351–356 of 356 posts
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if you can't tell the difference between real news and fake news, what makes you think `$whatever_arbiter` will do a better job?
Why did you ask me a question totally unrelated to my post? I am not sure that I do think $$whatever_organization can do better, but perhaps it has more resources to issue corrections.
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> The whole Cambridge Analytica issue was caused by APIs that are too open. For distributed systems there are more ways to exploit the APIs and gather data on users. Huh? Scuttlebutt is fully encrypted.. doesn't that make the API vastly more locked down than Facebook/etc? > There is a clear issue with Facebook's accountability in these areas. Distributed systems are typically open source, they run on multiple servers…
I see that you don't understand the problems raised. About accountability: if YOU are compromised, your friends' data are compromised, and vice versa. Are you saying that the median security skill of your friends are higher than Facebook? Because any of them can leak your data unintentionally. About encryption: it's freaking useless in this case. Remember, some people fall for Nigeria prince scam. And what happen whe…
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> having a mechanism to delete your messages on other people's systems when they sync would probably go a long way. It is my understanding at the moment that it's not scientifically possible to do this. If I'm mistaken I would love to hear a proposal for doing this, but I don't understand how full read access can be revokable once you have the data and a way to decrypt it. DRM doesn't count/work.
Not technically possible currently (well, last I checked). A client could be configured to send a "please delete message id 29342" type post, but other clients would have to know how to understand that and to honor it. The functionality would be similar to "sender has recalled this message" in exchange. Also, the way the protocol works is that clients discover the most recent log entry number, and then request all "m…
From what I understand of SSB,it works by distributing messages to receiving users as part of a blockchain, making all messages effectively public, even if not published with the goal of giving the public access. But maybe similar functionality could be added by setting up private "clubs" - pub servers set up by groups of users who know and trust each other - which would play the same role as a Hubzilla hub, storing private messages and displaying them to users who can authenticate correctly.
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I think your post hints at a general schizophrenia in the latest, culture-war-fueled push against Facebook. On the one hand, the public debate is still significantly dominated by the old guard of anti-Facebook activists, whose objectives can be summarised as "Facebook's power over its users must be reduced". On the other, the renewed interest in doing /something/ about Facebook in the wake of Cambridge Analytica and…
I think grandparent's point was that the first cause you mention - reducing FB's power over users - does nothing for the users if this power instead goes to other 3rd parties, and perhaps even grows. GP points out that in a distributed social network, 3rd parties can still mine your data, you still have trouble permanently erasing information, and in fact these problems grow instead of shrink. From a user's POV, what…
* make the effort to learn how to set up and maintain your own instance of your chosen federated social app. You get to decide exactly what data is and isn't shared with the network. You don't depend on the goodwill of any third party , or their security competence (just your own).
* find a geek you know, and get them to host an instance for you. There is a third party, but it's someone you personally know and presumably trust.
* find a public instance run by a collective or organisation you trust to care about your privacy and know how to protect it, eg some people might trust the motives and competence of EFF, or their country's civil liberties organisation (eg ACLU in the US), or a collective like RiseUp.net or Disroot.org.
While export/ import of accounts between instances is an unsolved problem at present (Hubzilla can do it using Nomadic Identity but only between Hubzilla instances), the devs of all the federated apps are aware of it as a major pain point, and work is underway to implement it. In the meantime, if you're willing to go to the trouble of re-following and nagging all your followers to re-follow, you can move between the 3 options above at will. FB and other datafarms offer you none of these options.
EDIT: formatting
wtf were they thinking when they named it that? if any non joke product with "butt" in the name ever succeeds, I will eat my hat.
Hate to be a jerk, but the name is all wrong. Again, I apologize, it's just the mood I'm in, but seriously, the name.