This Week in Matrix

Matrix Live

Dept of Social Good 🙆

Josh Simmons announces

The Matrix.org Foundation is proud to join with Mozilla, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and over 400 security experts, researchers, and NGOs in sounding the alarm about the EU's proposed eIDAS reform.

As written, the proposal radically expands the ability of governments to surveil their citizens and residents across the EU.

We encourage citizens and residents of the EU to pay close attention and look for ways to get involved – urgently.

Dept of Spec 📜

Andrew Morgan (anoa) reports

Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.

MSC Status

New MSCs:

• MSC4072: Handling devices with no one-time keys in /keys/claim
• MSC4071: Pagination Token Headers

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• No MSCs are in FCP.

Accepted MSCs:

• No MSCs were accepted this week.

Closed MSCs:

• No MSCs were closed/rejected this week.

Spec Updates

IETF 118 is happening next week, and as per usual we'll be there participating as the Matrix.org foundation! We're working away at drafts in the hopes of converging with the MIMI design team and working group on a new MIMI protocol. Said protocol will hopefully allow the various gatekeepers and other players to have interoperable instant messaging, under the requirements laid out by the EU's Digital Markets Act.

Travis, Matthew and others have been spearheading this work in various areas, with myself helping out on the content format side of things. More to come post-IETF 118!

Random MSC of the Week

The random MSC of the week is... MSC2413: Remove client_secret!

This is an MSC written by yours truly! I have no influence over what the script chooses, the script is it's own master.

This (quite old now) proposal aims to argue that the client_secret parameter on various third-party ID-related endpoints in the spec is not necessary. As we already have a server-generated session_id which can be used to identify a particular client's session and validate that the client is allowed to interact with the session (by way of knowing its ID).

Essentially, we have two values in play where we only practically need one. This spec aims to simplify things, as well as reduce the amount of client-controlled parameters are involved in third-party ID processes (which can be a bit finicky as they often interact with external systems).

I have yet to update this or really do anything with it for the past few years. But it exists, and now you know!

Dept of Servers 🏢

Synapse (website)

Synapse is a Matrix homeserver implementation developed by the matrix.org core team

Erik reports

This week released a patch release (v1.95.1) that fixes a moderate security issue in Synapse. See the advisory for more details.

We also released an RC (v1.96.0rc1) with some new module APIs, experimental support for running multiple receipt workers, and the usual tranche of bugfixes.

The team has also been looking at performance improvements, and some low-hanging fruits have already landed on develop.

Dept of Clients 📱

Nheko (website)

Desktop client for Matrix using Qt and C++17.

Nico announces

This week was mostly polishing trying to make the Qt6 version of Nheko stable enough for a release. However I also got to close some ancient issues like search stopping pagination randomly.

One fun issue was, that you currently can't sign in with any mxid longer than 128 characters... When we first started to persist data in Nheko (before I joined the project), we ensured the database was unique by storing the database in a file named after the hex encoded mxid. However most filesystems have a file name limit of 255 characters or so... However, we are not in 2017 anymore, so we switched to hashing the mxid, which ensures the database name will always have a constant length, that is legal on most filesystems (sorry, no DOS support for you!).

Another fun change is that Nheko now reduces how often it syncs, when the window is unfocused for a while. This decreases how much power Nheko uses on my system by quite a bit, since it used to sync 5-10 times a second before just to process typing notifications in some unimportant room... Now it will at most sync once a second (if the window is unfocused for 30s or more). This means you will still receive important messages immediately unless someone was typing immediately before it, in which case it might be delayed by up to one second. I guess most people won't even notice this change.

We also tried to get a working msix package of Nheko. The biggest blocker currently is signing it with a useful certificate, but there are also a few minor issues like notifications not showing the pretty app name and the protocol handler not forwarding the url. If we can resolve those, we might provide an MSIX in the future instead of the traditional installer, which should allow for automatic updates on Windows, might make Nheko on the Windows Store possible and is also a smaller package with more security options. Half of the time was spent on reducing our compile times though, since with this new build step we hit the 1 hour build time limit quite a lot (on a clean cache run).

Nheko now also uses im.nheko.Nheko as the appid on all platforms and there are also some fun, non-code things happening behind the scenes, which might show up in TWIM in the future!

I wish you all a wonderful weekend and maybe give the nightlies a go and report regressions you want fixed before a potential release!

