Slidge – XMPP bridges | Hacker News Reader

Slidge – XMPP bridges

nicoco.fr

87 pointszaik57 comments

Oh, that's my little project. I planned on doing a show HN in a few days or so, but someone was faster than me. I'm happy to answer any question.

Slidge even has a hackernews plugin, to be notified of replies to your comments and to re-reply from you XMPP client. ;)

wow, that's super cool!

Hi, Movim developer here https://movim.eu/

I'm really happy to finally see some modern bridging features integrated with XMPP and compatible with the latest standard (reactions, quotes, status...) !

And I'm really happy there is one client I can use these features with.

Reminds me of the JMP gateway between SMS and XMPP and the biboumi gateway between IRC and XMPP.

https://jmp.chat/ https://biboumi.louiz.org/

Edit: also cheogram https://cheogram.com/

It's actually closer to spectrum2 in how it behaves. I hope slidge will get as rock-solid as biboumi is!

https://spectrum.im/

If I recall properly, a new EU directive requires interop for discord/whatsapp/etc. But it does not solve the account creation issue.

Someone mentioned this directive on slidge's MUC* yesterday, but I haven't looked into it too much yet. I guess slidge's plugins should be easier to maintain once this is directive is in application. I should focus on improving slidge's core more then.

* xmpp:slidge@conference.nicoco.fr?join

This is a very shy attempt at, finally, regulate big tech: interop with protocols which are stable in time and simple enough to do a good enough job. Big tech dreads something that would disable software/network protocols planned obsolescence (it is much less true for hardware), don't forget, those ppl are scammers: if they cannot "embrace and extend" anymore...

In their directive, they forgot noscript/basic (x)html interop, and for the messaging protocols, the account creation which is actually a big issue.

I didn't know about this, and was curious about it, so went to look it up. It's part of the Digital Markets Act:

> ... EU lawmakers agreed that the largest messaging services (such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or iMessage) will have to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms, if they so request.

Small nitpick, while it would definitely apply to Whatsapp (it is mentioned by name in the press release), I am not sure if this applies to Discord? IIRC it is not a "gatekeeper".

Gatekeeper definition from press release:

> market capitalisation of at least 75 billion euro or an annual turnover of 7.5 billion. To be designated as “gatekeepers”, these companies must also provide certain services such as browsers, messengers or social media, which have at least 45 million monthly end users in the EU.and 10 000 annual business users.

Full press release: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220315IP...

As someone who runs a prosody server and also has to maintain accounts on other platforms I really like this. I'm going to keep an eye on this project and maybe at some point in the future once other people have worked out the kinks I'll take a dive into it.

This looks really ambitious and I hope it succeeds. My main concern is that it's swimming upstream against intrenched monopolies guarded by wealthy assholes. And experience has taught me that's not a recipe that leads to interoperability.

For signal, telegram and mattermost, I am not too worried since their protocols are documented. Matrix support is planned and should not be too much of a problem either.

About the full-proprietary platforms like messenger and discord that are actively against alternative client implementations, it's probably going to be hard to keep this working by myself. I chose to rely on 3rd party libs for this very reason. But even if these slidge plugins break, I'm still happy to use my XMPP clients for the more or less opened networks.

What is the relationship of this to Matrix, which also has bridges?

It's unrelated, except for the fact that I used the reverse engineering of the facebook messenger protocol by the mautrix team [1]. XMPP has had bridges more or less from the start. [3]

I may add a "matrix plugin" [2] if I feel like it someday, but probably after I implement group chat support. Then you'll be able to use XMPP<->Matrix<->some-other-thing for extra over-engineering points. ;)

I prefer XMPP because it's lighter on resources, server-wise at least, and it's managed through a democratic process, which has it upsides and downsides. As someone I like said "democracy is boring, dictatorship works faster".

[1] https://github.com/mautrix/facebook

[2] https://todo.sr.ht/~nicoco/slidge/27

[3] https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0100.html

fwiw, Matrix is also a democratic process: https://spec.matrix.org/proposals/#process. (As much as i'd love to be a dictator :P)

I did not know that, I gotta edit a bunch of replies now, thanks for correcting me.

To be fair, one of the reason I use XMPP and not matrix is that I didn't hear about matrix until after I managed to set up my own server and get some of my entourage to use it too, about 5 years ago or so. Interoperability is the important part anyway, and I'll work on slidge-matrix when I fix/improve some stuff in the existing core/plugins.

tbh Matrix was pretty green 5 years ago, so you probably didn't miss much. Thanks for considering a slidge-matrix bridge. On the Matrix side, we already have https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-bifrost as our main Matrix<->XMPP bridge, but it could definitely be better, and the more interop between open protocols the better \o/ :)

That's great! Who votes?

