France jacks into the Matrix for state messaging – and pays too

Decentralized communications network Matrix is hoping to be the beneficiary as European public and private sector organizations ponder alternatives to the messaging status quo. During Matrix's recent Strasbourg conference, more than two dozen public sector entities were noted to have tried (or were currently using) the …

[beast666]

They need to change the name, it is not fit for purpose.

[captain veg]

abstract noun

> it is not fit for purpose

That's OK, no one is using it for purpose.

-A.

[Anonymous Coward]

> "[X] is not fit for purpose"

Is your trolling supposed to be memetic or just formulaic?

[Pascal Monett]

How times have changed

"worries on the continent about dependency on closed and potentially insecure messaging platforms" and

"The French state is already running Matrix as the backbone of its secure instant messaging service"

On the one hand, I'm grateful that, apparently, our idiots-in-charge are not stupid enough to accidentally include a journalist in secure governmental communications (but I won't hold my breath on that - they can improve).

On the other hand, I can't help but remember the good ol' days of Lotus Notes R4, when the French government mandated Lotus to give a watered-down version of the 128-bit RSA key for French versions, so that "Grand Frère" could more easily look into whatever the hell was the big issue at the time (don't remember, it seems to me that Society/Civilization was never this scary before I hit 50).

In any case, it's nice to see that my own Government has finally accepted that strong encryption is preferable.

Maybe Playboy Macron should send a text to King WayTooLate in Buckingham Palace to enlighten him and get the British Parliament to shut the fuck about backdooring encryption ?

Nah. Won't happen.

[goblinski]

Re: How times have changed

..."Grand Frère"...

Je proteste, ze "Grand Frère" iz in ze 1984 livre d'Orwelle, not in ze "Le Meilleur des Mondes" de Huxleille, it waz note, no ?

[captain veg]

Re: How times have changed

> the French government mandated Lotus to give a watered-down version of the 128-bit RSA key for French versions

Not quite as simple as that. American TLAs had persuaded Lotus to backdoor it in such a way that they only needed to crack 128 bits but the rest of world had to deal with the full-fat encryption. The French declared this incompatible with domestic law so Lotus responded by giving everyone (in France) the compromised version.

-A.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How times have changed

It was the LCEN that liberalized the use of encryption in France, and made import / export of the technology much easier (basically nothing to do for FOSS). That was a good while ago already.

Before that, we were still under a pre-WW2 law that defined encryption tools as weapons (its target was likely Enigma stuff). Only government entities seriously tried to follow it, so basically, the worst encryption was used by non-security government agencies. Private people didn't bother (i sure didn't), and I've never heard of a single enforcement case.

Fun fact : in 2000, I was working for a US company in France with an LL to the US as its internet connection. In a single download of IE, I managed to become an arm trafficker in the US (export of domestic level encryption) and France (import of unauthorized level encryption).

Also, I borked my French NT4 by mixing up its DLLs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How times have changed

Maybe they need to resuscitate Minitel ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Much like teenagers, politicians only want to use the same tools as the cool kids.

They don't want to use the clunky certified secure tools given to them by Mum and Dad (aka IT Services).

Much better to use WhatsApp then there is no chance of a pesky employee leaking info.

[MaChatma CoatGPT 2.0]

The "Never heard of it" problem

The delightful Mrs Coat and I have been using Matrix for nearly five years now. We're slowly moving family members onto the platform but it's hard work mainly because they all say they've never heard of it.

"Never heard of it" is a problem for all sorts of products and the news media don't help. Most non-tech media outlets have a very narrow view. Search is only Google, Video is only YouTube. AI is ChatGPT. Teleconferencing is only Zoom*. I have no solution to this problem, I'm just pointing out the inherent laziness in non-specialist journalism.

* Zoom is the exception as Skype was the media default until 2020.

[david1024]

Re: The "Never heard of it" problem

Yes, and this was the problem Xerox faced, losing the name. Regulation and lots of litigation by Xerox let them keep the name and educate the public, but the Internet is much larger than the newspaper/magazine pool Xerox was swimming in during the 70's and 80's.

TBH, why even call it teleconference or videoconference?

What we actually do has nearly nothing in common with the activity, hardware, and infrastructure used when the terms were created. We share screens, remotely control virtual whiteboards and even computers, and have text chat all during these events that use digital IP pathways.

Videoconference is not what we are doing anymore. It is zooming or skyping.

Same with the text messaging... We send audio and video and shortcuts to launch zoom or Skype. There's end to end encryption options and groups with voting. And sometimes you need to install or update a client software to do it..

so, English, not having a word, steals the name and turns that into an adverb/verb.

[MonkeyJuice]

"During an outage in September, the Matrix.org homeserver went offline following a hardware failure. Organizations with their own homeservers, such as governments, were unaffected. While embarrassing, the incident also inadvertently demonstrated the strength of a decentralized approach."

Didja read the same article I did?

[Tron]

The UK government will need to check this out.

Can the system be adequately backdoored to protect the children?

Can messages be easily lost in advance of political inquiries into ministers' communications?

BTW. Is the UK Home Office comms tech still being outsourced to a French company that the French govt have a stake in?

[Paul Crawford]

Idiocy in action

Nicolas Dubois, responded with a curt "No!" when asked if it intends to ditch Teams in the future, adding "it's not me doing those types of decisions, but I don't think so."

So the EU leaders, who are rightly concerned by the malign influences of the USA, Russia, and China, decides to stick with a USA-based platform that slurps all your data for pointless AI training?

[David Hicklin]

Re: Idiocy in action

> decides to stick with a USA-based platform that slurps all your data for pointless AI training?

For now, who knows what the future holds and it might be a good idea to hold off saying YES until you are ready to switch over..

Nice Teams you have there, shame if something happened to it