Chaos Computer Club - recent events feed (high quality)

Review and outlook Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ about this event: https://cfp.2026.matrix.org/matrix-conference-2026/talk/ZB8TVD/

Gua is an experimental Matrix-based messenger built around a deliberately provocative question: can a federated, end-to-end encrypted network feel as simple as WhatsApp, and what do you have to "centralize" to get there? The project is an experiment built around the Matrix ecosystem. It builds on Element clients for iOS, Android, and Web, Synapse, and Matrix Authentication Service, with targeted G...

BreakFree is an app blocker with a texting layer built on Matrix, it block Instagram's Reels and feed, keep your DMs. Most blockers make you nuke the whole app and lose messaging too. BreakFree routes DMs through mautrix-meta / mautrix-instagram so texting survives. This talk is about what broke when a puppeting bridge went under thousands of non-technical users: unfamiliar-login flags, ban warnin...

Have you ever wanted to use Matrix as a backend for privately shared notes, workout tracking, expense management, task lists, or local LLM memory storage? Matrix is a surprisingly strong fit for these use cases. It offers end-to-end encryption, solid SDK support, multiple homeserver implementations, and effortless redundant storage — simply join a room with two accounts on different homeservers. A...

At FOSDEM 2026, we presented our plan to move Element Web to be powered by the Rust SDK by rewriting incrementally into reusable components. In this talk, we'll share our progress and insights so far, showcasing our prototype version of the client based on the Matrix Rust SDK along with improvements this has allowed us to bring to the web and desktop version we all know. Licensed to the public und...

Matrix Widgets have been part of the Matrix universe for years — But: What is a Widget? What is its definition, taxonomy and specification? Why Widgets makes sense in times of AI? Why Widgets make sense while matrix is getting more complicated on the client side? The newly founded Matrix Widgets Working Group of the Foundation is tackling this: aligning on definitions, mapping use cases, and build...

Matrix was created with the idea of federation at the core, but nowadays there is matrix.org which contains a majority of the users of the wider matrix network, nullifying the benefits of it. This has since also started generating significant cost for The Matrix Foundation and lead to shutdown of some previously offered bridges. The Homeserver Decentralisation Working Group aims to improve the sit...

How do you start a sovereign, secure chat project in the public sector? Together with the Dutch Ministry of Defence, we are launching a Matrix-based solution to enable interoperable, archivable, and decentralized communication. In this talk, we share our early experiences, including the challenges of compliance, archiving, and adoption, as well as the lessons learned so far. Join us to explore how...

A notification seems simple: a message arrives, and the phone vibrates. But in the Matrix ecosystem, a single "ping" triggers a complex chain of events involving E2EE decryption, push rule evaluation, and state synchronization. This talk dives into the architectural challenges of implementing a robust, privacy-respecting, and energy-efficient notification engine in Trixnity. Licensed to the public...

A vanilla matrix deployment already offers a lot options and is part of many digital sovereign communication solutions (and for good reasons). It can solve some of its tech dependency issues and can be a great alternative to Teams, Slack, WhatsApp etc. However, some organizational requirements still require more careful thought and planning than one might expect at first glance. This talk summariz...

This talk is about how feature asymmetries between interoperable messaging apps may disrupt users' online self-presentation, that is, how they choose what features to use with different groups of people to control the impression they form of them. Most users of messaging apps have their strategies to uphold some specific “persona”, if it is sending GIFs to add a humorous tone to the conversation,...

The Matrix Rust SDK is one of the most complete, mature, and performant SDK in the world. To illustrate our point, we will show off how to develop a Matrix CLI client from scratch with the Rust SDK live on stage, step by step, up to having a fully functional client, with a room list, a timeline, the ability to send and to receive messages, along with full end-to-end encryption support. The Matrix...

This presentation outlines the development experience of a post-quantum cryptography (PQC) extension for the vodozemac library, tailored for its use in MSG GOV, a Matrix-powered E2EE messenger for the Brazilian federal government. Our hybrid design is adapted to support multiple PQC algorithms, including ML-KEM and Brazil's state-mandated cryptography. The talk details the practical software engin...

