Ask Slashdot: How Would You Solve the Instant Messaging Problem? 456
Artem Tashkinov writes: The XKCD comics has posted a wonderful and exceptionally relevant post in regard to the today's situation with various instant messaging solutions. E-mail has served us well in the past, however, it's not suitable for any real-time communications involving video and audio. XMPP was a nice idea, however, it has largely failed except for a low number of geeks who stick to it. Nowadays, some people install up to seven instant messengers to be able to keep up with various circles of people. How do you see this situation being resolved?
People desperately need a universal solution which is secure, decentralized, fault tolerant, not attached to your phone number, protects your privacy, supports video and audio chats and sending of files, works behind NATs and other firewalls and has the ability to send offline messages. I believe we need a modern version of SMTP. [How would you solve the instant messaging problem?]
People desperately need a universal solution which is secure, decentralized, fault tolerant, not attached to your phone number, protects your privacy, supports video and audio chats and sending of files, works behind NATs and other firewalls and has the ability to send offline messages. I believe we need a modern version of SMTP. [How would you solve the instant messaging problem?]
Stop instant messaging (Score:3, Interesting)
If everyone stopped messaging on insecure lines, the problem would solve itself.
Re:Stop instant messaging (Score:5, Funny)
It's ridiculous, they should just develop one universal standard [xkcd.com] that covers everyone's use cases.
Re: (Score:3)
My thoughts went straight to that exact comic as soon as I read the first sentence of the article.
So, yeah, while XKCD has hightlighted the problem, XKCD has already told us that there won't be a solution for it.
Re:Stop instant messaging (Score:4, Insightful)
SMS is expensive in most countries, and if younwant to add pictures, MMS is even more expensive. So that's not an option. The success of WhatsApp in some countries, with a near 100% coverage, comes from the fact that they were first in a market where the telcos earned tons of money with sms. Now that Facebook is trying to bloat it into Snapchat it remains to be seen for how long though.
Why do you believe that? (Score:5, Insightful)
"People desperately need a universal solution which is secure, decentralized, fault tolerant, not attached to your phone number, protects your privacy, supports video and audio chats and sending of files, works behind NATs and other firewalls and has the ability to send offline messages."
I don't see the sense in that. There's so much evidence to the contrary.
May as well say people desperately need a universal language. May I interest you in Esperanto?
Re: (Score:2)
Too much work. I'd prefer a babelfish.
Re: (Score:2)
It's more useful in Europe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasporta_Servo [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Apparently, the number of people out there who profess a passionate desire that the world accord to the scintillating schema that the ease of a thing is best measured two hours after first exposure greatly exceeds the number of people willing to invest two hours to behave this way in practice.
Re: (Score:3)
It is horrible, just like PHP. No, wait, sometimes it makes PHP look sane.
Where Esperanto got it wrong [joerg-rhiemeier.de]
Learn NOT to speak Esperanto [jbr.me.uk]
Basically, it is heavily slanted towards Eastern European phonemes, particularly in terms of using consonants that do not exist in many languages. But it has plenty of other weirdnesses too.
Re: (Score:2)
Nowadays, some people install up to seven instant messengers to be able to keep up with various circles of people.
Having different buckets for different circles of people is a feature, not a bug.
From the perspective of an advertiser (or governments), having all my coworkers, bosses, family members, sexual pursuits, friends, hobby-related friends, fake farmville friends, share the same platform would be a huge boon, but to me, as an individual user, it wouldn't be.
Plus, there is also the fact that on Android at least, I can access the same base of messages and contacts through different clients if desired, thus avoiding
Re: (Score:2)
it stops being fun when you have 3+ apps that handle communication for a single project. it becomes a bother, really it does.
especially when you want to move devices or need to move devices often.. installing all that crap. whats worse, maybe you need to use multiple private instances of the same.. like having 10 slacks that you need to be part of and everyone expecting you to react to everyone of those. it's not good at all.
though the problem becomes more like that you have 10 telephones that you need to b
Re:Why do you believe that? (Score:5, Informative)
While some of the list of security features is not that important to most people, being able to have a chat client that Just Works is.