Element X iOS (website)

A total rewrite of Element-iOS using the Matrix Rust SDK underneath and targeting devices running iOS 16+.

Doug announces

This week we’ve been focused on releasing version 1.4, which is now available on TestFlight and should be making its way to the App Store next week. The following features have been enabled:

• User Mention Pills and Suggestions.
• Voice Messages.
• Starting a Call from inside a room.
• Screen Lock with a PIN code, Touch ID or Face ID.

This version also lays the groundwork ready for us to enable key backup support and you may find that after cross signing a fresh session, some parts of the backup start to work in the background (no promises though).

Element X Android (website)

Android Matrix messenger application using the Matrix Rust Sdk and Jetpack Compose

benoit announces

• We have released Element X Android 0.3.0 on Tuesday and it’s now available for beta testers on the PlayStore.
• Voice Messages, Element Call, PIN code are available
• We are also working on member suggestions in the message composer.
• KeyBackup is also available but behind a feature flag for now, to give time to fix the latest issues.

Element Web/Desktop (website)

Secure and independent communication, connected via Matrix. Come talk with us in #element-web:matrix.org!

Danielle reports

Element Web/Desktop

• This week we're back on track with notifications! Next week's release will contain fixes for problems that happen when messages are deleted, and the following release will contain fixes for editing messages.
• On the new room header and right panel we’re nearly ready for a ‘proper’ launch. Releasing the new version to all users, not just those on Develop or Nightly. We’ll continue to iterate once the first version has landed but we’re really proud of the new design direction.
• And, work progresses on our project to automate some of our CI processes!

Dept of Widgets 🧩

NeoBoard

Milton Moura announces

We are pleased to announce that NeoBoard had it's first major release, v1.0.0!

NeoBoard is an open-source collaborative whiteboard widget for Matrix! It's an ideal tool for creating and sharing content, conducting presentations, and collaborating with colleagues or friends. All data is stored as Matrix events within the Matrix room, leveraging Matrix's native end-to-end encryption, decentralization and data privacy features.

This update is our first stable release and includes some new features:

• Buttons to easily navigate to the next and previous slide in a presentation
• Support for PDF file export
• Editing slides while in presentation mode

If you are interested in the gory details, please watch our presentation at the Matrix Community Summit 2023 for a deep dive into what NeoBoard is and how it's implemented.

You can also try it out right now by adding it as a widget to a room following these instructions.

The NeoBoard is the latest widget from Nordeck. Please direct any questions to us at #nordeck:matrix.org.

Dept of Encryption 🔐

libolm

uhoreg announces

The JavaScript package for libolm is now available at npmjs.com. This means that your package.json files no longer have to include the full URL for the package, and can just include the version specifier. This was the last package type that was relying on the gitlab.matrix.org package registry.

Dept of SDKs and Frameworks 🧰

matrix-rust-sdk (website)

Next-gen crypto-included SDK for developing Clients, Bots and Appservices; written in Rust with bindings for Node, Swift and WASM

Jonas Platte says

This week, we did a lot of bug fixing and refactoring, notably compile times and binary sizes should be down due to the trimming of our dependency tree. We also made a bunch of progress on key backup support, with the crypto-crate level support being moved out of its feature flag soon (stabilization of the functionality in the higher-level crate will follow).

matrix-bot-sdk (website)

A TypeScript/JavaScript SDK for Matrix bots

TravisR announces

v0.7.0 is here! The bot-sdk is generally fairly stable as it's a very low-level SDK over top of the Matrix Client-Server and Appservice APIs, meaning it gets few releases. This might change in the future, but for now its twice-yearly release has happened 🎉

This release's highlight is a PostgreSQL storage provider to accompany the existing filesystem storage provider. Like SimpleFsStorageProvider, it's not great, but it does work. Other changes and details are available in the changelog: https://github.com/turt2live/matrix-bot-sdk/releases/tag/v0.7.0

Matrix Federation Stats

Aine reports

collected by MatrixRooms.info - an MRS instance by etke.cc

As of today, 8679 Matrix federateable servers have been discovered by matrixrooms.info, 2096 (24.2%) of them are publishing their rooms directory over federation. The published directories contain 272740 rooms.

How to add your server | How to remove your server

Dept of Ping

Here we reveal, rank, and applaud the homeservers with the lowest ping, as measured by pingbot, a maubot that you can host on your own server.

#ping:maunium.net

Join #ping:maunium.net to experience the fun live, and to find out how to add YOUR server to the game.

