we already have matrix chat, XMPP, IRC, how many more chat protocols do we need?
this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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how many more chat protocols do we need?
All
It does not even have PFS... Next!
What’s PFS?
If an attacker decrypts one of your message, they can decrypt all your messages if you don't have Perfect Forward Secrecy so it's very important. With PFS, if the attacker decrypts one message, only this one will be decrypted
Thank you! Signal does have PFS, right?
Yes, the Signal protocol uses the Double Ratchet algorithm to provide PFS. Over all it is the best messenger app there is currently in terms of privacy -> https://soatok.blog/2024/07/31/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-signal-competitor/
Even if Signal cannot access anything you share on it, it has major flaws for me:
- hosted in the USA on AWS, enemies of international laws
- is not decentralised
- a phone number must be linked to your account
By the way my nickname is Saejima, a friend of Onizuka and Danma lol 😂
It's getting PFS in the coming months.
Matrix exists.
Why is Session based in Switzerland?
While Session itself is a decentralised, global ecosystem, its steward is based in Switzerland. Switzerland was chosen as a home jurisdiction for its legal protections regarding personal privacy, world-class cybersecurity and computer science industry, and sophisticated regulation relating to decentralised technologies.
Switzerland’s long history of remaining politically neutral and constitutional right to privacy make it an excellent base for contributing to privacy software. Swiss companies are not allowed to share information with foreign law enforcement, and they cannot be compelled to engage in bulk surveillance.
These Swiss protections strongly reflect the core principles and mission of Session itself, making Switzerland a suitable jurisdiction for its steward, the Session Technology Foundation.
It sounds like they're not aware of existing and planned surveillance, which has already led Proton to move out of Switzerland due to security and privacy concerns. tuta src
In 2016, Swiss Parliament updated its data retention law BÜPF to enforce data retention for all communication data (post, email, phone, text messages, ip addresses). In 2018, the revision of the VÜPF translated this into administrative obligations for ISPs, email providers, and others, with exceptions in regard to the size of the provider and whether they were classified as telecommunications service providers or communications services.
The proposed update to Switzerland’s Ordinance on the Surveillance of Postal and Telecommunications Traffic (VÜPF: Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs) represents a significant expansion of state surveillance powers, worse than the surveillance powers of the USA.
Legal and data protection experts also criticize that the update of the VÜPF conflicts with the Data Protection Act (e.g. the Act’s data minimization principle) and may violate constitutional rights such as the right to privacy.
What is more, the law is not introduced by or via the Parliament, but instead the Swiss government, the Federal Council and the Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP), want to massively expand internet surveillance by updating the VÜPF - without Parliament having a say. This comes as a shock in a country proud of its direct democracy with regular people’s decisions on all kinds of laws. However, in 2016 the Swiss actually voted for more surveillance, so direct democracy might not help here.
Why does a private messenger need a cryptocurrency?
Edit: It looks like they use blockchain to authenticate users? https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.04609
There are 2 reason: providing protection against Sybil attacks and rewarding nodes (i.e. the “servers”). From the whitepaper you linked:
This staking system provides a defence against Sybil attacks by limiting attackers based on the amount of financial resources they have available. The staking system also achieves two other goals which further reduce the likelihood of a Sybil attack. Firstly, the need for attackers to buy or control Session Tokens to run Session Nodes creates a market feedback loop which increases the cost of acquiring sufficient tokens to run large portions of the network. That is, as the attacker buys or acquires more tokens and stakes them, removing them from the circulating supply, the supply of the Session Token is decreased while the demand from the attacker must be sustained. This causes the price of any remaining Session Tokens to increase, creating an increasing price feedback loop which correlates with the scale of the attack.
The other advantage of a staked blockchain network is that Session Nodes earn rewards for the work they do, paid as Session Tokens from the Session Node Staking Reward Pool. This system makes Session distinct from altruistic networks like Tor and I2P and instead provides an incentive linked directly with the performance of a Session Node.
I'm not convinced after reading this paragraph about Sybil attack defence. Cost favors large actors like state secret service and sponsored hacking. A free to buy into node network suggests with enough or cheaper early investment, you control the network.
Seems like it would only prevent small and ad-hoc actors. To me, even smells like it could be white-washing misleading.
I haven't looked into how the network is used specifically. If it's auth like vatlark suggested it would be bad. If it's purely delivery, I'm still wondering where blockchain comes into that, with the term suggesting persistency and agreement-based processes.
although I like the app, I’m always ending up alone in there. It’s so damn hard to bring people from the close circle to join anything else than a WhatsApp group 😩
Especially if they are over 50, but even younger generations are absurdly stuck to whatsapp and would go to any lenghts to defend it, even though it's literally like 3 taps to install a better chat app...
The world if fallling apart because of ignorance and bliss.
A big factor when changing messengers (at least for me) is losing the upstream of years and years of searchable messages in the same app
People in their fifties used IRC when the Internet first became popular.
@starlinguk @buyfromeu People in their fifties were happy when their Modem could transmit 4800kbit instead of 2400
The majority of people in their fifties haven't used the internet when the Internet first became popular.
My lot are still on Messenger 😒
From Switzerland my ass
I just want to use DeltaChat with people
sadly it sucks
Any particular reason? I want to reduce my FOMO.
yes:
- Notifications sometimes don't work, like you would get notifications about new messages only a couple of minutes after you opened the app and not before, so you can miss several months of a group conversation (it is possible that this can be adjusted but i did not find the option in the settings that actaually solved this problem)
- the calling function does have 5 steps (why? i don't know) to eventually establish a connection and mostly doesn't work. And in the rare case it works the connection is not even that good. Like there are frequent interuptions so you would miss every 7th to 10th (or so) word the other person said
Wow, thank you very much for that. Definitely deal breakers for me.
Wow, the first project to have found a use case for cryptocurrency!
Just kidding. This is trash. I don't care about fancy privacy features if the backend is tied to the Ethereum scam machine. Use Signal or Matrix.