I miss Trillian from ... a decade ago? Has it been that long? It was basically a container program with plugins for the at the time widely used chat protocols: It did AIM, ICQ, YIM, MSN, IRC, Jabber, likely a bunch of other ones I never used. All in one reasonably light-weight program. Click it in your taskbar, check if the friend you're looking for is online, and click his name. That was all the user had to think about.
Re:Why do you believe that? (Score:5, Informative)
pidgin still does this. Currently connected to ICQ, Google Talk, and Office Communicator/SIPE/Office365. Guess I could flip on the AOL Instant Messenger too, but I only had one contact there and he's been dead for a few years.
Re: (Score:2)
SMS is not free to all people, it is heavily pwnt by the bandwidth providers.
Re: (Score:3)
SMS is not free to all people, it is heavily pwnt by the bandwidth providers.
Not only that, it cuts out people using a computer or tablet instead of a phone. Yes, you can send SMS's from computers, but it's very difficult to receive them unless you're using a phone. An ideal messaging system would work equally well on a computer, tablet, or phone, and it should be Internet based so there's no chance you'll be charged extra fees by your provider if you use it out of your home country, for instance.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would you still be using a dumbphone in 2017? You can get a cheap unlocked Android phone for $49.
Re: (Score:3)
I can turn that cheap-ass phone on and dial 911 and have the emergency services on-site before your shit android phone finishes booting and getting to the home screen.
Re: (Score:3)
That sms popularity seems to ba a US thing, where unlimited sms is the norm, but only there. But Signal is then your solution: includes an sms client. Unfortunately they skipped encrypted sms so I now use Silence as sms app, a Signal fork that retained encrypted sms. Encrypted sms can be usefull as a secure backup option.
Re: (Score:2)
"every phone plan in existence in my narrow view of what existence is"
Do you think there may be places on this planet that you're not familiar with?
Re: (Score:3)
I thought that almost every cell phone plan in existence that costs more than $15 a month has unlimited messaging now.
My cell phone plan through T-Mobile USA costs $3 per month. Good luck convincing others to part with an additional $144 per year just to communicate with supremebob.
Email has different design priorities (Score:3)
Email has different design priorities than instant messaging, which is why all of these instant mesaaging protocols were created after email was already popular. Possibly the biggest difference is that email is designed to be reliable rather than instant - when a hop is down, it'll keep trying for hours or days. Your email client checks for new messages every ten minutes or so - that's much more efficient, and obviously very much not instant.
You mention a field something like "preference: instant" which wo
Re:Why do you believe that? (Score:4, Insightful)
People have been trying to fix E-mail so often that it became common for a pre-printed form to be copied and pasted when someone had another solution. SMTP is so entrenched that there is no real replacing it.
What might be the ideal message app is one that can use multiple channels to send a message. SMS present? Great. Signal, Telegram, or another protocol? Useful. SMTP to a specialized E-mail address with the server autodumping any spam not signed with a proof of work token or being part of a contact list? A thought. Perhaps send the same message (with a unique ID) via several different protocols, with the receiving app validate, check if any copies were damaged in transit, and dump the dumplicates?
We have a shitload of existing protocols. The ideal would be to have the messaging program use those. However, the message format should use existing standards. OpenPGP comes to mind as a good way of encoding packets that is cross platform and can be accessed on almost any platform.
Now that we have a message standard and the ability to use multiple transport protocols, from there it is making contacts, using public keys in a user friendly way without giving up security (perhaps having selectable levels of security), and doing UI work. The crypto infrastructure is the hard part that needs to be done -right- with auditors. The UI work is pretty much commodity stuff.
tl;dr, why replace existing protocols... Use multiples of them.
