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Default disappearing messages

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Re: Default disappearing messages

#121

Post by EvanAnderson »

stavros wrote: post #61
EvanAnderson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My view is exactly the opposite. Having suffered from the "I thought you said..." problem (where other parties recall a verbal conversation differently than me, out of forgetfulness on either of our parts or to serve their interests) for so much of my life I welcome these ubiquitous devices that augment my memory and provide black and white clarity to what was actually said. I have no nostalgia for lossy recall and t…

When do you ever go back to double-check something someone has said, without them claiming they said something different? If you only do it to prove you were right, stop doing that, it's not a good look.

I'll qualify that the vast majority of my electronic correspondence is business-related. I just don't really do "personal" electronic communication (text messages, email, video chat) too much. Most of my thoughts are coming from a business perspective, though I do really value having my old personal correspondence too.

I'm not using my persistent records to "correct" anybody, per se. For very specific "offensive" scenarios, like taking a vendor to task for failing to meet requirements, for example, I'm glad of having the details in black-and-white. Good business dealings are done in writing, in my experience. It keeps all parties accountable and.

Aside from that "offensive" scenario my old communication records are there to augment my memory. They helps me assure I'm living up to expectations and promises, and they give me super-human ability to recall minute details.

If referring back to old communication suggested a pattern of inaccuracy or out-right lying on somebody's part I'd certainly use that to inform my future dealings with them. I think it'd be gauche to speak about it overtly to anybody (except maybe immediate family) but it would color my interactions.

Re: Default disappearing messages

#122

Post by jraph »

beermonster wrote: post #19
boondaburrah wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I've noticed is that Signal doesn't seem to care about privacy at all. They care a lot about security though, which is a different thing, and tell you that's privacy.

See Best WhatsApp alternatives that respect your privacy[1]. Signal has: Pros Free Very good encryption Almost no metadata kept Protocol independently audited Seamless to use on Android Disappearing messages E2EE text, voice, and video group chat Cons Requires a valid phone number to register Hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) [1] https://protonmail.com/blog/whatsapp-alternatives/

You can also add another big cons: the only supported way to run Signal is to own a device that runs code that you can't control on the main CPU (an iPhone; or an Android device, which also means running proprietary drivers in user space in practice). I know, I'm repeating myself.

You can manage to use Signal with most features without the need to run proprietary blobs by registering your phone number using signal-cli or axolotl (and maybe alternatives, but I haven't tried). They can run on a regular desktop or on a GNU/Linux phone, and then pairing Signal-Desktop with it. This is not straightforward, and forget convenience on the phone for now (I haven't managed to make groups work on UIs based on signal-cli though they theoretically should, Axolotl does not fully support new groups and by that I mean it's missing essential features like accepting an invitation).

Then, the blobs you are running are "only" in your phone's modem, unless you also managed to use some service providing SMS from the internet.

This is totally unsupported because it depends on alternative Signal clients that are not allowed on the Signal's network. For some reason Signal-cli and Axolotl don't seem to have been asked to stop from the Signal team, but it happened to a Signal fork, Free-Signal, which only goal was to de-blob Signal. And they are in their own right to do so, I'm not questioning this.

This is painful, really. Signal is so close to be great. Matrix / Element works well enough. It has rough edges but I (re)-discovered that Signal has some too and I'm not speaking about this whole situation.

Re: Default disappearing messages

#123

Post by stavros »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #121
stavros wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When do you ever go back to double-check something someone has said, without them claiming they said something different? If you only do it to prove you were right, stop doing that, it's not a good look.

I'll qualify that the vast majority of my electronic correspondence is business-related. I just don't really do "personal" electronic communication (text messages, email, video chat) too much. Most of my thoughts are coming from a business perspective, though I do really value having my old personal correspondence too. I'm not using my persistent records to "correct" anybody, per se. For very specific "offensive" sce…

Ah, yes, for business dealings I'd certainly want a record. I was talking more about personal relationships, where I generally want things deleted after a while.

Re: Default disappearing messages

#124

Post by pavon »

Rd6n6 wrote: post #3

The max timer is too short. 6 months would be a convenient value - enough time to reference the messages while they might be relevant, but also not floating around forever

Agreed. Also surprised to see how short the suggested times on pull-down list are. Many of them might make sense to set on a specific conversation, but are insanely short as a default for all conversations. I don't have my phone on me 24/7, and thus would never even see messages from a sender who used more than half of those options.

