Today is a big day: we're excited to welcome Josh Simmons as the first ever Managing Director of The Matrix.org Foundation! 🎉
This is a big step toward fully realizing the Foundation's role as an independent, neutral steward for Matrix. Learn more about why we hired a Managing Director and what @josh will be focused on: https://matrix.org/blog/2023/09/introducing-josh-simmons-mnaging-director/
@[email protected] congratulations @[email protected], thats awesome
Congratulations, @josh!
@matrix @josh While Matrix kind of lost some credibility to me due to Element's choices recently (talking about collaboration with law enforcement), this news brought some hope for me that Matrix might be actually going in right direction.
Thank you for making the right choice, and sending warm welcome to Josh! Here is hoping that under your leadership Matrix will become a thriving, ethical and accountable to its community organization!
collaboration with law enforcement
I think that's a huge misunderstanding, many people seemed to think Matrix sold data to the police, but all that happems is that Matrix also provides secure communication services to law enforcement. You'd want your police to be able to communicate without the bad guys listening in on them, right?
There are a number of people here in the Fediverse that see only in black and white: if you do anything at all that I don't like, I hate your guts and will smear your name all over the place.
Don't howl with the wolves, at least not without knowing exactly what it is that they're howling about.
@hans I do understand what you are trying to say, however I do have to disagree.
The event of attending law enforcement conference by Element as company unsettled me for two reasons:
- representatives for company focused on creating a safe and encrypted messenger coming in ties with law enforcement, I see it as possible conflict of interest. Law enforcement globally continuously calls for removal of protections for citizens, while keeping their own communication private and secure, this is a global risk in my opinion that cannot be easily ignored. Their lobbying for lowering standards of encryption has negative effect on us all, and associating with group advocating for something opposite to Matrix's goals is problematic.
- I believe while police is doing their job fairly well in majority of times, it has been also used as tool of oppression especially against minorities (in my european country as well), I again believe that associating with this group is problematic in this context to mission statements of Matrix.
And I also want to note, I do understand difference between Element and Matrix as entities, however main leads of both are/were very dependent on each other which meant that there is some kind of dependence going on.
Law enforcement globally continuously calls for removal of protections for citizens, while keeping their own communication private and secure, this is a global risk in my opinion that cannot be easily ignored.
Agree, you don't want the police, or anyone for that matter, to get the power to circumvent security. That is a real threat, absolutely. Not too many people can tell for sure what backdoors for various agencies are installed in what popular software today. But I think the whole idea of being open, both source and API, makes it extremely difficult for such things to remain under the radar. And maybe I just want to believe, but I don't see Matrix/Vector deliberately going that way for money.
I again believe that associating with this group is problematic in this context to mission statements of Matrix.
I can see the problem. Keeping everything in the open would allow Matrix at least to claim that what they're building is good enough for even very serious players. As soon as a patch appears that does dodgy stuff, and people ask for an explanation, the game is up. So I would be very surprised if they would risk such a thing.
I know that there are parts of the world where the police are seen as a force of evil, deservedly or not, but generally speaking we should agree that we need a service like the police. And if they are to perform their job, they need good equipment, and secure communication is part of that. You want it to be good.
So let them make suggestions, or requests. I'm sure the French and German ministries of defense have done that, they too see it as an interesting piece of equipment. They may come up with some nice ideas nobody in the "normal world" would ever think of.
@matrix @josh That's nice to see.