The Spec Core Team, whose members are listed here: https://matrix.org/foundation/

Based on their Github profiles, 7 are affiliated with Element (either employee or CEO), 1 isn't

By being accessible on these unsafe, unencrypted services, you increase their value and increase their attractiveness to your friends and family and associates.

If you believe that private communications are important, you should delete your account on unencrypted services (iMessage, Discord, Telegram, Instagram, Facebook, etc) so that you are not reachable at all via these methods.

Otherwise you personally serve as the honey in the surveillance trap.

I have a life to live. My friends and family and coworkers use Slack and Discord and iMessage, so I need to be available there for them.

Agreed. I actually think the opposite of GP too. If you want people to transition from proprietary services, you need to ease them into it over time. If you make something truly more valuable without the downside of "jumping ship", people will come.

Just using XMPP alone is a slight upgrade from those services either way TBH

My friends and family and coworkers installed Signal to talk to me.

Someone who won’t install a trivial and safe free app to maintain connection with you is perhaps not as valuable a connection as one might think.

I also have a life to live, and it is important to me that living that life does not make the world more dangerous for myself, my loved ones, and others in society. Surveillance systems do that, so I don’t use them.

>Someone who won’t install a trivial and safe free app to maintain connection with you is perhaps not as valuable a connection as one might think.

That's a pretty radical stance and I respect it.

However, I consider that keeping in touch with people that don't get why they shouldn't use Meta or Google is actually more productive than bubbling myself in a hacktivist bubble. I actually have more chance to get them interested in mass surveillance concerns by keeping in touch than by ghosting them.

I’m not an activist. I simply wish to not make the world worse via my own direct actions.

Using surveillance platforms makes the world worse, so I don’t.

Arguably, calling other human beings "non valuable connections" does not make the world a better place either.

I agree but I'm confused how you can use Signal in the same sentence then.

Reminds me at duckduckgo: makes claims and builds big branding about security but nobody (including me) ever questioned them. (Regarding article not at hand but of course also on HN.)

The first question I would ask: how does Signal finances itself when the service is practically "free"...

For the rest I totally agree: I could also convince some for XMPP/Jabber while at the same time it lets me question my relationship to those I couldn't move. I mean it's not that these days you couldn't install a second app if you already have 50 useless i.e. "coupon" apps installed anyway.

Signal is a nonprofit that depends on donations.

> I mean it's not that these days you couldn't install a second app if you already have 50 useless i.e. "coupon" apps installed anyway.

Don't get me started on this. It saddens me to see so much resistance from a lot of my friends that don't even want to try a tiny, privacy-friendly, open-source, non-battery consuming app when they have like 50 attention-stealing spyware apps installed on their phone. Marketing works scandalously well.

Slidge can be used to bridge XMPP and signal, and I'm actually more motivated to keep it working with relatively open services like signal than with services from Big Ad.

I personally think XMPP is superior to signal, being decentralised and with an open governance. For instance, I've not yet seen some cryptocurrency crap being pushed at me on the XMPP side, which I very much enjoy. I wish everybody moved to XMPP, but apparently it's not going to happen anytime soon, so in the meantime, I'll try to contribute to making XMPP the best instant messaging network. When everyone moves to XMPP, then slidge will have no reason to exist anymore, and my evil plan will have succeeded.

This is deeply terrible and naive advice and should be mostly ignored, even (especially) if you agree with the underlying idea. This sort of absolutism doesn't help the problem at all.

Better to consider second order effects. People have lives to live, and connecting with people is the most important thing. You'll actually help more if you DO stay connected and, over time, let them know and offer to help with using a diverse range of communications technology over time.

I've been faced with this choice, more or less, and (in my case) NOT choosing to be a stickler about it (and joining up with people on Discord) has opened up my and their worlds quite a bit.

This is a special case. Which is to say, it's weird that the technology you're trying to get rid of or improve at present still might be the best tool to get it done, but hey.

This is great! I've been using Conversations as my main chat client bridged to IRC and my phone number (using jmp.chat for phone and disroot.org or jmp's IRC bridges) for a while, but I can imagine phone and IRC aren't generally the ones most people want. Having more bridges will be really nice!

Thanks for the kind words. So, you use Conversations for SMSes too? The SIM card in your phone is just a mobile internet thing, you don't actually use it to make calls? I'm curious about your usage. :)

jmp.chat is awesome, that's def. what I use for this. I am deaf, so I don't ever make voice calls, but I use the SMS/MMS features of JMP.chat and am happy.

Very cool, I’ll have to try this out with my prosody server. I’d use it for Facebook (after a long break, FB will be back in my XMPP network :D), Signal, and maybe Telegram. Does anyone know if any of those have issues with alternative clients?