Re:Why do you believe that? (Score:4, Funny)
Is that a threat for extortion money? 'Nice digits, shame if someone were to rearrange them.'
Re:Why do you believe that? (Score:5, Funny)
They ain't so pretty in base 7, is all I'm sayin'.
Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)
Obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com]
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Informative)
Multi-protocol clients are good stop-gap measures that do not require additional protocols.
If you're a developer that likes working on open-source projects, Pidgin / Adium / Libpurple could use your help.
Re: (Score:2)
Except those multi-protocol clients can't access the services that most people use now (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Skype, Snapchat, etc.) and even the ones that used to be their cornerstones (Yahoo, AIM, MSN) have either shut down completely or closed off their API's to 3rd party apps. This is most likely so they can shove advertising down your throat by forcing you to their native app.
SkypeWeb plug-in for Pidgin (Score:2)
I am signed into Skype using the third-party SkypeWeb plug-in [github.com] for Pidgin, which supports the JSON protocol that Skype for Web uses.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:4, Informative)
I am currently running Pidgin 2.12 with Jabbber, Skype, Hangouts, AIM, Steam and Facebook active. I stopped using Yahoo when they changed to the abomination that their current protocol is, even though Pidgin does support it with a plugin, and MSN is dead since MS migrated everyone to Skype.
There is also a plugin for Twitter, but I don't use it. So that takes care of 7 out of the 9 that you mentioned, leaving Snapchat and Instagram. If more developers get to work on it, those two could get support as well. Every platforms that works with web-clients can be added.
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you!
I'd almost given up with Pidgin because out of my original four (Facebook, MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk/Hangouts) only the latter was left; last time I looked they didn't have a plugin for the new Yahoo, and the Skype support needed you to load the official client (which rather defeated the object, since I'm RAM-limited) -- now it looks as if it doesn't.
I can see I'll have to install the new version and give those new plugins a try.
The deliberate and malicious balkanisation of chat protocols -- which at one
Re: (Score:2)
OMG. Some people really are, um, what's the word I'm looking for here...
not an issue (Score:2, Funny)
The answer: XMPP (Score:5, Informative)
THere's already a solution for that: XMPP
The reason we don't see it is that the people that _are_ capable of supporting the necessary services behind it (like... for people that don't run their own servers) is that it's difficult to monetize. AIM dropped open support because too many folk use Adium or Pidgin with it, rather than the AIM client, and thus AOL couldn't push ads down it.
Google chat uses XMPP essentially... so if you want a well supported platform, that's it right there.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
When Google switched to Google Hangouts they dropped XMPP support.
Re: (Score:3)
Really? Then... why is my Adium client still successfully using Google Chat?
Re:The answer: XMPP (Score:5, Informative)
Google hangouts does not support XMPP. Youre using the old google talk service in adium, which you can also still switch to in web gmail. Google talk could (and will) disappear one day - with or without notice. Also I have NEVER gotten the syncing work properly between the two when you try to use the old legacy google talk. Do you have no problems using adium and the webchat (legacy or not) at the same time? Id be curious
Quote from link below:
"We announced a new communications product, Hangouts, in May 2013. Hangouts will replace Google Talk and does not support XMPP."
https://developers.google.com/talk/ [google.com]
Re: (Score:3)
They dropped XMPP support from the Hangout client but their servers still support it.
So :
Hangouts -- Google chat with 3rd party XMPP client : OK
Google chat with 3rd party XMPP client-- Other XMPP users : OK
Hangouts -- Other XMPP users : not OK
Re: (Score:2)
You can presume that they dropped support for XMPP federation for a noble reason, but I'll presume that it was an sleazy reason (force people to need to use Google services to talk to to the consumers that are Google's chattel and hopefully get them using all of the other data harvesting services out of convenience).
The so-called 'instant-messaging problem' has been solved. TFA is hand-wringing over a non-issue..
