XMPP Service Operators - 2018-06-01

https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2018-06/bundesjustizministerin-katarina-barley-whats-app-messenger-oeffnung Minister Germany Katarina Barley talks about XMPP, but she does not understand what XMPP says. The extensibility of XMPP is done for this. The she site https://katarina-barley.de/ The she Twitter https://twitter.com/katarinabarley The she Facebook https://www.facebook.com/1522202731410785 Guys let's make XMPP an international communication standard! Let's make Jabber better than WhatsApp Let's write to her and say that there is a XMPP to merge messengers katarina.barley@bundestag.de

Does she actually talk about XMPP or are you just mixing things up?

Ge0rG, She talks about XMPP technology, but she does not know about XMPP technology

404.city: that is totally not an answer to my question.

She talks about XMPP technology, she does not know the name of the technology

so she doesn't talk about XMPP technology but merely about something that could be implemented via XMPP?

Ge0rG: She says WhatsApp must be compatible to other solutions so users are able to choose privacywise better communication apps without being cut out from WhatsApp groups. No mention of xmpp.

Martin: I've read the article, but didn't have the 3h of time to listen to the podcast.

#metoo

so, I'm asking again. 404.city: Does she actually talk about XMPP or are you just mixing things up?

_if_ she is not talking about xmpp but what she is talking about is possible with xmpp it would be OK to tell her that the technology is already there. But although she seems to be a reasonable politician I don't think she is techie enough to advertise xmpp. Also I don't see a point in a lot if xmpp guys mailing her. Better would be working out a good letter together and nit spam her.

*a lot of

The best would be to have CCC, FSFE or some other group to make a public statement

Ge0rG, https://community.fsfe.org/ ;)

Hey, I am thinking about to write Mrs. Barley at least an e-mail to inform about the existence of xmpp and that this is the tool she is looking for with asking for "opening up WhatsApp"... Anybody suggestions for formulations/passage or links which should be included? Any other thoughts about this plan?

Martin: > Better would be working out a good letter together and nit spam her. Agree...ideas how turning this in reality?

therob: really, we need to play that in a smart way, via a larger org

Ge0rG: Suggestions?

> The best would be to have CCC, FSFE or some other group to make a public statement

But just make it in two weeks could already be a little to late?!

How has the contacts to them?

How to proceed?

We need somebody who knows somebody in one of those orgs, ideally in the press department

Anybody?

I could write a mail to the FSFE mailing list, asking them for who to contact

vanitasvitae: yes, please (maybe with a short line about what topic it turns)

Really, we need to have some personal contact to pull this off in a meaningful timeframe

"Katarina Barley, the German Minister of Justice recently demanded that WhatsApp must be opened for 3rd. party clients [1]. This caused some people in the XMPP community to think about running a campaign that informs about an open communications protocol which already offers exactly this." Any suggestions?

Here is a pad. Lets do this 😀 https://pad.riseup.net/p/zfzKcIl4TpyL

The biggest advantage of XMPP is its extensibility. There are no other instant messengers with such extensibility.This extensibility was invented for combining different instant messengers

This is a political. You need to keep it high-level.

We need to tell everyone about this. People do not understand what XMPP is

Any messenger can write its own XMPP extension and easily integrate

We do not have access to large resources. I invite everyone to write letters about XMPP.Do from yourself what you can. We can stand on a par with Facebook

so what is the main goal instead of "opening whatsapp"?

"strenghten already existing open protocols"?

I think this is nearly enough:

"Hi! Katarina Barley, the German Minister of Justice recently demanded that WhatsApp must be opened for 3rd. party clients [^1]. This caused some people in the XMPP[^2] community to think about running a campaign that informs about an open communications protocol which already offers exactly this. XMPP has been an IETF standard for communication [since 2004][^3]. For that reason, we ask the Free Software Foundation Europe / Chaos Computer Club for help. Our idea is to run an informational campaign, which shines some light on federated solutions for instant messaging. About XMPP: Contrary to many big messaging solutions like WhatsApp, the XMPP protocol has a feature called "federation", which can basically be explained by taking a look at how email works. Instead of having a single server, which everybody uses for communication, the XMPP protocol allows for many servers, which all communicate with one another. Just like when writing an email, users usually don't care which servers or clients their communications partners use. XMPP allows users to write messages to any user on any server. Being not linked to a mobile number also allows you to have different accounts for different purposes, e.g. an account for work (which can be disabled during vacation) and another account for friends and family. The Goal: Barleys idea of "opening up" WhatsApp would not tear down the walls of WhatsApps "Walled Garden", but instead place some more gates with strict gatekeepers. Instead of "opening WhatsApp", which would probably result in WhatsApp releasing a proprietary SDK for a proprietary "WhatsApp-Protocol", we want to suggest Mrs Katarina Barley to strenghten already existing *open* protocols. It is important to allow not only 3rd. party *clients* to be deployed, but also 3.rd party servers and infrastructure. Having the freedom to use another client is good, but not enough. The real goal should be the freedom to use an account at another entity. This would in term allow for more competition, wich could lead to better privacy. Service providers could offer better conditions like refraining from demanding a phone number. The following points should illustrate that the approach is not futile and not very hard to implement, if required by law: - Facebook has been providing client access to their Messenger infrastructure via the XMPP protocol until 2015 - WhatsApp has been developed based on the XMPP protocol initially - There is a vivid community of XMPP users already - The protocol is being developed in a democratic manner by the XMPP Standards Foundation[^4] - Already existing XMPP server and Client software are being developed by a number of different companies hot topics: walled garden, necessity of phone number as identifier [^1]: https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2018-06/bundesjustizministerin-katarina-barley-whats-app-messenger-oeffnung [^2]: XMPP is the open standard for messaging and presence: https://xmpp.org/ [^3]: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3920 [^4]: https://xmpp.org/about/xmpp-standards-foundation.html "

Who wants to be the "XMPP guy" contact person which I can add to the mail?

sent :)

vanitasvitae: 👍👍👍

vanitasvitae: Thank you, I hope they will listen ;)