really nicely combined with #Prosody, #Conversations_im and #Dino. But I think you already joined forces, which is a good thing.
I must admit the iPhone Air looks pretty cool. Now that Google is locking down #Android, I might as well get one of those and do #Conversations_im for iOS instead.
Two minor nitpicks on my GNU Taler experience. (And the fact that I’m complaining about those should be taken as an indication on how well the experiment went otherwise.)
• From checkout (by the merchant) to creation of the QR Code it sometimes took a little bit too long (seconds instead of instant). I think it round trips to the server and maybe the network was slow.
• The wallet app on Android looks very plain and boring. If we integrate this into #Conversations_im it needs to look cooler.
Testing GNU Taler at #Datenspuren was fun. And by fun I mean mostly unspectacular. It just worked. I scanned a QR code. I got some Kolle Mate.
I think some sort of GNU Taler integration into #Conversations_im would be pretty cool.
If you would like to integrate Taler into Conversations there are currently funding opportunities available¹ from @nlnet and both the Taler developer as well as myself are happy to help with scoping.
In Vorbereitung auf die #Datenspuren mal Support für taler:// URIs in #Conversations_im eingebaut und 16 Euro umgetauscht. Keine Ahnung wie es jetzt weiter geht. 😅 Mate, I guess?
My Google Pixel 9 Pro just got an update to Material Expressive, and it makes the dynamic colors in #Conversations_im way too intense for my taste. Remember that you can turn off 'Colorful chat bubbles' in the interface settings.
I don't know - at this point, the 'primary and secondary surface' theme colors maybe aren't meant for things like chat bubbles anymore. Anyway, the setting to turn them off is already there. Or go back to the default (non-dynamic) theme.
I just bought 20 envelopes and stamps, and I'm packing them with 5x #Conversations_im, 5x #OMEMO, and 5x #XMPP stickers each.
Send me an email if you want one. Put 'Stickers' in the subject so I can filter. While supplies last, obviously. (Though I'm more limited on the stamps than the stickers.)
The #Conversations_im update that requires TLS 1.3 is currently rolling out.
Apparently, judging by the bug reports coming in, a good number of servers do not support TLS 1.3 yet.
Please upgrade your servers and/or check their configurations. 🙏
Users can opt out via a setting in the Security section of the app, but this setting will likely go away in 1-2 years. The only correct move here is to fix your servers. Also, check the HTTP servers used by HTTP Upload.
According to Google, #Conversations_im is now also collecting users’ email addresses.
Pretty much the exact same thing that happened to Quicksy about a month ago¹ is now also happening to Conversations.
An app update I submitted ~48 hours ago passed review without any issues. A subsequent update just now, which contained very minor bug fixes, was rejected because I failed to declare that I’m collecting email addresses.
Someone or something at Google started to hallucinate that #Quicksy is collecting the user's email address and would not approve the app update until we declared that in our data policy.
The sign up process in Quicksy hasn't changed in 7 years. I don't even know where the user would enter their email address and I'm not aware of an API that collects this automatically.
LibreTorrent from @fdroidorg is looking very nice now with its new Material Theme. Goes hand in hand with the new magnet URI support in #Conversations_im
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is important. However, on self-hosted or otherwise trusted servers, the client-to-server transport layer presents a much larger attack surface. It’s the first hurdle an adversary must overcome before they can attack E2EE.
That’s why #Conversations_im includes advanced MITM detection called Channel Binding. Turn it on today!
It’s optional for now because not all servers support it. Talk to your admins.
Neither @matrix nor @delta offer comparable protection.
The "Conversations" screen (which shows a list of open chats) has always been the main screen of #Conversations_im, following the behavior of Signal, WhatsApp, and Google's Messages (SMS) app. However, after sign-up, users were taken to the "New Chat" screen (which lists all contacts and group chats) on the premise that they have no chats yet and would likely want to start one. This may have confused first-time users about which screen is the main one.
I love @FrOSCon. It was the first conference I ever went to 2̶0̶ 19 years ago. But damn those start times are not hacker friendly. I'm so tired I just tried to put whole beans in my portafilter. Anyway see you there soon. #XMPP #froscon #Conversations_im
I just updated the quicksy.im server to Trixie and #ejabberd 24.12
This gives #Quicksy users access to enhanced security features such as channel binding and allows for faster reconnects.
Quick tip for server admins: If you are following a similar upgrade path make sure to add mod_auth_fast to your modules section.
Check via 'Server Info' in #Conversations_im if that worked. Login mechanism should show something like HT-… (Requires going into airplane mode once; Only active from 2nd login)
2.19.1 is in the pipeline with some minor bug fixes.
The next version will also show the 'Last Seen' timestamp a little more prominently for those who have Last Seen enabled. (and the underlying algorithm has been modified)
Do you think we should use the subtitle to show number of participants in public conferences now that we made subtitles a part of the UI anyway?
A couple of versions ago I introduced a setting in #Conversations_im to hide the avatars next to message bubbles.
I'm personally not a big fan of the look, but it does bring it closer to what Signal and Google Messages are doing.
The next version will split that out into two settings: One that controls the avatar on received messages and one on sent messages. (Indicating what account is being used.) Hiding only the latter is a decent compromise for those who use the app with a single account.