Something like the common use of XMPP federation is what the article was asking for and it hasn't been solved. It just needs more than a technical solution. How do we get bad faith actors like G
Re:The answer: XMPP (Score:4, Insightful)
XMPP is nice but it suffers from.. I don't know how to put it. It tries to be /too/ universal and and open.
Meaning that it supports so many deployments and scenarios and options that setting it up quickly becomes a daunting task. It does everything "properly" which means you're stuck in certificate hell.
It also sucks for mobile. No. It does. Mobile devices depend on the message push services built in to their OS/account framework. (Apple ID or whatever google is calling their crap today) Mobile devices cut apps off after their idle and there's no way for XMPP to deal with that behavior.
We don't need a new protocol. We need a new service. XMPP can be the base for it but the service will take care of wrangling all the odds and ends of platforms together - Tying togther 3rd party systems and interfaces, unifying auth and login, etc.
It needs to be simple and it needs to work so well that users gravitate towards it because it's better.
None of the popular services care about interop because it's in their best interest to keep users in one place. That's why we have competing islands of messaging services - And really.. It's not all that bad as it is. Whatever is better gets used. Whatever is worse gets discarded.
Re: The answer: XMPP (Score:5, Interesting)
Call it Kitchen Sink Syndrome, or the Second-System Effect. You are right that XMPP suffers badly from it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
AIM didnt drop support, AIM just updated their protocol, and pidgin updated its client to match it, with the help of AOL. Their message of obsolescence for the client was strictly about that version of the protocol, and was just poorly worded and bad PR.
Poor requirements statement (Score:5, Insightful)
But more important, the requirements listed are simply out in left field. Video and audio are not instant messaging requirements. Video and audio are both, by their very nature, dealing in linear time. They cannot be "instant".
Cut back to a more realistic list of "instant messaging" and you have some hope of finding a solution. Perhaps accept that "secure" isn't as necessary, too. If you're dealing with top secret things, or assuming that a message that claims to be from your boss telling you to do something expensive or stupid RIGHT NOW, then maybe you shouldn't be "instant messaging" in the first place. Or at least not trying to shoehorn your critical security issues onto an application that most people don't need anywhere close to that level of security for.
Re: (Score:2)
Email was not designed to be "instant messaging". Relying on it to be such a system is just ridiculous.
Depending on the time, place, and network, you could say the same for SMS.
Re:Poor requirements statement? No, forgotten (Score:4, Insightful)
If you go back to the RFC, you'll find SAML and SOML as smtp keywords: they mean deliver as mail or immediate message (unix write(1)) or as both mail and IM.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course,
"'Secure' isn't as necessary" sounds bad. (Score:2)
"Perhaps accept that "secure" isn't as necessary, too."
This message brought to you by your friends at the NSA, CIA, and other organizations that are eager to learn more about you.
I think there's nothing wrong with considering what security means here. I'd certainly prefer non-technical people conversed electronically using a protocol and free software programs which used encrypted message transfer by default. I don't think it's wise to continue in the older way of doing unencrypted message transfer for ever
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
you still have to read an "instant message" from left to right, up to down...
No, actually, you don't. Your eye can pick out words even if you haven't read all of them sequentially. A lot of speed reading is done by seeing the entire sentence at one time. Video and audio physically prohibit gestalt input of an "instant message" simply because you cannot see or hear the entire message at one time.
Anecdotal proof of this is right here on /., where many many people respond to the "linear" text messages that appear in front of them by reading only the last few words, and then they post
Inter-Net communications (Score:2)
Death of Email (Score:3)
The future is that the various walled gardens will become ever more powerful. So that you can use attachments, search messages, do everything with them that you can do with email. Why would kids want to bother with clunky uncool Email?
If you want to communicate with my daughters friends, you just by an iPhone so that you can use iMessage...
So what's the problem? (Score:2)
People desperately need a universal solution which is secure, decentralized, fault tolerant, not attached to your phone number, protects your privacy, supports video and audio chats and sending of files, works behind NATs and other firewalls and has the ability to send offline messages.
