Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#301

Post by asim » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 4:49 PM UTC

sakawa wrote: post #272

asim wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it's like any real world thing, potentially non profit. A group of people elected to run public services for everyone else which people pay a fair amount to use. Something that's constantly reviewed, where new members can join and others can move on.

Yes, on a small scale, but they do exist! Just look up at Riseup, Disroot weho.st, or Autistici/Inventati.

Thanks for pointing those out. I think it could be done on a larger scale but only with buy in from the community and starting with one or two specific services e.g email or app infrastructure.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#302

Post by eli » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 4:51 PM UTC

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #42

cglan wrote: post #26

Having your own email/domain isn’t about privacy. Email has become essentially the key to almost everything in modern life. If I lose access to my email I lose access to basically everything I own and it would be a massive hassle to switch emails. Banks, schools, apps, etc. Often times these services won’t even let you change to a new email if you don’t have access to an existing one. Some use email as 2factor. It’s…

Is it known that domain registrars are better than GMail in this regard? Not asking sarcastically, but I had my domain taken over by registrar(not released to public, just registrar took control of it) after few week of notice when auto renew failed to charge my credit card, and my credit card was working fine elsewhere. Also many registrar like Namecheap cancelled subscription for Russian customers during this invas…

Yes. Not all registrars are equally well run, but google accounts get closed for unclear reasons with no appeals all the time.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#303

Post by TillE » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:01 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #169

Barrin92 wrote: post #30

">I have run my own email server which I use for all of my non-work correspondence. I do so to keep autonomy, control, and privacy over my email" if you want to retain control or privacy over correspondence, email is a horrible medium because by design anything can be forwarded, shared and copy&pasted trivially and this is done all the time. One guy is enough to leak an entire email chain. Good rule for email is, tre…

> Good rule for email is, treat writing email as if you're speaking publicly. ...and if you treat it that way, then it's not a "horrible medium" (for "publicly", I would prefer to substitute "on the record"). If you don't like email, that's cool; there are plenty of other messaging services you can use instead. But: - Your bank doesn't use them - Your friends don't use them - They are usually proprietary and opaque -…

> - Your friends don't use them

Nobody under like 40 uses email for personal communication.

Yeah it's a legacy medium for stuff like your bank, maybe it's the least terrible option for B2B communication, but email has largely been replaced already.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#304

Post by brnt » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

MrPatan wrote: post #89

Unencrypted email is not private, never has been, never will be. The real problem is handing over your digital identity to Google, not the content of emails.

What I dislike is that email addresses have become the primary key of online identity. Many services don't even have usernames anymore. I still think that government should furnish something like an online postal address. Protected with gov issued hardware keys (U2F?), white listing for recipients maybe. To be used only for gov business, banking, gas, water, etc. If those things are essential to life, and in turn depend heavily on email (here they do for sure), they should not be handled by fickle Big Tech.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#305

Post by jeffbee » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:14 PM UTC

mro_name wrote: post #99

what is the thing with gmail in 2022 other than lock in?

Price? Best-in-class search? Availability?

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#306

Post by rglullis » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:16 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #256

rglullis wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me how decentralized services allow applications to be permissionless, censorship- and sybil-resistant without a blockchain. I will make both of us rich.

‘Make both of us rich’ is exactly what we’re afraid of.

What are you afraid of, really? People that can make innovations?

My point was that the reason that people are doing all this work on the blockchain because no other solution has been shown to be better. Anyone that says "blockchain is not needed for that" should at least provide a better solution, or say "I actually prefer to keep the status quo".

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#307

Post by rglullis » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #258

rglullis wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You are talking about three different groups and you calling both by the same "they": - One "they" is the Ethereum developers making new developments and proposing changes to the "main" blockchain. - The other "they" is the thousands of people who are developing and using applications that can be used by the most people, and care (mostly) about having one blockchain where they can reach the most people. - The thi…

You're splitting hairs. Sure, your carefully constructed "microtheys" don't have the power you fear. But someone does [1]. And they act. And have. [1] As currently constructed, it (probably) requires a 51% attack by staked ETH owners. There's a lot more wealth concentration on the blockchain than you think there is, this isn't a lot of actual people!

