"[...] used against suspected terrorists, pedophiles and other serious criminals."
This isn't even a slippery slope, 'suspected, other serious criminals' is subjective enough to apply at will in any instance.
We need decentralized communication
11–20 of 61 posts
Re: We need decentralized communication
#12> Decentralization is paramount to restoring privacy and freedom to the internet. We have to start with reconquering our phones. A decentralized app cannot be hinged on a centralized appstore.
Where's my sledgehammer these days...?
This looks like a throwaway answer, but it's really the only right one: the only phone that offers privacy or anonymity is one that is smashed to dust. Anyone who is concerned for their security in any way beyond, "Hey, don't tell Jim, okay?," should never, ever use their phone, and I don't see a way to fix that. The makers of phone hardware, the software providers, and the service providers are completely unworthy of trust, and I can't see that changing.
Re: We need decentralized communication
#13A big thing that annoys me about buzzwords like "decentralized" is that they're not binary. Another one that's largely lost meaning is "blockchain". Decentralized is relative and depends entirely on the context.
They do tend to represent ideas like anti-censorship, individualism, and (sometimes) privacy. I think it makes more sense to discuss these topics in terms of the actual implication of what you're decentralizing, and how it actually helps.
For example, the Internet itself is decentralized. But from the perspective of your particular ISP, it's not at all decentralized (if your ISP turns off your Internet, it's game over).
Email is also decentralized, but so what? Most people use the same email providers so it's somewhat meaningless for SMTP itself to be decentralized. Google can still read your emails.
The problem with using these terms instead of more tangible language (i.e., language that describes what the thing is actually doing) is that they tend to get hijacked by scammers/marketers who just want to harness their popularity for their own ends.
Re: We need decentralized communication
#14There’s some juicy irony in seeing “We need decentralized communication (medium.com)”. I see no mention the the elephant in the room.
Re: We need decentralized communication
#15You want to send something sensitive, mail a letter. In the US, the protections on ease dropping on physical mail is quite good. Requires an actual warrant in an actual court, unlike most electronic communications.
Otherwise, assume your communications are being collected and perused.
Re: We need decentralized communication
#16There’s some juicy irony in seeing “We need decentralized communication (medium.com)”. I see no mention the the elephant in the room.
I can just imagine it: "But you see, I'm only using medium.com because it's convenient. Other people shouldn't, but I'm just using it for now and will switch to something better, someday. I just don't have time at the moment."
I don't think there's anything wrong with using Medium, but this is always where decentralization/security/open-protocols utopia seems to die: convenience and the UX. Where everyone seems to be trying to convince you that something like IRC is the best while using Discord because it's better.
Re: We need decentralized communication
#17A big thing that annoys me about buzzwords like "decentralized" is that they're not binary. Another one that's largely lost meaning is "blockchain". Decentralized is relative and depends entirely on the context. They do tend to represent ideas like anti-censorship, individualism, and (sometimes) privacy. I think it makes more sense to discuss these topics in terms of the actual implication of what you're decentralizi…
Well, in the context of privacy decentralization doesn't have a lot of meanings. Just a couple, like leaking as little information as possible to a single party and giving as little control as possible to a single party, because if you can't trust a single party having to trust many independent parties with much less information and control is much better for privacy (theoretically not a single party should be able to decode a single bit of useful information about others, even a resoursful malicious party doing sybil attacks, etc.).
Re: We need decentralized communication
#18There’s some juicy irony in seeing “We need decentralized communication (medium.com)”. I see no mention the the elephant in the room.
If you can't beat them, join 'em. At least until you can.
Re: We need decentralized communication
#19https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbWfzyQBWrU
> Most Popular Instant Messengers 1997 - 2019
WhatsApp has approx. 2 billion users. The beginning of that video starts out with messengers (not including things like IRC and email) that have a few million.
This is just the Eternal September effect.
You and I can just crack out nginx and host a site. The author of this post didn't even do that; what hope is there for the rest?
An instant messenger, even a secure one, needs a proper marketing budget in order to succeed out in the real world. It doesn't just need to be superior - it needs to be _advertised_.
Re: We need decentralized communication
#20There’s some juicy irony in seeing “We need decentralized communication (medium.com)”. I see no mention the the elephant in the room.
If you can't beat them, join 'em. At least until you can.
A technically-inclined person can beat them pretty easily (at least on the privacy/ethics front) by spending $5 on a Digital Ocean droplet and spinning up Nginx.