So why don't they flock to XMPP then? Anything that there isn't a at least an extension for it?
xmpp IS the solution you seek (Score:2)
Want it to be a killer protocol? Then extend it for not just IM, but using it for other forms of messaging.
More importantly, develop the apps to run on all the major platforms (linux, androi, osx, ios, wind, bsd, perhaps mainframe).
Re: (Score:2)
That may or may not be what Google Wave attempted to do. I never did quite figure it out.
Re: (Score:2)
Heck, IMPP would be great just for updating addresses, etc amongst friends.
There is a technical solution but it won't happen (Score:5, Insightful)
matrix.org (Score:5, Informative)
Check out matrix.org. It is not only a rich IM solution with all the bells and whistles, including multi-devices end-to-end encryption, but Matrix also provides for bridges and proxies to other networks, so that it can be used to unify communication.
It's only 2.5 years old but has already come quite a way!
https://matrix.org/ [matrix.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Easy -- just don't install them (Score:2)
It's not hard, just don't install them or just the couple you want. Or, just use SMS that works with everyone everywhere...
Re: (Score:3)
Or, just use SMS that works with everyone everywhere
Except for landline-using members of my family.
XKCD was With Her (Score:2)
people are not desperate. (Score:5, Insightful)
I fail to see the problem (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That sounds like a pretty bad experience with voicemail. With my voicemail, I open the Phone app on my phone and go to the Voicemail tab.
In here, I get a list of either the number of everyone who has left me a voicemail or their name if they are in my address book.
I have a blue dot next to the ones I haven't listened to. I tap on the message to listen to it. If I don't do anything, it's then kept, otherwise if I delete it it goes into the Deleted Messages. Want to listen to a message again? Tap on it.
Couldn
Re: (Score:2)
Why the hell do you have to go through all that to check a voicemail?
Mine's smart enough to realize I'm calling from the number it's for. I dial the voice mail number - it's 123 - and get 'You have two messages. First message.' and it plays.
Yeah, it's still more effort than reading a text, but it's not some Sisyphean opus.
Well, you could be _that_ guy... (Score:5, Insightful)
You could be that guy. You know the one: the one who tells all his friends "This is what I use. Use that to contact me, or e-mail me instead."
For the most part, I'm that guy. I use one IM program for personal use, and another for professional use (due to corporate mandate), and that's it. The only exception to this is as I do have a Facebook account, if someone wants to message me there I'll accept these messages as well -- when I'm at my computer and logged into the web interface. I have no intention of installing their Messenger client on my mobile devices.
Then again, I don't feel the need to have people messaging me all day. My messaging contacts list consists of about four immediate family members, and that's it. Guess I'm just not social enough for "social media" and IM (for that matter, I don't own a cell phone either. I go out not to be disturbed by IM and phone calls -- why would I take the annoyance with me?)
Yaz
Two perfectly good solutions (Score:3)
The summary gives two good answers to its own question:
1. Use non-proprietary, open, universal protocols. There's a reason why SMTP works so well -- nobody owns it, everybody supports it. Unfortunately this provides no path for some entrepreneur to take over the Internet and become the next trillionaire, so nobody's going to put much work into making it into an easy one-click app. You may have to do some work yourself, both deploying and promoting your chosen solution.
2. Install seven apps. This seems to be the solution that most people prefer. If you need to be babysat by corporate nannies, then eat what you're served and enjoy it.
The Problem Is Business (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem isnt a technical one, it is a business one. More specifically, every business giving you a "FUCK YOU" attitude when it comes to interoperability with different platforms. Facebook Chat? That was XMPP. Google Chat? (that thing before Hangouts and Voice), also XMPP. Countless other systems out there are XMPP too. It works. It works GREAT. There pretty much wasn't anything wrong with it. Then businesses were like "FUCK YOU", and decided they didn't want to cooperate anymore, and so it died.
