There are many services and programs for instant electronic communication.

Matrix was chosen because it has the following characteristics:

• Open standard (no technical dead ends)
• Communication protocol for federated real-time communication (not an isolated solution, but similar to email, with worldwide connectivity)
• Differentiated communication is possible (1:1, multiple teams, by specific topic)
• Decentralized, persistent, and interoperable communication (no central control authorities, with the ability to connect to other protocols and tools)
• Data protection: end-to-end encryption in 1:1 conversations (standard), enabled in (group) rooms as needed
• Web application + desktop client + mobile applications are available
  • Personal data is not automatically transferred to third parties.
  • Mobile phone contacts are not automatically transferred to third parties.
  • Email addresses are not automatically transferred to third parties.
• Connection to existing authentication systems (for example, UC.Technology authentication servers)
• Successful security audit already completed
• Autonomy and control: local installation is possible (Customer’s server)
• Presence status can be set
• Active ongoing development
• Promising use in the public sector, by scientific institutions, and by other companies and organizations.

Additional information and some analysis:

At the moment, we all communicate in messengers. The most popular of them are WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber, Slack, Discord, VK Messenger, and Facebook Messenger.

What they all have in common is that they are proprietary. Of course, proprietary products have their advantages: a large audience thanks to advertising budgets, and the products themselves are well made in terms of UI/UX. They are genuinely pleasant to use.

But the disadvantages of proprietary products are much more significant.

Your data is not yours!

The main disadvantage is that you do not control your data. First, your account can be deleted unilaterally. And you will not be able to do anything about it.

In addition, you can be sure that your correspondence in a messenger is not only yours. If someone wants to, people can gain access to your messages.

If this were not the case, messengers would implement end-to-end encryption. But messengers do not do this. Because your data is a rather valuable resource. Why give it up?

Advertising

One way or another, advertising will appear in all these products.

Even if it is not there now, it may appear tomorrow, and it will appear in the most unpleasant way. Telegram used to say that it was free and would never have advertising.

Congratulations, advertising has appeared there.

And if there is no advertising in a product, think for yourself how that product earns money.

Censorship

You can be blocked at any time, not necessarily for serious violations, but simply because the owners of the resource may not like your words.

For example, Facebook or Twitter currently have the strongest censorship. People are blocked there simply for expressing an opinion.

Recently, on Facebook, a user wrote a post about a series he had watched. It is called “Maid” (MAID). He expressed his opinion that all the female characters in the series are wonderful and beautiful people, while all the male characters are insane abusers. After that, the administration deleted his post, saying it was harmful content.

Now, if your post does not match the modern feminist agenda, you cannot express yourself.

That is why we believe that messengers should be decentralized. Just like money. For example, now we have Bitcoin, and we have gained honest money. The same should apply to messengers. We should have an honest messenger. A messenger with no centralized authority that could block a person for their views.

A messenger where everything should be encrypted. Where your data is not collected. And where you are not shown advertising in the terrible way Telegram does it.

Open Source

The most important thing for a good messenger is open source code. And the source code should be open not only for the client, but also for the server. This is very important. I remember how Telegram boasted some time ago that it had open source code. But only the client was open source there. And open source code for the client, in fact, does not affect anything.

In general, if you look at Open Source, you will understand how many incredibly wonderful tools and opportunities it has given us. We use it, build many other useful things on its basis, and all of this is thanks to it.

Email

Email itself belongs to no one. You can take your own server, deploy your own mail server on it, and send mail to anyone you want. Because it is open code. Because the protocol and server code are open. You cannot be blocked in Email. Yes, of course, you can be blocked on some selected server. But you can always move to another one or deploy everything on your own server.

Apache, Nginx

They are also open source. Thanks to them, you can deploy any server in a few minutes.

Bitcoin

A tool that allows you to exchange money and be sure that it will not be taken away from you and that a third party will not cancel your transaction. And at the same time, most importantly, no interested party can steal your money by issuing new money (that is, by creating inflation). This is also an open-source tool.

Linux

An operating system that runs on a huge number of computers. 90 percent of servers run on it. 100 percent of all small smart home devices run on it.

Nextcloud

A server for storing and sharing files that is also open source. At the moment, there is no point in using Dropbox and sharing your personal data with it.

IF SUCH TOOLS ALREADY EXIST...

Some may say that we already have tools for this. Tools that are open source and allow communication.

IRC, XMPP, Signal, Telegram

IRC?

We have very warm feelings toward IRC, because in the not-so-distant past many people, especially students, used it and exchanged messages there.

Nevertheless, this protocol has many disadvantages.

- text only

- no history

- no support for multiple devices

- no presence support

- no open federation

- no standard API

- no built-in end-to-end encryption

- splits that cause many problems and even affect security

XMPP?

We still remember Jabber. In its time, it was also a fairly interesting tool. But it also has many disadvantages.

- incomplete support for multiple devices

- the protocol is not very good for the web, that is, for working from a browser

- and in general, it is heavily overloaded

Signal?

Because Signal does not support decentralization.

Matrix!

So Matrix currently looks the most interesting — a free protocol for decentralized real-time communication. It can be used for chats and for audio and video communication via WebRTC. Matrix defines a standard and provides open-source implementations of servers and clients.

Matrix gives people the ability to communicate and synchronize data across the entire network while maintaining control over their data.

At the same time, everything looks simple for the user. You can communicate with absolutely everyone without worrying about which applications you use. You can use your own server, or you can register on an existing one.

At the same time, Matrix is a federated network. This means that each server can communicate with other servers. For example, just like the GMAIL.COM server interacts with the MAIL.RU server when you send an email.

Matrix provides open federation — this means that anyone on the Internet can join the Matrix ecosystem by deploying their own server.

For example, in IRC you can connect to one network and communicate there. You can also connect to another network and communicate there. But in reality, these are different networks. Users of one network do not see users from another.

In Matrix, servers can connect to each other.

Matrix has channels. For example, you can join ours — #ucmeetnews:matrix.ucmeet.chat

And when you want to send a message to this channel, your server checks which other servers are part of this room and sends the message to each server separately. Then each server shows the message to its users in that room.

And each server saves this message in its local database.

Each homeserver in the room stores the contents of its history.

If, for any reason, one homeserver goes offline, even if it is the server whose address is written in the room name, all other homeservers in the room can continue communicating with each other.

How to register and start communicating?

The fastest way is to go to https://web.ucmeet.chat and register, then install the UCMeetChat client according to the instructions.

The UCMeetChat client provides a simple chat interface not only for the ucmeet.chat and ucmeet.org servers, but can also interact with other servers built locally for closed corporate use on the Matrix protocol, allowing the user to interact with other users and rooms in the Matrix federation. Text messaging, image and file sharing, and connection of various bots and bridges for integration, for example, with Telegram, WhatsApp, and other well-known platforms are supported. Voice and video calls also work (1:1 and group calls).

Wishing you successful work with our services!