This is Matrix.
Matrix is an open source project that publishes the
Matrix open standard for secure, decentralised, real-time communication, and its Apache licensed
reference implementations.
Maintained by the non-profit Matrix.org Foundation, we aim
to create an open platform which is as independent, vibrant and evolving as the Web itself... but for communication.
As of June 2019, Matrix is out of beta, and the protocol is fully suitable for production usage.
Matrix gives you simple HTTP APIs and SDKs (iOS, Android, Web) to create chatrooms, direct chats and chat bots, complete with end-to-end encryption, file transfer, synchronised conversation history, formatted messages, read receipts and more.
Conversations are replicated over all the servers participating in them, meaning there are no single point of control or failure. You can reach any other user in the global Matrix ecosystem of over 9M users, even including those on other networks via bridges.
Matrix provides state-of-the-art end-to-end-encryption via the Olm and Megolm cryptographic ratchets. This ensures that only the intended recipients can ever decrypt your messages, while warning if any unexpected devices are added to the conversation.
Matrix’s encryption is based on the Double Ratchet Algorithm popularised by Signal, but extended to support encryption to rooms containing thousands of devices. Olm and Megolm are specified as an open standard and implementations are released under the Apache license, independently audited by NCC Group.
With the advent of WebRTC, developers gained the ability to exchange high quality voice and video calls – but no standard way to actually route the calls.
Matrix is the missing signalling layer for WebRTC. If you are building VoIP into your app, or want to expose your existing VoIP app to a wider audience, building on Matrix’s SDKs and bridges should be a no-brainer.
Matrix owes its name to its ability to bridge existing platforms into a global open matrix of communication. Bridges are core to Matrix and designed to be as easy to write as possible, with Matrix providing the highest common denominator language to link the networks together.
The core Matrix team maintains bridges to Slack, IRC, XMPP and Gitter, and meanwhile the wider Matrix community provides bridges for Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp, Facebook, Hangouts, Signal and many more.
Matrix can handle any type of real-time data, not only messaging and VoIP.
By building bridges to as many IoT silos as possible, data can be securely published on the Matrix network. IoT solutions built on Matrix are unified, rather than locked to specific vendors, and can even publish or consume Matrix data directly from devices via ultra-low bandwidth transports (100bps or less)
Meanwhile AR and VR vendors are recreating the silos we’ve seen in instant messaging rather than working together towards an open ecosystem. Matrix can be the unifying layer for both communication and world data in AR and VR.
Matrix is really a decentralised conversation store rather than a messaging protocol. When you send a message in Matrix, it is replicated over all the servers whose users are participating in a given conversation - similarly to how commits are replicated between Git repositories. There is no single point of control or failure in a Matrix conversation which spans multiple servers: the act of communication with someone elsewhere in Matrix shares ownership of the conversation equally with them. Even if your server goes offline, the conversation can continue uninterrupted elsewhere until it returns.
This means that every server has total self-sovereignty over its users data - and anyone can choose or run their own server and participate in the wider Matrix network. This is how Matrix democratises control over communication.
By default, Matrix uses simple HTTPS+JSON APIs as its baseline transport, but also embraces more sophisticated transports such as WebSockets or ultra-low-bandwidth Matrix via CoAP+Noise.
curl -XPOST -d '{"msgtype":"m.text", "body":"hello"}' "https://matrix.alice.com/_matrix/client /v2/rooms/ROOM_ID/send/m.room.message ?access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN" { "event_id": "$YUwRidLecu:alice.com" }
curl –XPOST –H 'Authorization: X-Matrix origin=alice.com,...' –d '{ "ts": 1413414391521, "origin": "alice.com", "destination": "bob.com", "pdus": [{ "event_id": "$YUwRidLecu:alice.com", "content": { "body": "hello world", "msgtype": "m.text" }, ... "pdu_type": "m.room.message", "signatures": { "matrix.org": { "ed25519:auto": "jZXTwAH/7EZ..." } }, "sender": "@alice:alice.com" }] }' https://matrix.bob.com:8448/_matrix/federation/v1/send/916d...
curl "https://matrix.bob.com/_matrix/client /v2/sync?access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN" { "next_batch": "s72595_4483_1934", "rooms": [{ "room_id": "!KrLWMLDnZAyTapqLWW:alice.com", "events": { "batch": [{ "event_id": "$YUwRidLecu:alice.com", "type": "m.room.message", "content": { "body": "I am a fish", "msgtype": "m.text", }, "origin_server_ts": 1417731086797, "sender": "@alice:alice.com" }], }, }] }
Hi all, Last Sunday, the UK Government published an international statement on end-to-end encryption and public safety , co-signed by…
Matrix Live 🎙 In which I chat with Kitsune about the work done to get a Matrix URI schema agreed, and the state of the work. See also…
Hi folks, Today we have released Synapse 1.21.2, which fixes a couple of minor bugs that crept into the previous release. Full details are…
Synapse 1.21.1 has landed! Highlights of 1.21.1 include:- Add experimental support for sharding event persister. ( # 8294 , # 838…
Join thousands of other developers in our open source repositories, including:
Synapse
JavaScript SDK
Android SDK
iOS SDK
Matrix is managed through an open governance process, looked after by The Matrix.org Foundation - a non-profit UK Community Interest Company.
It acts as a neutral guardian of the Matrix spec, nurturing and growing Matrix for the benefit of the whole ecosystem.
The Guardians are the legal directors of the Foundation, responsible for ensuring that it keeps on mission and neutrally protects the development of Matrix.
I have seen the future of distributed collaboration and it is Matrix. The .NET binding looks old, incomplete and I maintained. If we get GSoC students this year, I’ll be happy to mentor, in the meantime I should probably contribute to it: https://t.co/nJY4iNHaLQ
— Miguel de Icaza (@migueldeicaza) February 6, 2019
I finally started a spreadsheet to compare relative security, privacy, compatibility, and features of various messenger systems. TL;DR @RiotChat / @matrixdotorg is winning on all fronts. https://t.co/7zxczdjwwJ
— Lance R. Vick (@lrvick) October 13, 2018
I certainly wouldn't trust a proprietary software driven by some Russian crypto millionaires any more (or any less) than Whatsapp. Or Threema, Wire, Keybase, and not even Signal.
— martin ➬ (@martinkrafft) May 21, 2019
Friends tell their friends to choose open, federated protocols. Like @Matrixdotorg and @RiotChat. https://t.co/gOUwFwCcra
We are spending more and more time in @matrixdotorg. @RiotChat works like a charm, better than @SlackHQ for many things and of course way better than IRC. It's awesome to have so many open communities forming and being able to jump from one channel to the other. Give it a try! 📢 pic.twitter.com/5uL1D4ryQo
— poliastro (@poliastro_py) March 5, 2019
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