> someone does.

Who?! Give it a name, or set of names.

I'm all for healthy skepticism, but you are far from it.

> There's a lot more wealth concentration on the blockchain

First, with Ethereum you need 67% of the staked ETH to make an attack on the network.

Second, stakers do not have power to change consensus rules. They are not able to dictate how people transact (not without losing their take) and they are not able to change transactions.

Third, do you understand that even if one single entity had that much power to launch an attack of the network, it would not be in their interest to do so? If the network got to be controlled by any single entity, the other people would simply lose confidence on it, they would stop using it and then all of the staked token would lose its value.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#308

Post by eropple » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

juunpp wrote: post #61

eropple wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Online gatherings" as in 1:M live streams, or "online gatherings" as in "pack everyone into a WebRTC room and hope it holds"? Because Twitch and YouTube do the former and I don't see anything in BBB that natively emits HLS or DASH. I see plugins that will talk to an RTMP server, but that leaves a very long row to hoe. 1:M live streaming is very, very difficult to get right--it's is why video providers can charge so…

Basically 1:M, or N:M with N It works relatively well on a beefy BBB instance. Jitsi from my experience craps out on low-bandwidth scenarios, but I've attended BBB meetings of respectable size with no issue.

WebRTC as currently implemented has very hard and by its nature has very low audience caps. There's a reason why WebRTC-to-HLS gateways exist; WebRTC by itself isn't substitutable, and if you're going to act like this I'd think there's a pretty significant onus upon you to provide something substitutable.

The substitutable thing is "another content provider that does HLS or equivalent", and we're back where we started, because doing so independently, as discussed in another subthread, either costs a lot of money or comes with compromising tradeoffs, as well as a support burden that somebody has to pay for and do.

Independent web video is mostly awful. The best answers are bad ones. Sorry.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#309

Post by rglullis » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

latexr wrote: post #253

rglullis wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you’re still at the mercy of external entities The people that didn't agree with the "DAO fork" continued on the original chain. None of them were forced to follow the majority. This is a huge important difference.

> None of them were forced to follow the majority. This is a huge important difference. Quite the contrary, it’s a meaningless difference. Most systems have that feature. Imagine everyone in your friends circle uses Signal. Then they decide to change to WhatsApp but you and one other refuse to do so. No one forces you to follow the majority, you simply deal with the consequences of not doing so. For example, you may…

You are (once again?) changing the actors and the power relationships between them and pretending it doesn't matter.

It's one thing to have "your friends" moving from one network to another. It's a completely different thing to have a network where there is an owner who can kick you out unilaterally.

None of the people that are using Ethereum Classic are disallowed to ever use ETH if they so want. They haven't been censored to continue participating in that network. It's just that to participate they must accept that the consensus of truth has changed.

Re: Google has most of my email because it has all of yours (2014)

#310

Post by rglullis » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:32 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #275

rglullis wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> losing ability to log into sites and services is what really scares me about losing my email. That is also not a problem. Maybe current "login with web3" implementations rely only on your primary ENS record for authentication, but there is nothing stopping a MFA system where the ENS name is only one of the factors. E.g: you could build a system that uses ENS as the first factor and a regular PGP client cert as the…

Let me repeat my question: > how does a web3 domain name solve the domain problem any better than just buying a domain? I don't see how you addressed that. Apparently we would need to implement whole new systems? I understand, you gotta bring try to bring it into the domain and get belligerent to obfuscate the answers to simple questions, but I don't see how this addresses my concern. > stop arguing like you are the…

> how does a web3 domain name solve the domain problem any better than just buying a domain?

Was that your question? The answer is simple: once you lease (ENS only works with leases, just like traditional domain registrars, so I'll void the term "buy") a web3 domain, there is no one that can unilaterally take it away from you.

> Ah, ok, so this is all in theory.

Not exactly. It's possible, but impractical. If you are willing to accept the really poor UX and the lack of general adoption, you could build such a system today.