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Brave Talk – Privacy-Preserving Video Conferencing

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Re: Brave Talk – Privacy-Preserving Video Conferencing

#221

Post by BrendanEich »

smoldesu wrote: post #170
BrendanEich wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"damage"? Be serious. Brave even at 40M users has not done enough to the Web to merit such fake-drama langauge from you. What's your issue?

I'll gladly explain for the other people who might be scrolling by, since time immemorial has proven that user feedback falls on deaf ears at BraveCorp. The internet is not made "good" by by browser manufacturers. This is something we fought about when Chrome assumed dominance, and it holds true today. The thing that makes the internet good is content: a perfect browser does literally nothing except format content pr…

You are quite mistaken on "format content properly", as Firefox based on Gecko does not agree in detail (esp. on mobile) with Chrome, so people tend to go to Chrome over time. Worse, as Firefox loses share on this basis (among others), sites whose webdevs test in Chrome and Safari only (Edge is Chromium-based) tend to break Firefox. This spirals down. But keep pretending browsers are passive, blind formatting engines!

In fact Google did Chrome because it learned from Firefox that browsers are high-value user agents, and if they camouflage as passive/blind agents, then the big tech network superpower can have its way with the user, both through top sites such as Google search tied into default omnibus search engine setting, and over time via Google's browser tying (an antitrust term) other Google products, Google's accounts and analytics systems, and even full ad-exchange user-tracking, into its browser.

As for user feedback falling on deaf ears, you are simply making stuff up. Chrome ignores user complaints, Firefox too (roasted endlessly over killing XUL add-ons, Proton UX, etc.). Brave is all over Twitter and Reddit and we do live customer support there. I spend a good chunk of every day on it.

As Chesterton put it, one can always be blind to a thing so long as it is big enough. That seems to be the case with you and your "format content properly" statement here. If you are a Chrome user, I hope you disable account-based tracking in your Google account(s). If you use Firefox, ditto, and beware tracking pixels they whitelist on Google's SERP.

Re: Brave Talk – Privacy-Preserving Video Conferencing

#222

Post by BrendanEich »

input_sh wrote: post #205
BrendanEich wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dictionary time again: verb: replace; 3rd person present: replaces; past tense: replaced; past participle: replaced; gerund or present participle: replacing 1. take the place of. "Ian's smile was replaced by a frown" 2. put (something) back in a previous place or position. "he drained his glass and replaced it on the bar" Using "replace" implies in situ (which is false as you admit), or else you seem to think the pag…

If I take your laptop and put a different one two meters away, I've still replaced it. If I take your glass at the bar to fill it up, is there a requirement that I place it in the exact same position as your previous one, or is there a pretty big margin of error? What makes screen estate different than that? In general, I'm all for the concept of micropayments to websites. But your implementation, weasly language (li…

Between Brave Rewards being opt-in, our putting ads into the user's -- not the site's -- "inventory", and private matching on-device/in-browser with anonymous confirmation, I think we are nothing like a "replaced" ad in a publisher page. If you don't agree, I won't try further to explicate your category and concrete errors -- just don't use Brave! But be careful what you do use. uBO recommended.

Re: Brave Talk – Privacy-Preserving Video Conferencing

#223

Post by BrendanEich »

BrendanEich wrote: post #200
rank0 wrote: post #198

Honestly I’m glad to see some disruption in the web advertising space. I’m not sure I understand Braves claim about “sharing revenue” with rewards users. Rewards users are getting paid in BAT no? I assume Brave is getting paid in USD. Do they have an arbitrary treasury of BAT tokens? It seems like Brave isn’t sharing any revenue if they’re paying out in tokens they created. Can’t they just create more BAT tokens or s…

BAT is capped by its genesis contract at 1.5B tokens, we can't make any more. It has broad and deep liquidity. Most ad buyers pay in fiat, but some pay in BAT, USDC, etc. When paid not in BAT, we take 70% of the gross revenue and buy BAT with market orders, to send to users as their ad revenue shares. See https://brave.com/transparency for these purchases. This makes a buy side for the ecosystem (there are others com…

Needless to say (I hope, but hostile and skeptical folks here), when the ad buyer does pay us in BAT, we send 70% directly to the rewards users based on anonymous confirmation protocol (blind signature certs; putting on a fast blockchain via THEMIS soon). That is to say, we always pay the opted-in rewards user 70% of gross.

