Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism
281–290 of 342 posts
Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism
#282> The company’s aggressive pursuit of growth, coupled with lack of moderation in the app, has already led Signal employees themselves to publicly question whether growth might come from abusive users, such as far-right groups using Signal to organize. Lol what? What exactly does far-right mean in this case? Why intersperse irrelevant political digs at another ill-defined faction? Does far-right just mean non-progress…
> Does far-right just mean non-progressive and conservative? It depends how far you go. Does far-left just mean non-conservative and progressive? There's of course a subjective element to the answer, but there's objective arguments to be had as well, but in a specific context and timeframe. For example, being opposed to abortion rights was once considered normal except in far-left circles where anarchists such as Emm…
Excuse me, if being against abortion rights is far-right, most of the right is far-right
Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
People are just now fed up with those things, at their lowest point in history?
Of course people are fed up with those things. They also have the ability to organize and make noise about it. That, combined with polarization, as I've said, heightens both the activism and the perception of such activism.
I think polarization is the main cause. Demagogues love to craft an "us vs them" narrative, pose as heroes of the "us" side, and plenty of gullible people fall for it with gusto. Mentally, we're still monkeys who will follow a strong leader without questioning.
Mind you, demagogues are not only politicians, they can be human rights activists, teachers, businessmen, neighbors, etc. Emotion managing should be a mandatory class at basic school, so many of us need to think with our heads instead of our guts.
Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
They don't have to weaken the crypto. If you go "on the list", they just send you new code that starts using weak/no encryption. If you aren't on the list, then you'll never see this. The problem with Signal (and anything like Signal) is not the server code, but the client code distributed through app stores. We have had email encryption for decades without ever having to trust any email servers.
Is your claim that this is currently happening? If so, why has nobody detected it? Since such code would have to be distributed to user devices, it would be detectable. Also, did you know that Signal is distributed through multiple channels? The iOS App Store, Google Play, F-Droid, as well as directly through Signal's website. Given this, how could they target an individual with tampered binaries in a way that they c…
Pegasus was much, much more intrusive than a targeted payload from the Play Store and it took years before that was discovered.
Note that Signal is specifically not allowed to be distributed outside of their own apk download and Google/Apple. They have made that repeatedly clear and will take measures against such distribution.
Security is not a scalar. It is probably better for the mass audience but worse if your adversaries includes Google employees.
Take note of your threat model. From what we know of three letter agencies, they probably won't bother. They prefer spyware-like control of the end device. That way they don't need to target the encryption of individual apps, it is far more effective to collect communications after it is decrypted and read by the target.
Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sylvia Garcia is a Democratic senator from Texas and she sponsored the EARN IT Act two of the times they tried to shove it down our throats. That would have forced sites to backdoor any encryption.
I see, thank you. I wouldn't say this counts as censorship the sense we're talking about though right?
I wouldn't put it in the same category as book burning, but if the law had passed it would certainly have resulted in censorship.
> Although the content the EARN IT Act seeks to regulate is abhorrent and the government’s interest in stopping the creation and distribution of that content is compelling, the First Amendment still requires that the law be narrowly tailored to address those weighty concerns. Yet, given the bill’s broad scope, it will inevitably force online platforms to censor the constitutionally protected speech of their users. (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/earn-it-act-violates-c...)
The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2020 (EARN IT Act) amends an existing federal law to force online platforms into changing how they moderate content online by scanning and censoring more of their users’ communications. (https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/the-earn-it-act-is-a-d...)
If it’s hard for a provider to tell what’s unlawful, but it’ll face legal liability if it gets it wrong, then the obvious incentive is for the provider to avoid the danger zone and censor lots of lawful content along with the unlawful content, just in case. This is exactly why Section 230 immunity is so important, because without it, platforms would constantly censor a lot of legal speech by their American users – maybe your speech – as a byproduct of trying to censor illegal speech, for fear that if they didn’t cast a wide net, some illegal speech would slip through and they’d get sued for it. (https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/03/earn-it-act-uncon...)
Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
When someone says “far right” they usually mean roughly what the Wikipedia article describes. I don’t see any reason to suppose that the phrase is being used in a novel or unusual sense in the article, so I wonder if the question is being asked rhetorically. But if the poster really just wants to know what “far right” means, then the Wikipedia article explains it.
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The original question was what “far right” refers to in the article. My assumption is that the Signal employees mentioned had roughly the same thing in mind as the Wikipedia article. You may not like the term “far right” (after all, both “far left” and “far right” are usually used pejoratively), but there is little doubt as to what it means in this context.
Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It may be that Signal pioneered E2EE chat Also false. XMPP OTR existed long prior.
I think the question is who popularized it. Arguably, Signal did, by bringing it (both via its own app and via its protocol) to the masses.
The question is who 'pioneered' it, not who 'popularized' it.
Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism
#288People should switch to SimpleX instead: https://simplex.chat
Is that related to Twitter, I mean X?
Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
The authors of the Declaration of Independence are also the authors of the Constitution, premised in part on English Common Law, in which the public is entitled to every man's evidence.
I think "entitled to every man's evidence" means that there is a compulsory subpoena power to make people testify. One can call a hostile witness, and in the absence of a corresponding privilege against testifying, the witness can be punished for refusing to testify, as a contemnor (or for testifying falsely, as a perjuror). This idea is distinct from search and covert eavesdropping powers, which may have also existe…
Yeah, I don't think the public claim to every person's evidence vindicates dragnet surveillance! I think these are complicated issues, we can make our own policy decisions and we can find a right to privacy even if one didn't exist at the time of the founders.
I'm just reacting to the notion that we've departed from the principles of the founders by giving law enforcement access to evidence. My impression, from the bit of reading I've done, is that wouldn't have shocked the conscience of the founders at all.
Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
There doesn't really have to be a moral basis nor does there have to be consent. You can refuse, and you can choose to live outside of society. That might be very difficult, but you have the choice. For many, society doesn't provide any advantages and so they choose non-compliance and all the consequences that come with it.
You cannot choose to live outside of society. See: Waco, Rubgy Ridge, etc. You cannot even choose to renounce the citizenship that you did not want, never asked for, and never consented to, without getting another citizenship first. The social contract is the only contract in the world that you can be legally bound to the terms of without ever having agreed to it. In this way, the government acts very much like any o…
> You cannot choose to live outside of society.
Sure you can -- just head off to https://www.thecollector.com/bir-tawil-unclaimed-land/ and enjoy your isolation!