Re: (Score:3)
Google, the biggest company that benefits from the OSS community, whose motto is "don't be evil" were the ones that said "FUCK YOU" to us, after some time of allowing federation.
Of course, Facebook, another huge benefactor of OSS took advantage of the technology without ever even allowing federation, but that wasn't surprising at all, they pretend even less to not be evil.
Thankfully email already existed when these companies surged. If it was up to them, email just wouldn't w
What problem? What PROBLEM? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have no instant messaging problem. We just have a robust constellation of competing systems, serving different communities. Why is that as problem?
- My teen has a Snapchat community, an Instagram community, as Facebook community, a Pinterest community she hides from me, a Twitter community she denies, an SMS constellation, and a variety of less visible communities gathered around video, music, photo, and mixed media paradigms. Some of the members overlap and are pasrt of several communities, some of these communities serve specific purposes, some are flash mobs instantiating and disappearing quickly. She manages her various communities by platform sometimes. These are 'where she is' at any given moment, sometimes in more than one place at a time. Oh, and she has email too. Several of them.
- I don't want a messaging platform mixing my Facebook and G+ communities. Leave them separate. Some overlap occurs, but I can manage that.
- SMS is not very useful on my desktop PC You want to do some Universal Inbox of 'Follow Me' concept for 'messaging'? Please don't.
- I get messages from entities also. When Amazon delivers an order to me, I get SMS, an email, An Amazon app notification. I got one when it was scheduled for delivery. And when it was 'shipped'. And when it was ordered. I get 12 messages for that one order. If I ordered multiple items from different fulfillers, add 9 messages for each different fulfillment channel. It pollutes my life. I turn some of them off, and they creep back in. Multiple apps send me notifications. They are 'messaging' me. Some let me turn off notificaiotns, abnd they keep right on sending them. Some 'apologize', they blame their own app, most ignore me. The cost of 'free' is real.
- I rarely use or send videos. They are horribly inefficient for simple, spoken or written communication that does not require visuals, and I loathe how-to videos that waste 70% of their duration on establishing shots, personal anecdotes, uncomfortable drivel, wasted time and noise. Give me a step-by-step please. A list.
- Email is highly underrated, still. I carry on conversations in email very well if the correspondents keep up. At work I get IMs from the loathsome Skype For Business client I'm given, and despite the 'instant' intention people regularly turn away and let a chat linger for minutes. Instant is the behavior, not the app. Email is better than you think.
- I'm guessing the real complaint is having to manage the address books, friend lists, etc. that these platforms use. I refuse to use my Facebook/Linkdin/Google Contacts to log into multiple platforms. I don't want to share my contact info in Facebook with my Linkedin community. Or with Google, G+, Pinterest, etc. I have good reasons to keep separate communities separate.
We do NOT have a problem with proliferation of messaging platforms. If you think you do, leave some of them. Everyone you deal with online is either a member of more than one of your communities, or they are as member of one you will keep.
No problem.
Re:What problem? What PROBLEM? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll take an opposing position here. I see a problem. Right now, I have to maintain several different IM/messaging/chat services.
1) SMS because it came with my phone, and it's what a lot of people use. Honestly this is probably the most ubiquitous and useful, except that it's kind of bound to my phone.
2) iMessage sort of serves the purpose of SMS. It also basically came with my phone and lets me do SMS and not have it bound to my phone. Except... the thing that makes regular SMS messages also go to my computer randomly stops working, so I still need SMS for talking to Android users.
3) Slack for work. I don't like it, but it's what people use at work, so I have to use it.
4) XMPP for work. We use a VoIP solution that has a SIP client that also automatically sets up XMPP chat. Sometimes work people send messages through that.
5) Google talk/hangouts/whatever-it's-called-now because I have Google obsessed friends who like it.