#ping-no-synapse:maunium.net

Join #ping-no-synapse:maunium.net to experience the fun live, and to find out how to add YOUR server to the game.

That's all I know

See you next week, and be sure to stop by #twim:matrix.org with your updates!

Matrix Live

Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Josh Simmons says

A couple months in, it’s a joy and a privilege to introduce myself as the first Managing Director of The Matrix.org Foundation! Read my intro post to learn more about me, the work ahead, what you can do to help, and how the leaders of other open source foundations are reacting to my appointment.

I’m thrilled to take this opportunity to also announce the Office of the Matrix.org Foundation, a new room that offers a direct line to me and the rest of the small but mighty team behind the Foundation. Come say hi! 👋🏻

Continue reading…

Matrix Live

Dept of Spec 📜

Weekly Spec Update

Andrew Morgan (anoa) says

Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.

MSC Status

New MSCs:

• MSC4060: Accept room rules before speaking
• [WIP] MSC4059: Mutable event content
• [WIP] MSC4058: Additive events

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• No MSCs are in FCP.

Accepted MSCs:

• No MSCs were accepted this week.

Closed MSCs:

• No MSCs were closed/rejected this week.

Spec Updates

In the new MSCs section there are new flurry of MSCs from Travis.

Matrix 1.9 has also been given a scheduled release date of November 29th, 2023.

Travis has also put out a call in the #sct-office:matrix.org for folks to add/apply feedback to any MSCs related to custom emotes and stickerpacks, as that feature is due to be reviewed (and consolidated) by the Spec Core Team this week or early next week.

Random MSC of the Week

The random MSC of the week is... MSC4034: Media limits!

This MSC facilitates a few new features related to the storage of user media on homeservers. First, it proposes additional metadata on the /_matrix/media/v3/config endpoint to inform clients of the total number of bytes they're allowed to store on the homeserver, as well as the maximum number of total files they're able to store.

Second, a new endpoint /_matrix/media/v3/usage would allow users to query how much of their total number of bytes/files they're currently using.

Both of these features would allow homeservers to set and communicate media usage quotas to clients, instead of simply returning an error when the user tries to upload media that would exceed it.

Seems like a very sane proposal to me! If this is something that you think would be useful to the Matrix spec, please don't hesitate to weigh in with your support/feedback :)

Call to Action for server owners

Aine announces

Hey there, Matrix Homeserver Owners!

I'm Aine from etke.cc, and I want to tell you about a fantastic project we're working on: Matrix Rooms Search. It's a search engine for Matrix Federation public rooms.

Recently, we introduced MSC1929 integration into Matrix Rooms Search. This feature automatically notifies server owners by email if a room on their server is reported for any issues. It's an important step toward enhancing safety within the Matrix Federation.

However, we've noticed that the adoption of MSC1929 across Matrix servers is relatively low, despite the fact it is going to the proposed Final Comment Period soon. This is where we need your help!

On behalf of the MRS project, we're reaching out to you to add (or update, if you previously configured it) MSC1929 support to your homeserver. Together, we can make the Matrix Federation a safer and more secure environment for everyone.

So, how can you do this? It's simple! You just need to serve the /.well-known/matrix/support file with the following structure on your homeserver's domain. If your Matrix ID is @you:example.com, the file should be available at https://example.com/.well-known/matrix/support:

{
  "contacts": [
    {
      "email_address": "your@email.here",
      "matrix_id": "@your:mxid.here",
      "role": "admin"
    }
  ]
}

If you're using mdad, there's a handy guide to assist you in setting this up.

By taking this step, you'll be contributing to a safer and more secure Matrix Federation. We invite you to join us in the #mrs:etke.cc room, where you can connect with others who are interested in the MRS project.

Let's work together to make the Matrix Federation a better place for all of us. Your support means a lot, and it's a step in the right direction for a more secure and connected future.

Continue reading…

Matrix Live

Dept of Spec 📜

Andrew Morgan (anoa) reports

Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.

MSC Status

New MSCs:

• There were no new MSCs this week.

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• No MSCs are in FCP.

Accepted MSCs:

• No MSCs were accepted this week.

Closed MSCs:

• No MSCs were closed/rejected this week.

Spec Updates

Pretty quiet in spec land this week, while IETF/MIMI continues to whir away in the background.

In other news, the SCT expects to start focusing on the custom emote MSCs in the very near future! ✨

Random MSC of the Week

The random MSC of the week is... MSC1921: Support cancelling 3pid validation sessions!

