[guardian-dev] Moving beyond XMPP

[Nathan of Guardian]

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On 12/06/2013 01:03 PM, Dominik Schürmann wrote:
> - Even more devasting, if the user has Chatsecure installed besides
> the official Whatsapp's app the message could end up in Chatsecure
> AND Whatsapp -> confusion

This is essentially what we do today with Google/GTalk/Hangouts and
Facebook, and it is how OTR began in the first place... tunneling
encryption inside of a plain text "chat" channel. All of the work that
OTR does to invisibly advertise itself is part of what makes it even a
viable solution for use inside of a mixed client/capabilities network.

As a side note, the Whatsapp protocol is essentially XMPP with a few
tweaks, so its highly possible we could support it without much work.

> - I see no difference in the adoption hassle for non-technical
> friends of mine: Either I say them: a) Install chatsecure to chat
> securely with me (with whatsapp protocol) b) Install chatsecure to
> chat securely with me (over protocol XYZ)

True, true, but the issue is always what servers are they connecting
to. If they aren't using WhatsApp, then they will need to use either
an open jabber/XMPP server on the net (like Dukgo or Jabber.ccc.de) or
use Google or Facebook. We don't run our own servers at this point.

> Why is Whatsapp successful: - no registration - automatic discovery
> of chat partners by using telephone number from the address book as
> identifiers

I agree on the second, but as for the first, apps like WeChat, Line,
etc which are also VERY popular do require registration, so that is
not a big hurdle.

> On open protocol supporting these features _and_ offline messages
> and I am sold ;)

We will continue to persevere... I still believe that a well implement
XMPP app with all of the right XEP extensions can achieve the desired
user experience.

+n
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