New phone who dis: User verification using X.509 certificates
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 the technical details of the implementation.
Richard van der Hoff
Rich is a Staff Engineer at Element, and has been part of the Matrix project since 2015. In that time he's touched all sorts of things, including Element-Web and Synapse. He implemented the early steps towards encryption in Element Web, and more recently is back in the encryption sphere as part of Element's Crypto team.