Re: Brave Talk – Privacy-Preserving Video Conferencing

#224

Post by BrendanEich »

warkdarrior wrote: post #197
BrendanEich wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one in the middle sees unencrypted video. Two-party is fully end-to-end encrypted. We avoid overusing that overloaded phrase for multiparty and we're working on defenses against active (zoom bomb) attacks, that do not require a login. So any face scanner on a multiparty call would have to be someone the host invited who is doing face scanning at their endpoint where the cryptographic session terminates and video g…

Do you have plans to support monetization of video chat? This would be a nice competitor to OnlyFans. Also, what is your approach to CSAM? Do you plan to go the Apple route and do endpoint scanning?

Apple whiffed it with NeuralHash, didn't they? Hard problem.

We don't host content. For Brave Search, we have been using a neat trick: not serving pages that Google doesn't index (we can cheaply test in our service with no privacy loss), but as we scale up, we are looking at top vendors who can help filter.

Re: Brave Talk – Privacy-Preserving Video Conferencing

#226

Post by BrendanEich »

hrez wrote: post #225

So, BAT is required to use it? I wonder how all the US BAT users plan to answer IRS 1040 question "did you receive, sell, send, exchange, or otherwise acquire any financial interest in any virtual currency?"

No, BAT is not required. Rewards opt in is, but you can then turn off Brave Ads.

I use bitcoin.tax and recommend it (for no compensation). Are you just anti-crypto in general?

Re: Brave Talk – Privacy-Preserving Video Conferencing

#227

Post by BrendanEich »

BrendanEich wrote: post #152
DonHopkins wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you claim to be so honest and open and brave, then please finally and truthfully answer my questions about all the damage you intentionally inflicted on same sex couples in California, by donating your money to the Proposition 8 campaign, who used your money to produce hateful anti-gay propaganda full of outright lies and "fake drama language", like this "Gathering Storm" ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Az…

Never funded NOM or that video, Don. Try not lying so much about me. Once again, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28621826 .

Link to not-deleted message: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12721891

Re: Brave Talk – Privacy-Preserving Video Conferencing

#228

Post by rank0 »

BrendanEich wrote: post #223
BrendanEich wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BAT is capped by its genesis contract at 1.5B tokens, we can't make any more. It has broad and deep liquidity. Most ad buyers pay in fiat, but some pay in BAT, USDC, etc. When paid not in BAT, we take 70% of the gross revenue and buy BAT with market orders, to send to users as their ad revenue shares. See https://brave.com/transparency for these purchases. This makes a buy side for the ecosystem (there are others com…

Needless to say (I hope, but hostile and skeptical folks here), when the ad buyer does pay us in BAT, we send 70% directly to the rewards users based on anonymous confirmation protocol (blind signature certs; putting on a fast blockchain via THEMIS soon). That is to say, we always pay the opted-in rewards user 70% of gross.

Thanks for the reply! I appreciate you taking the time to respond to comments like mine. I tried brave several years ago but it seems the ecosystem has developed quite a bit since then so I’ll give it another go.

Re: Brave Talk – Privacy-Preserving Video Conferencing

#229

Post by blitzar »

BrendanEich wrote: post #216
blitzar wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jitsi is eating that cost. Nothing is free. Brave is eating that cost. Nothing is free. btw. thanks for the circular conversation. utterly pointless.

No, it's not pointless. Jitsi's terms allow them to get calldata and other metadata, Brave's do not. Equating all "free" legs or free-only services is a good way to get pwned. Good luck!

Except they do not. Good luck.

Re: Brave Talk – Privacy-Preserving Video Conferencing

#230

Post by open-paren »

BrendanEich wrote: post #180
open-paren wrote: post #4

To start a call, there is a requirement that you are 1) Using the Brave Browser 2) Have Brave Rewards (their crypto-and-ads service) turned on. Not loving that. Edit: the first one is fine (although a little strange that it is a requirement here but not for their other products, like Brave Search). I'm irked by the second one.

The first one is because we have to use native code with our partner for a user hosting a call to create one. After the call is up, any modern browser can be used to join, given the unique link provided by the host. The second one, I addressed directly for all Brave products that have significant fixed and per-user/usage costs, the other week on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/pl2lgi/comment/...…

Thanks Brendan. I'll give it a try next time I need to make a video call.
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