Signal Foundation

It's somewhat painful, but not because of spam. The pain all comes from jumping through hoops for the centralized providers (and then discovering that no matter how many hoops you jump through, it's never enough).

They came up with a good solution to the 'key signing party' problem.

Using public social media accounts to help prove identity is a good idea - it's a solution to the main problem that PGP had.

I think Facebook could have done something similar by generating key pairs for all users and then allowing third part access to the public keys (basically a huge public key server). For users that wanted their own private key off of Facebook they could upload their own public key. It's probably better with the keybase model though and using multiple social media accounts.

Or, conversely, modifications could add to the security value.

" Sure, they aren't required to use a product, but if you've been using Gtalk for years, and that's how everyone knows to get hold of you and how you get hold of people"

There's the problem right there. They created a dependency on a single provider that could turn on them at any time. Many providers have gone out of business or done unscrupulous things. One should always have alternatives if anything is really important. In this case, they usually solely rely on one provider for convenience when not also cost (sometimes trivial cost). Still true for things like Facebook.

They walked right into a big problem because convenience or apathy about risks trumped everything. From there, they can be forced in the way you describe to go along with what vendor wants. At that point, they might also start switching and/or avoid doing that sort of thing in the future. In many cases, they avoid the switching cost and do the same kinds of things in other services. Their very nature is to willingly create opportunities for suppliers to cause them problems.

Even as they do this, there's a small subset of the market doing either the opposite or taking steps to limit the damage which make me think this is more willing than forced. If anything, history has shown we have to use things like regulations to force market participants to behave more safely on average. They usually don't do it on their own because they don't want to or don't care. Seatbelts when driving are the classic example.

"The benefits of an open system aren't readily apparent to many people until they start experiencing the problems of a closed system."

I agree. We probably need a way to quickly present that when they make these choices. Enough of the market making an informed choice might sustain more alternatives that are better. This already happens with at least some of the FOSS market where the buyers specifically liked the benefits of open source. The wider, long-term effects you describe will also be interesting to watch. We might see some of the FOSS-friendly decisions on consumer side as they see the benefits or experience the detriments.

"Long time no see/read. Nice to have a conversation with you again. :)"

Likewise, buddy. Although I comment less, I've read plenty of yours. Usually insightful and enjoyable. :)

> They walked right into a big problem because convenience or apathy about risks trumped everything.

Well, or just lack of knowledge, and lack of knowledge about lack of knowledge. I think from our positions it's easy to overlook that. Sure, it seems like people are becoming more technically literate, and they are, but I think when it comes to knowing what you can do, and knowing what you should do, the latter comes well after the forming in almost all exploratory loarning (which internet usage mostly is). We've heard the historical stories (myths), that impart this knowledge. Usually we've lived a few cases of it as well. Even then, it doesn't always take right away, or we get caught out not heeding our own advice. I can't fault a largely novice internet populace for not having had the same conditioning we have.

That doesn't mean they are off the hook though. You're right, there's a shitload of ignoring the signs in favor of convenience and general apathy, it's just not the entire story.

> If anything, history has shown we have to use things like regulations to force market participants to behave more safely on average.

I agree with regulations. I just vastly prefer them to target the specific problems and not try to get too complex with mechanics. Sometimes that requires really looking into the problem, and it can be a hard sell if the general audience for choosing/voting the implementation doesn't have enough knowledge. In this case, I think a lot of the problem all stems from using personal information as currency. Strong regulations on the collection, notification, maintenance, and ability to force removal of personal information by remote entities would make what the real cost is of the systems obvious (you know what they collect and how it's used, or in some cases you know what actual money you pay since that will become a much more viable model again). Open source cometes well in that market, because the actual costs are all apparent instead of hidden.

> We probably need a way to quickly present that when they make these choices.

I have hope this is a problem that will be mostly solved through the normal way societal best practices are passed down, from mentors (parents, teachers, trusted authorities). We just need to get to a point where the mentors actually know this stuff, which requires time and them being bitten by it and learning the hard way, or reading about those stories, or eventually learning it from their mentors. When your Mom or Dad is usually the one that cautions you at an early age to beware any free service that might be trading on your personal info, we've reached a good equilibrium (but we'll still have issues with those that don't have as much access to mentors, which is a constant societal problem).