6) Facebook Messenger, which I've finally deleted because it keeps getting worse. But now I have to log into the Facebook website to chat with my Facebook friends, because I have some Facebook friends that I'm *only* in contact with through Facebook.
I feel like there a few others that I'm not thinking of, to say nothing of all the accounts that I've had to sign up for over the years (MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AOL, etc.). I'm also not including my multiple email addresses. Even though I think email could use an overhaul, I think that email is rightfully a different format.
So here's why I think that's a problem: I need to have a bunch of different apps using a bunch of different accounts, running on multiple different platforms, just to keep track of text messages. I can't consolidate them into one app because the services aren't compatible with different clients (e.g. I can't use pidgin to use all of them). I also can't talk with people across services (e.g. I can't use my iMessage account to talk to Facebook contacts). I don't even have a choice in client apps (I basically have to use Facebook's Messenger to talk to Facebook contacts).
It locks us all into inefficient communication platforms that are outside of our control. Imagine if phones worked this way, if every six months there was a new phone app that could only call other users of that phone app, and none of them were capable of calling each other. Or email-- what if you had to sign up for a new email account on every email host in order to email other users on that host. Like imagine there were no SMTP communication between servers, and if you wanted to email someone who had used an Outlook.com email account, you had to sign up for your own Outlook.com account.
The whole thing is actually really stupid and unnecessary. Having to have all those apps and so many accounts increases your attack surface, decreasing your security. Plus a lot of the apps are awful, unstable, and needlessly complicated for the simple purpose of text messaging. You say, "We just have a robust constellation of competing systems, serving different communities," but the systems don't really compete. They're each little monopolies of their own little walled gardens. There's also no reason why open systems couldn't serve different communities. The only reason there aren't standards is that the Internet has completely abandoned the idea of openness and interoperability in favor of locking users into proprietary advertising platforms that drive engagement.
Re: (Score:2)
I need to have a bunch of different apps using a bunch of different accounts, running on multiple different platforms, just to keep track of text messages. I can't consolidate them into one app because the services aren't compatible with different clients
Because the service providers want it that way. They choose to make their services incompatible with each other and with 3rd party clients.
Signal (Score:2)
Signal is trying to be the answer. They certainly cover instant messaging, and I think they're adding video and audio. I'm not sure about email, but like any encryption system, it only works if you get both ends using the same system, and to use it, you have to go with their interface. Maybe with plugins for Outlook, GMail, Thunderbird, and whatnot, it might work, but it still requires everyone switching to it.
And none of that fixes the spam problem.
Re: (Score:2)
The downside is, Signal is buggy (not security wise) on older android releases. And that's where an awful lot of people such as myself are.
-jim
eh (Score:2)
Demand Better (Score:2)
Until enough users are tech savy enough to demand that systems work cross platform, each company will continue to carve out their own feifdom full of surfs who live and die by their rules. As soon as a couple of companies (WhatsApp, IM and skype, for example) start to offer cross platform functionality, those who don't offer cross platform functionality will be progressively marginalized. Then it will be just a preference of what UI you like better.
People don't *want* a universal solution (Score:2)
It's like saying it makes no sense to have a house way across town when you could rent a living space at your work. People don't want to live at work. They want natural barriers between the different aspects of their life and the groups of people associated with them.
For those who keep active Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter accounts, etc., one of those will be how they casually chat with close friends, one will be how they keep in touch with family and work friends, one will be where they flirt, on
easy peasy (Score:2)
XMPP (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason XMPP failed was cause everyone (ie: Google, Facebook, etc) cared more about user capture than interoperability. This is all the more obvious considering that they HAD support for it, but then killed it off for no reason.
XMPP supported almost everything except possibly real-time video. Well, apparently the protocol itself *does* support it, but because no one actually cares, it's never seen the light of day. At least I haven't.
Everyone conveniently ignores the fact that because HTTP was a universal standard, it allowed a *ridiculous* variety of tools and systems to be developed on top of it. The internet as it exists today, wouldn't, if not for that ubiquitous standard.