Digital Sovereignty is on every lips, however whilst the tech is here, we have yet to find a financially sustainable solution to it. The tragedy of the commons of open source is not new, but we’ve got to the point of needing to solve it if we really want organisations to be sovereign and resilient whilst use secure and polished products. We all know (or will know by the end of the conference!) tha...

The Matrix Rust SDK has grown from an experimental client SDK into the foundation that powers Element X and other Matrix applications. Along the way, it has gained support for major Matrix features while tackling some interesting engineering challenges. In this talk, we'll explore recent additions to the SDK, including threads, spaces, QR code login, shared encrypted history, migration from Elemen...

Convincing users to move to NI2CE messenger and move away from the tools they are used to working with remains an issue. I would like to share my thoughts and discuss how other organisations where the use of Matrix messengers is optional deal with this. NI2CE is a messenger solution that we deployed for NATO users to provide a safer and more private alternative for the widespread use of Whatsapp a...

Are you operating a large server, bridge or bot? Are you managing lots of spaces or rooms? Do you sometimes need to modify rooms outside of your regular account? Try Matrix Wrench. It's is a powerful, open-source web app to view and edit room states. It works with access tokens from users and AppServices. In my time at the Matrix.org bridges team, I had worked on a few of the largest bridges opera...

When you operate communication infrastructure for one of Europe's largest defense organizations, "good enough" is never good enough. At BWI, we do not just run Matrix. We trust in the idea behind it: that secure, open communication should be a public good. When we introduced Matrix into the Bundeswehr, we made a deliberate decision: everything, always, end-to-end encrypted. No exceptions, no fallb...

At Element, we've been thinking about how you can be sure you are chatting to the right person, not an intruder, without reading out numbers or emoji over a video call. One approach we've been experimenting with is the use of X.509 certificates issued by a trusted certificate authority. I'll be talking about how this helps (and when it doesn't), as well as covering some technical details of the im...

When you operate communication infrastructure for one of Europe's largest defense organizations, "good enough" is never good enough. At BWI, we do not just run Matrix. We trust in the idea behind it: that secure, open communication should be a public good. This talk traces that journey. It begins with our decision to adopt Matrix as the sovereign communication backbone for the German armed forces,...

Side effects of modern healthcare communication: data breaches, €1.2 billion in GDPR fines last year, and a group chat with 47 nurses. The treatment is a messaging app. The one you're thinking of isn't it. Walk into any ward, GP surgery, home care team, or therapy practice in Europe and you'll find the same thing: clinicians on WhatsApp. Not because they don't know better — because it works, it's...

Famedly talks about the developments in the Austrian healthcare market and the adoption of matrix as the messenger protocol of choice. Leaning into the similarities and differences between Germany and Austria. On January 1, 2025, Austria officially discontinued the use of fax machines for exchanging patient data. While a necessary digital milestone, this abrupt shift initially led to a highly frag...

Governments increasingly need messaging that is secure, federated, and independent from foreign proprietary platforms, but turning an open protocol into a deployable government tool raises hard questions about sovereignty, infrastructure, and identity. This talk presents MSG GOV, a Matrix-based messaging platform for the Brazilian federal government. Today, it targets a defined set of public serva...

Intended for people who don't know much about encryption or Matrix, this session will give an overview of how your messages are kept safe, using end-to-end encryption. We'll very briefly review what we are trying to do: be sure who we're talking to, and be sure no-one else can read our messages. Then we'll discuss how Matrix does this: devices talk to each other with something called Olm, and mess...

The hardest part of modernizing healthcare communication is not building a new platform. It is preserving decades of existing integrations while enabling an entirely new communication model. Germany's healthcare sector currently relies on two communication systems with very different characteristics. KIM is the widely adopted communication backbone of the healthcare system. It enables critical wor...