XSF Discussion - 2024-03-05

I'm planning to write a small XEP named Pubsub Payload Hash, the title should be quite self explanatory, it's to introduce a small optimization in Pubsub to prevent clients to request the same payload twice on an item in case of an update.

It will be linked with the Stories and Pubsub Items Acknowledgement that are introducing metadata at the Pubsub item level

I was wondering if there is a proper way to declare a hash element in a XMPP stanza beforehand

Something like XEP-0300 edhelas ?

(I never used it myself, I have no first hand experience)

edhelas, there is prior-art wrt pubsub item hash in https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0395.html#cap-v ✏

reading the xep today, i think the name cap-value was poorly choosen by me, something like item-hash would be better

or maybe even item-payload-hash, to make it clear that the has value is calculated exclusively over the payload and no other item metadata

> reading the xep today, i think the name cap-value was poorly choosen by me, something like item-hash would be better Indeed ↺

So looks like I'll do something redundant with 0395 ✏

edhelas, happy to change the name (and potentially other aspects of xep395) and potentially factor it out collaboratively with you into a standalone "pubsub item payload hash" xep

I'd prefer personnally to put the hash directly at the item level indeed

<item><payload-hash/></item> or something like that, then it could be pushed easily along Pubsub headlines

edhelas, I am not sure if this will work or that this is sensible. but maybe we need to make even one step back: who do you envision to calculate the hash?

Hash the entry serialized XML ?

😬

One doesn't simply hash XML

Time to write a XEP for it then 😬 Reproducible XML serialization

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_XML

I think it would be better, if possible, to do something like HTTP's opaque ETags

Or maybe the Atom timestamp could do it for now

If somehow I can put it as a item metadata

Which brings us to https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0312.html

❤️

edhelas, basically what I was heading at is that the pubsub service should do the hash calculation, then it has not even be an actual hash value, but, as MattJ already hinted, something similar to ETags or a generation counter

"XMPP, don't worry, we got you covered, There's a XEP for That ™ "

> edhelas, basically what I was heading at is that the pubsub service should do the hash calculation, then it has not even be an actual hash value, but, as MattJ already hinted, something similar to ETags or a generation counter Actually yes that was my idea, its doesn't even need to be an actual reproductible hash by the client, but more a unique Pubsub paydoad identifier ↺

Maybe Hash was not the best word for it

I'm discovering ETags indeed :)

ok, then the pubsub server assigns this "tag" value. this, in turn, means that you don't need to shove it into <item/>, which IMHO would be a questionable approach in the first place

Would it be useful for clients to receive a server-provided spam flag/score on incoming messages? (and probably presence subscriptions)

https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0287.html#spim-marker went in this direction

> ok, then the pubsub server assigns this "tag" value. Hash / tag needs to be lightweight? Considering a DoS where sending a stanza to a server infers far more work on the server than the sending did.

MattJ: yes, and it would be useful to provide it at gateway level too (thinking about the email gateway I'll be working on later this year).

Does anyone know how to mention all users in a MUC? I need this for a private group am hosting. I cant find an answer to this. Sorry if am asking in the wrong place :)

alom: most clients do not support it but there is a xep for "attention" that I use for this ✏

singpolyma: Thank you so much! I dont need to mention their name specifically, the goal is to give a notification to all of something posted to the MUC. So maybe the "attention" solution will fit :)

If you want to test it Cheogram Android client has this feature if you start a message with @here

singpolyma: Ok great, I will test that👍 Am using the app "Conversations" now on Android. If I like this feature, is it possible to add support for it on the Conversatons app through a plugin for example?

It would be a patch, but if you like conversations then Cheogram should feel very natural as they are based on mostly the same code

Is there any xep for pinning messages in muc's?

singpolyma: Thank you so much, you really helped me a lot! :)

gooya: just one, the subject, and it's generally only text

> Is there any xep for pinning messages in muc's? there is none

afaik

> Is there any xep for pinning messages in muc's? I wonder if there is enough interest in the community for such a thing. I never really noticed it wasn't there until someone pointed out that xmpp was lacking it. It is probably a huge hassle to implement client and server wise? And unsure whether there is a big enough need for it? ↺

Wondering how it can be done properly indeed

people have expressed interest before

i would aim for telegram/twitch pinned messages as a goal personally

Also a lot of clients doens't implement a "click to go to the place in history" UI/UX, it's difficult to do properly afaik

> i would aim for telegram/twitch pinned messages as a goal personally I like telegrams way of pinning indeed ↺