This MSC is fairly straight-forward, proposing the addition of two new endpoints to allow you to immediately cancel a 3PID verification session on an identity server (instead of waiting for the automatic 24-hour timeout). This is particularly helpful if you put in the wrong email/phone number on your first attempt.

I don't think Identity Servers get much love today, but this sounds like a no-brainer to add. Go forth and comment on if it sounds interesting to you!

Continue reading…

Matrix Live

Dept of Spec 📜

Andrew Morgan (anoa) announces

Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.

MSC Status

New MSCs:

• There were no new MSCs this week.

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• No MSCs are in FCP.

Accepted MSCs:

• No MSCs were accepted this week.

Closed MSCs:

• MSC4052: Hiding read receipts UI in certain rooms
• MSC3968: Poorer features
• MSC3969: Size limits

Spec Updates

Lots of discussion surrounding MSC2702 this week, spread across a few threads.

Otherwise, the SCT are planning to add a general "MSC Checklist" to the PR template for MSC's, which contain various do's and don'ts for the contents of MSCs. Our hope is that this will eliminate a lot of repeating errors or gotchas that we find during review, as well as prevent them from slipping through unnoticed. More to follow soon!

Random MSC of the Week

The random MSC of the week is... MSC3959: Sliding Sync Extension: Account Data!

This is an additive MSC to MSC3575; the core Sliding Sync MSC. As the title suggests, it adds an extension to Sliding Sync which allows clients to pull down changes to both user and room Account Data.

Clients can activate this extension when making a request to the sliding sync endpoint. See the Extensions section of MSC3575 for details.

Continue reading…

Matrix Live

Continue reading…

Matrix Live

Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Thib announces

Let me start right away with no less than a sneak peek at Matrix 2.0. Matthew walks us through the most exciting MSCs currently in flight with working implementations, that will be drastically changing the experience on Matrix.

One of those MSCs makes Matrix support OIDC. But Synapse already supports OIDC, right? If you want to learn more about the difference between OIDC and OIDC (sic) and how it's going to impact you, the auth team and I wrote a post for you.

Continue reading…

Matrix Live

Dept of Spec 📜

TravisR says

Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.

MSC Status

New MSCs:

• MSC4056: Role-Based Access Control (mk II)

MSCs proposed for Final Comment Period:

• MSC2702: Specifying semantics for Content-Disposition on media

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• No MSCs are in FCP.

Accepted MSCs:

• No MSCs were accepted this week.

Closed MSCs:

• No MSCs were closed/rejected this week.

New MSCs in detail

In this new segment, we aim to give a bit more context as to why an MSC was opened, beyond what is available in the MSC's introduction.

MSC4056 stems from a conversation held back at IETF 117, where members of the Spec Core Team (SCT) were attempting to make RBAC work in Matrix. Thankfully, there was prior art in the form of MSC2812, but a problem with decentralization (and specifically state resolution) was discovered. Thoughts were had about how to fix it, and MSC4056 is the result of those thoughts. Implementation work is eventually planned for this MSC, but in the meantime it should see forwards movement with the SCT's involvement in the MIMI working group at the IETF.

If you have thoughts or suggestions about the very Discord-centric approach, please leave them on the MSC :)

Continue reading…

Matrix Live

Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Matthew announces

Josh joined the Matrix Foundation as its first ever Managing Director!

Continue reading…

Matrix Live

Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Thib says

We’d like to thank everyone for their patience as we continue to work toward restoring the Libera.Chat bridge, and apologize for the continued inconvenience. We’ve heard from many people and communities who are impacted, who have confirmed that operating this bridge is an important service and we remain committed to getting it back online.

It’s been a month since our last update and folks have been reaching out, so we wanted to take this opportunity to provide a brief update.

The bridge team at Element is still actively working on the issues that led to the bridge being disabled in the first place. You can see some of the work that’s in flight through GitHub PRs: #1757, #1766, #1764, #1734.

We’re also looking into a way to transition responsibility for the bridge from Element to being directly run by The Matrix.org Foundation over the coming months - more details as we have them.

Unfortunately, we do not yet have a clear timeline for bringing the bridge back online. We’ll continue providing regular updates and will share more information as soon as we can. Thank you again for your patience! Please do not hesitate to reach out at #libera-matrix:libera.chat if you have any questions or concerns.

Continue reading…