jarfil, 2 months ago

Not sure there is much FUD, let me see if I can sum up the points:

• Beeper devs have written a bunch of bridges between Matrix and other services. ✅ Cool
• They’ve contributed to Matrix. ✅ Cool
• End-to-end encryption, ends at each bridge server, which needs to decrypt and re-encrypt every message (¹). ❌ Not cool
• They’re OpenSource, so anyone can self-host their own bridge. ✅ That’s cool… but contrary to the “value proposition” of not having to do so 🤷
• Encryption in anything closed source, like their client, is ❌ not cool… but you can use a different client, so 🤷
• Decryption on not-selfhosted servers, is ❌ not cool… but you can self-host them, so 🤷
• All clients come “preconfigured” for some service 🤷, but theirs is locked to a service. ❌ Not cool
• People using a client with E2EE, get that expectation broken by Beeper (client) users giving their keys to a bridge hosted by a 3rd party. ❌ Not cool
• FUD: The devs’ monetization strategy isn’t clear. (“premium features” in the client? 🧐)

TL;DR: Sounds like a reasonable way to move unencrypted messages around… but falls short of fixing the problem of having secure interoperable E2EE.

Should they get paid for it? Probably, if you find that useful.

(¹: if there is any bridge capable of forwarding encrypted messages without decrypting, please correct me)