> Also a lot of clients doens't implement a "click to go to the place in history" UI/UX, it's difficult to do properly afaik this is needed even without pinning though

idk what discord does

pinning messages is always on my radar, but so far no one has actually needed it for anything so I didn't do it yet

i expect it to come for the peertube chat at sooner or later

Well, once someone has a use for it then we can ask what they actually want to accomplish and find out if pinned messages is the best way to get that UX or if something else will help better

Like some platforms only allow a single pinned message anyway, at which point we have that now

I feel like there are a lot more important features/fixes to be implemented in xmpp. Message pinning is probably not a high priority, but shouldn't we come up with some kind of way on collecting data/survey info regarding most willed features/fixes/idk. Whenever there is something which could be improved the answer is always 'people expressed interest'. Would be cool if there was a way to submit and vote for ideas to better track popularity of features etc

that wont help much. because we are missing developers

and designers

gooya: I guess clients get feature requests on a regular basis which is kind of how this voting happens now

a lot of them. even if we knew what features to add

Yes, users need to request to client developers, client developers have to make it happen. Most open-source client developers are not working full-time on their clients.

also people who use xmpp for not tech talk imo

the hardest part is figuring out if someone asks for something because they actually want it, or because they think someone else might want it

If client developers need additional protocol, that's where the "XMPP" part comes in

> gooya: I guess clients get feature requests on a regular basis which is kind of how this voting happens now Yeah but some idea's/implementation are a collective effort. e.g. better moderation tools. One client will unlikely adopt better/newer moderation tools if it only support their client. If that makes sense. ↺

> the hardest part is figuring out if someone asks for something because they actually want it, or because they think someone else might want it Hence the collecting of data/votes on a somewhat larger scale ↺

makes sense yeah

If you have concrete ideas for better moderation tools I didn't add yet I'm happy to be the first to add them ;)

Fishbowler, a generation counter is pretty lightweight, the pubsub service could simply increment if an item is updated (even if it structually didn't change its content)

> If you have concrete ideas for better moderation tools I didn't add yet I'm happy to be the first to add them ;) Ohh I wrote a long ass message when the spamwave was going on a few months ago. I'll look for it ↺

for moderation i am writing a paper to see what is needed btw. so any more ideas welcome

ideas is just one of the steps. and then i plan to write some actionable stuff xmpp/clients can do to be better

> > If you have concrete ideas for better moderation tools I didn't add yet I'm happy to be the first to add them ;) > Ohh I wrote a long ass message when the spamwave was going on a few months ago. I'll look for it i would be interested too to add it to the paper. :) if you have anything

https://share.loqi.im/upload/de9ecdd7-df4b-493e-8eb0-3474934f2003/zb2rhYq6whsjnVBTfgspVn97mNaS7mfAesLxg4FKtHQ2FKJzU.jpg

MSavoritias fae.ve, singpolyma:

The only related message I could find

yeah moderation pannel sounds like a great idea

gooya: ah, so you're talking about users flagging a message in-muc to moderators

at all xmpp layers. server, group chats and individual

Yes. In contrast to the usual pinging

would be nice for 1:1 too but for muc's it would be a big help for moderating

not sure what it would do in 1:1 ?

Imagine 4 moderators in a muc. All in different timezones. instead of a user pinging moderator (who is possibly inactive) to notify about spam. They can report it and the all the mods get a notification about the new report. Once someone deals with the report they can dismiss it so the other mods won't have to read/act again. No more pinging mods. No more reading back the whole conversation with possibly over 100s messages.

> not sure what it would do in 1:1 ? 1:1 spam attacks, report the user to the server admin ↺

>> not sure what it would do in 1:1 ? > 1:1 spam attacks, report the user to the server admin This already works

gooya, yeah the report-to-mods mechanism you're talking about is something I'd like to have too

> gooya: ah, so you're talking about users flagging a message in-muc to moderators singpolyma, Isn't this kind of a chicken-egg problem? Who will be the first to implement such a feature, server devs or client devs? XEP-0377 only concerns about 1:1 and not MUC's?

gooya, 0377 doesn't concern itself with anything, it just defines a format no?

That can be sent in any message

So one "just" needs to use it in MUC

singpolyma: Hello again, I installed and setup Cheogram with an account. But am not able to make the @here "attention" function work to notify my Conversations client. Did you mean it only works across Cheogram clients and that its not enough that its being sent from a Cheogram client?