Facebook does not like alternative clients, but this workaround [1] worked for me. Signal is OK, and Telegram actually encourages writing alternative clients [2]. I'm happy to assist setting it up, come say hi on our MUC.

[1] https://slidge.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user/low_profile.htm...

[2] https://tdlib.github.io/td/

[3] xmpp:slidge@conference.nicoco.fr?join

I saw that page, but actually missed the note as it got filtered by my brain’s adblocker ;)

And thanks, it won’t be till next week as I’m at a festival this weekend, but I already joined (this might be my first XMPP MUC since around 2008) :)

Honestly, this has convinced me to give XMPP a proper go again. I tried Matrix and bridges, and it was just too heavy for 1 user. maybe XMPP will be light enough, especially with these integrations.

I used to have a similar setup to use IRC for everything using https://www.bitlbee.org. Fun times!

This seems to still be actively developed and has a quite a lot of people still using it. I think there is some value from XMPP over IRC, but hey, whatever worked for you is cool. What do you use now?

https://xkcd.com/1782/

I was very happy to see multiple releases in 2022 too! I have to admit that I don't use anything cool like that any more as I'm rarely on IRC and all the instant messengers kinda went away or got too closed down to be used with services like that.

wrt. Discord and their stance on "self-bots", what is the demarcation point between their (web) app and my computer?

Is using a screen reader a self-bot? Is a non-screen reader Firefox add-on that uses the API a self-bot? What if I write an add-on that keeps track of Discord-specific state via it? What if that add-on exposes an API to read my DMs? What if it exposes an API to send them?

"self-bot" is a weird name for alternative clients in the first place. Preventing spam is obviously their justification for being so strict about it.

I believe screen readers are OK, but a Firefox add-on using API calls would be considered against their ToS.

This is cool! I’ve looked into setting up Matterbridge before, but as far as I can tell it can’t do what I actually want—chat on Slack/Discord/Whatsapp from my existing XMPP client, without anyone on those services knowing I’m using an XMPP client.

I would need group messaging to work, however. Looking forward to that potentially becoming possible some day!

How do you think they would know you are using an XMPP client?

What I mean is, when I type in my XMPP client, I want someone in e.g. Discord to see:

    [Wowfunhappy] "hello world"

And not:

    [TransportBot] "Wowfunhappy: hello world"

The TransportBot approach is how things like Matterbridge work. Slidge uses a different approach where your XMPP address is translated to your identifier on the third-party platform.

from my understanding, Slidge does it the style where it effectively logs in as you and sends everything from your account. which is usually frowned upon by Discord but it's how it works, similar to how it works for many matrix bridges.

Author here, thanks for your comment, "cool" is what I aim at.

>without anyone on those services knowing I’m using an XMPP client

Slidge acts in a way that (should) make it impossible for your contacts to know you are not using the official app. However, since some services are OK with alternative clients, Slidge does not necessarily tries to hide its "identity". For services that are less tolerant about it, I wrote a quick documentation page with advice about how to avoid triggering their "security" alerts (mostly because they'll see connecting from a data center, unless you host at home): https://slidge.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user/low_profile.htm...

Group messaging is definitely the next big feature I want in Slidge. There were part of Slidge's first iteration, but I decided to postpone them since it was too ambitious for a start. I really want direct messages to work well, and the code to be maintainable enough before I (re)implement groups. You can help by setting up slidge on your server and bug reporting. ;)

List of systems this currently works with:

* Signal

* Telegram

* Discord

* Steam

* Mattermost

* Facebook

* Skype

Threema?

Probably someday? https://todo.sr.ht/~nicoco/slidge/1

Did you look at/consider zulip? Using it at work now, and miss a simple/irc-like cli client (there's an official client that runs in the terminal - but it's more of a TUI than a weechat-work-a-like. However their python Api is nice enough that one can almost just use that. But maybe only for writing - not full participation in conversations... :)

Nope, didn't know about it. At first glance, it looks like the pypi package is for sending messages only. Since it's all open source, I guess it should not be too much work to get a slidge-zulip plugin working.

Feel free to open a ticket about it in slidge's todo.

https://todo.sr.ht/~nicoco/slidge

https://slidge.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dev/tutorial.html

Correction: The Zulip Python bindings can be used for any API endpoint. See https://zulip.com/api/rest. We'll fix https://pypi.org/project/zulip/, which apparently doesn't link there.

https://github.com/zulip/python-zulip-api/tree/main/zulip/in... has a few bridges similar to what you're building that may be helpful references; the Zephyr one is the most sophisticated and the Matrix one is about to be rewritten (https://github.com/zulip/python-zulip-api/pull/765), so those may be useful resources.

Thanks for the information! I added this to my tracker then. Not sure I'll work on it soon, but at least the relevant links you gave me are stored somewhere easy to find now.

https://todo.sr.ht/~nicoco/slidge/46

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