But as usual, lessons in history pale to short term profits.
Re: (Score:3)
Already done, it's a cell phone (Score:2)
More than half of humanity has a cell phone, and you can call them instantly if you have their phone number. No additonal protocols or servers are required.
Now get off my lawn.
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More than half of humanity has a cell phone, and you can call them instantly if you have their phone number.
And if they still have minutes left on their plan for the month, in the case of calling North Americans.
The same non-solution, over and over (Score:2)
If the problem persists despite wide availability of your proposed solution, it's not actually a solution.
BBM (Score:2)
Simple solution (Score:2)
How friends find me: (Score:2)
People I care about know how to contact me. People I don't care about may not. I'm fine with that.
Case in point.. I have a POTS line at home that keep around for the very occasional fax I need to send. When my "home" phone number rings, most of the time I don't bother answering it. If it's anyone I care about, they'll ring my cell.
Can you say multi-protocol/network clients? (Score:2)
I knew ya could.
Most people who have to exist on differing networks do exactly this.... Especially when we have to be on walled networks for work.
You mean ... (Score:2)
... like a fucking phone???
Idiots ....
Cisco is "just a handful of geeks"? (Score:2)
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/p... [cisco.com]
Xmpp all way down (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, you need to convince Google to restore it and people to give it a try (again).
With the Google part being very important!
Re:Gotta say (Score:5, Funny)
This is pretty low on my list of wants. Lots of other shit way more important. How about a universal translator? That would be cool. Maybe if everyone could understand each other there would be less war, maybe? Eh
You obviously haven't read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:
“Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”
Re: Gotta say (Score:2)
Translators only translate languages, not culture. Wars are still likely
Re:Good ones can do both. (Score:5, Funny)
There is an old saying: The heretic is the person who has nearly the same belief than you.
Your post reminds me of this:
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. I immediately ran over and said "Stop! Don't do it!"
"Why shouldn't I?" he said.
I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!"
"Like what?"
"Well ... are you religious or atheist?"
"Religious."
"Me too! Are you Christian or Jewish?"
"Christian."
"Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?"
"Protestant."
"Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"
"Baptist."
"Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"
"Baptist Church of God."
"Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?"
"Reformed Baptist Church of God."
"Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?"
"Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!"
To which I said, "Die, heretic scum!" and pushed him off.
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For instance, the medical field has a goal of eliminating spam and insecure transmission of medical information by creating the Direct Project, a network of curated SMTP servers
And UsenetII was intended to use a network of NNTP servers with special rules to keep spammers at bay. It is still operating? I don't think so.
The "Direct Project" will work only as long as you can limit who has access. Oops, the Internet kind of blows that limitation out of the water.
Re: (Score:2)
They scared off every single user with their awful UI. Nobody could figure out what it was. It was a kitchen sink for your screen. The protocol was probably fine (federated XMPP with some nice extensions).
IM mandated by disability rights law (Score:2)
That's what I felt when the boss at a previous job wanted us to use instant messaging when there was already a phone for urgent things and email for non-urgent matters.
Was one of your co-workers deaf or hard of hearing? If so, the use of instant messaging for urgent things may have been an accommodation for your co-worker's disability, pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act or foreign counterparts.
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1. The question specified "not attached to your phone number".
2. Prohibitive tolls for international calls.
3. Deaf or hard of hearing contacts.
Re: (Score:2)
not attached to your phone number - Why not? Some people don't have email. SMS continues to work for my parents/grandparents. Why should they be forced to 'authenticate' some other way?
Some people in my own family use a landline, or a flip phone with only a numeric keypad, or a cellular phone on a bare-bones plan that charges per SMS message sent or received. (Yes, received. I live in the United States, where it is traditional for each party to pay his own half of airtime, and Slashdot Media is headquartered in the United States.) SMS is inconvenient or impossible for these users.
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