>> gooya: ah, so you're talking about users flagging a message in-muc to moderators > singpolyma, Isn't this kind of a chicken-egg problem? Who will be the first to implement such a feature, server devs or client devs? XEP-0377 only concerns about 1:1 and not MUC's? You speak as though these are naturally disjoint groups 😉 ↺

alom: correct

singpolyma: Ok, thanks again😊👍

Alex: memberbot broken or ignoring me? :'(

Looked offline a moment ago? Good thing I already voted :)

I don't think I've ever missed a vote I'd hate to break a streak lol

This time I voted thanks to the reminder, I try to do it before that but I must admit defeat this time

checking memberbot now

memberbot is back and should accept your votes now

Worked! Thanks Alex

we are at 40 voters now. Lets see if we can get more before the meeting starts soon

checking the voters to finalize the Agenda, then we should be able to start in 3 minutes with our member meeting

Thanks Alex, as always :)

okay, lets start

here is our Agenda for today: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Meeting-Minutes-2024-03-05

1) Call for Quorum

as you can see 41 members voted via proxy. So we have a quorum

we have 53 members currently when I counted correct ;-)

2) Items Subject to a Vote

new and returning members. You can see all applicants here: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Membership_Applications_Q1_2024

3) Opportunity for XSF Members to Vote in the Meeting

any members here who have not voted yet?

Memberbot is still online

looks like there are none

then I will shutdown the bot and start counting

77.4% voter turnout is the best I recall, good work everyone :D

ya, pretty good

okay, drumroll

4) Announcement of Voting Results

when you reload the page at: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Meeting-Minutes-2024-03-05#Announcement_of_Voting_Results you can see the results

all applicants and reappliers are accepted. Congrats to everyone

🎉

5) Any Other Business?

looks like there is none

6) Formal Adjournment

I motion that we adjourn

need someone to second ;-)

Thanks Alex

moparisthebest, otoh, your member count feels a bit low…

but at least those who are members largely voted

thank you for voting for me, I will do my best :-)

seconded!

Thanks Alex. Welcome Mario

Thanks Guus

Thanks Alex

and arne-bruen, :-)

Welcome aboard, Mari0 :)

Thanks, as always, Alex

flow: Alex said 41 of 53

Guus, thx

PR for Mario: https://github.com/xsf/xmpp.org/pull/1353

Hi all! Thank you everyone. Congratulations to all members. A warm welcome @Mari0 😀

nicola: thank you! 😀

This is a long shot, but: does anyone happen to know what Trillian ("Astra") from 2009 requires from a server to connect? Or, alternatively, how to enable debug logs / capture an XMPP stream?

Guus: Talk to your XMPP server devs and work out how to get telemetry on the server side? :)

Does someone know a good XMPP server dev?

Is it a TLS error? If TLS is involved I'd immediately assume yes

``` Connection to JABBER has failed: system errorcode “0”. *** You have been disconnected. ```

That's all I got told by the user :)

Mari0, you should have received an invite to our mailing list

Alex: on a train I'll accept invitation asap

I think I accepted it already for you

Thank you 😀

Guus: does the server require TLS though

moparisthebest: likely

moparisthebest: yathzee: `Client requested protocol TLSv1 is not enabled or supported in server context`

Victory.

Excellent, if it's not DNS it's an ancient client that can't do modern TLS 🤣

Guus: can that client do plain no-tls with a manually configured host/port ? If so they can run xmpp-proxy anywhere and connect to it's client port

moparisthebest: I don't know. Openfire allows one to enable old TLS versions through its admin console though, so it's easily rectified.

ew that's pretty bad though

You're not our intended audience :)

Please tell us you're building a museum and that it is airgapped from the rest of the internets.

Lie if you must

I mean I also have a NonSaslAuth plugin, if you really want to be worried about something :)

Zash ... it's not me who's building that, but... yes?

Guus: presumably they want TLS for encryption guarantees though and known broken versions don't really provide that :/

Whatever they want to do I guess but I'd never recommend exposing TLS 1.1 on the internet

Non-SASL login did have combined auth and resource binding, which we're going back to with SASL2 :)

sasl isn't even needed over good TLS so that's fine /unpopular-opinion :D

Can't find the exact link, but these guys are running XMPP on ... museum-worthy hardware: https://system7today.com/

moparisthebest: then don't check TLS versions of jabber.org 👼

🙈🙉

also: https://soapboxrace.world/

> also: https://soapboxrace.world/ it uses xmpp? or what was the point? ↺

Congrats everyone for Q1 🍭🎉

Yeah, there's XMPP in there, somewhere. I once worked on an Openfire plugin for them

jabber:browse maybe? or nonsasl, jabber:agent - somesuch

thx