[reblog] How to Start an Unencrypted Chat on Matrix (Element)
Hey! A friend of mine, Cadence, wrote a great blog post about how to start an unencrypted direct message with someone else on Matrix using Element or a fish script. That post is over at https://cadence.moe/blog/2022-07-29-how-to-start-an-unencrypted-chat-on-matrix-element. I’ve also iframe’d it here! This reblog thing is a new thing I’m trying, and I don’t intend to make it a majority part of the feed, but I think it’s fun. Let me know what you think!
This is mainly useful for cases where all of the matrix homeservers involved are operated by trusted parties. For example, I run a personal matrix server, and I also run a matrix server for a bunch of friends and people close to me. I’m operating the servers on hardware owned by us, and everyone involved is comfy with this setup from a privacy perspective. So that’s why we’re ok with it.
But the reason we want it is ‘cause its less hassle. Us folks on this server wanna be able to use the server side chat history search for one thing. For another, with E2EE its often the case that something gets messed up and you can’t even read chat history anymore, or one chat client gets into a funky state where you have to log out and back in for encryption to start working again. So that’s why we want unencrypted DMs, but matrix clients make it really hard these days.
Anyways, if you’re reading in a browser, the post is here below!