Matt Galligan
@mg
XMTP is getting Universal Allow/Block Prefs (✅/🛑) and I’m stoked. You can read the technical details of XIP-42 here (https://community.xmtp.org/t/xip-42-universal-allow-and-block-preferences/544), but I also wanted to share what went into it and how it makes the /xmtp experience way better. So what is it? 👇
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Matt Galligan
@mg
Most modern messaging apps have features to allow or block senders. Late last year, popular XMTP inbox apps also added allow/block, but the local choices didn’t persist across. This led to inconsistency, and a user’s inbox’s contents might look different app-to-app. 😱
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Matt Galligan
@mg
Predicting this, @converseapp's @polmaire.eth suggested a solution (https://github.com/xmtp/XIPs/pull/28/files) that would allow for sharing allow/block across apps. Today XIP-42 introduces contact permissioning that's shared among a user’s inbox apps at the network-level, in a way that preserves privacy.
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Matt Galligan
@mg
With messages from new senders, users choose allow/block + their app will broadcast the choice to XMTP as a non-displayable “metamessage” which maps the contact permission to the sender, privately. When the user opens other apps, their choice is read and local state is updated.
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Matt Galligan
@mg
Contact permission metamessages shared by inbox apps are immutable, encrypted, anonymized, and only usable by a recipient and the apps they give permission to. This also goes for the sender whose permission is being affected. A recipient’s choice is private to them.
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Matt Galligan
@mg
Allow/block has been available in most XMTP inbox apps, and while it’s early days for XIP-42’s approach, all major inbox apps have already implemented it or plan to do so soon. It's worth noting, that this flavor of allow/block isn't yet enforced at the protocol level…
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Matt Galligan
@mg
I think that app-level, shared contact permissions are a massive leap forward for inbox management. It’s a pragmatic approach to the problem that can be implemented today. There are some in the XMTP community (me too) that are also interested in exploring network-level enforcement—more on that later.
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