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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • ElementX (main mobile matrix client) has live location sharing that works in group chats. Be aware that any location sharing system that loads map data (tiles) from a server automatically leaks your location to that server. The only way to solve this would be to have all the map tiles required stored offline but I’m not aware of any solution that does this. The simplest way to achieve maximum privacy is to just have something that automatically shares just the coordinates as a text message at a regular interval then you can open those coordinates in an offline map app.

    As you can see here, the map tiles are loaded from “MapLibre” when using ElementX or rather its cool fork SchildiChatNext. That means MapLibre would technically know roughly where you are and have been. All apps that dont prompt you to download large chunks of map data in advance will load map tiles on demand and expose your location.

    https://schildi.chat/next/








  • after hackers hijacked a user account and gained access to public chat rooms.

    The platform wasnt breached, a single account was taken over…

    But then they write this:

    While French officials described the breach as limited in scope, an alleged hacker claimed to have obtained 73,467 user accounts, 643,459 messages, 876 chat rooms with message history, 59,386 media files totaling 13.51 GB, and references to documents marked “Diffusion Restreinte,” a French government restricted-distribution classification. Access was allegedly gained through social engineering of an account associated with Tchap’s education environment.

    So who knows, but i doubt they were able to take over that many accounts. That would mean there was actually a technical failure of the underlying auth or matrix stack.