Re: Default disappearing messages

#126

Post by EvanAnderson »

stavros wrote: post #85
jan_Inkepa wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you only do it to prove you were right, stop doing that, it's not a good look. It seems fine to me if someone makes an error in recollection to correct them (if it's about something material). I mean there are more and less nice ways to do it, and you don't necessarily want to do it about everything, but it seems like a very odd rule of thumb to me to say "it's not a good look". Maybe you have a particular perso…

> It seems fine to me if someone makes an error in recollection to correct them (if it's about something material). What sort of error? The GP said "where other parties recall a verbal conversation differently than me", and what's the benefit there? You have two differing views of a conversation, you can say "oh well I meant X" and move on. There's no benefit in figuring out who got it wrong just to apportion blame.…

> The GP said "where other parties recall a verbal conversation differently than me", and what's the benefit there? You have two differing views of a conversation, you can say "oh well I meant X" and move on.

I recognize that two people may interpret a conversation differently. The ground truth of what was said has value, though.

If I know what was said I can work to tailor future my interactions with that party in an effort to prevent misunderstandings. I will certainly also try to suss-out if the other party has a pattern of apparently choosing to recollect conversations differently for their own ends (or maybe just has memory issues). It's going to color my interaction with that person. I don't "blame" them but I'm also not going to ignore information that could help me in future interactions. I'm not going to speak about it (because I think that would be in poor taste) but I'm certainly going to use that information to my benefit too.

If I find out that, though reviewing old communication, that my recollection is faulty I'm going to make things right, make amends as necessary. I'm also going to try to prevent it from happening in the future, too. I genuinely don't want to be a person who choose to recollect conversations differently for my own ends. That's impolite and not something I would ever want to do.

Re: Default disappearing messages

#128

Post by stavros »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #126
stavros wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems fine to me if someone makes an error in recollection to correct them (if it's about something material). What sort of error? The GP said "where other parties recall a verbal conversation differently than me", and what's the benefit there? You have two differing views of a conversation, you can say "oh well I meant X" and move on. There's no benefit in figuring out who got it wrong just to apportion blame.…

> The GP said "where other parties recall a verbal conversation differently than me", and what's the benefit there? You have two differing views of a conversation, you can say "oh well I meant X" and move on. I recognize that two people may interpret a conversation differently. The ground truth of what was said has value, though. If I know what was said I can work to tailor future my interactions with that party in a…

Hmm, that's reasonable as well, though I generally find that misunderstandings are more about "I said X and I thought it was only interpretable one way but apparently there was also another interpretation and that's what the listener got". It's not that common (at least in my group) that this is done out of malice, and I'd probably notice if someone had a pattern of "misremembering" conversations for benefit.

I see your point, though I still think that deleting them is a better default, as I prefer my everyday chats to be ephemeral. Certainly I wouldn't want them lasting for years.

Re: Default disappearing messages

#129

Post by hemiv12 »

hhlbf wrote: post #127
hemiv12 wrote: post #125

Signal associates users to their phone numbers. Does this mean if they are subpoenaed by the government they can give the list of their users ?

Is this a rhetorical question?

No I have Signal installed and also have recently came across Session Messenger. I like Signals user experience and was wondering if there are systemic risks to using it.

Re: Default disappearing messages

#130

Post by EvanAnderson »

gherkinnn wrote: post #49
EvanAnderson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My view is exactly the opposite. Having suffered from the "I thought you said..." problem (where other parties recall a verbal conversation differently than me, out of forgetfulness on either of our parts or to serve their interests) for so much of my life I welcome these ubiquitous devices that augment my memory and provide black and white clarity to what was actually said. I have no nostalgia for lossy recall and t…

That’s exactly the beauty. Not being beholden to the exact phrasing of something texted a year ago. It doesn’t matter. The Entire History Of You was spot on. Interrupting conversations with “lemme check that” followed by fondling a phone is a nasty habit anyway.

We are beholden to what we say whether it's recorded verbatim or in the biological memories of others. I'd rather be beholden to an exact record versus fallible and mutable human memory. I try to choose my words very carefully. I can't control somebody else's memory about what I said. If they're "offloading" that memory to a data storage mechanism I can at least be reasonably assured my original words will be preserved.

re: interrupting conversations - Yeah. That sounds like a dick move, and not something I'd do. The whole "I'll go look this up on xxx reference site" that some people inject into conversations can be maddening. Rarely do I hold a phone or look at a screen while I'm talking to others. I wish more people did that.

I do think there's good value in referencing old communication if it's something the parties agree has value. If I'm working with somebody to make a decision that could be better-informed by way of looking up old communication I'm going to suggest it, but I'm not going to actually do it unsolicited.

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