Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]

media.ccc.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 93 posts

Re: The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]

#21

Post by dijit »

thekyle wrote: post #5

So in the beginning of the presentation Moxie brings up some valid cases where it's good that centralized services can rapidly iterate and improve such as WhatsApp being able to roll out end-to-end encryption with a single update, while email is still not encrypted despite the tools existing to do so for years. Basically centralized services can roll out changes quickly and decentralized ones are more or less set in…

Why not use something like an email address instead of a phone number though. A phone number can be used to track you in the real world, it’s worse than having someone’s IP in some cases.

In fact some countries (Russia, at least) require you to give over Government issued ID when you get a new phone number. So it’s directly tied to your real persona, this is not just one country doing that either. I believe it is also a requirement in the UK now too. (They’re combating “burner” phones)

Re: The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]

#22

Post by hobofan »

j88439h84 wrote: post #14
saurik wrote: post #3

In this video, Moxie Marlinspike--the developer of Signal, someone who has been consistently extremely negative on not just the idea of federated and decentralized systems but of open protocols and alternative clients for centralized systems (to the point where it shocks me he still does any development as open source, given how hard he pushes on the idea that people who fork his clients are actively doing something…

Does Signal have any advantages over Riot? Riot is a popular client, though not the only one. Competition is good. http://riot.im/

> Does Signal have any advantages over Riot?

I think you meant to write Matrix?

Re: The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]

#23

Post by ekianjo »

thekyle wrote: post #5

So in the beginning of the presentation Moxie brings up some valid cases where it's good that centralized services can rapidly iterate and improve such as WhatsApp being able to roll out end-to-end encryption with a single update, while email is still not encrypted despite the tools existing to do so for years. Basically centralized services can roll out changes quickly and decentralized ones are more or less set in…

There is no good reason to require a phone number when you realise the downsides of it. Since everyone has an email anyway I dont see how requiring a phone number is an advantage. You can lose access to a phone but losing access to an email that is available across devices is a lot more difficult.

Re: The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]

#24

Post by ekianjo »

Ninn wrote: post #17
Glosster wrote: post #16

Why is he saying that email is not encrypted? Isn't it actually encrypted when traveling from server to client? Who uses ports without SSL or TSL anymore?

He is referencing end to end encryption. Google can see Your to/from/subject/metadata headers even if you bother to use gpg

Nothing prevents you from not using Gmail.

Re: The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]

#25

Post by BiteCode_dev »

dijit wrote: post #21
thekyle wrote: post #5

So in the beginning of the presentation Moxie brings up some valid cases where it's good that centralized services can rapidly iterate and improve such as WhatsApp being able to roll out end-to-end encryption with a single update, while email is still not encrypted despite the tools existing to do so for years. Basically centralized services can roll out changes quickly and decentralized ones are more or less set in…

Why not use something like an email address instead of a phone number though. A phone number can be used to track you in the real world, it’s worse than having someone’s IP in some cases. In fact some countries (Russia, at least) require you to give over Government issued ID when you get a new phone number. So it’s directly tied to your real persona, this is not just one country doing that either. I believe it is als…

Because of contact discovery and migration. The success of those apps is directly related to the fact you can instantly see all your contacts with it when it first start. Email wouldn't have the same effect because poeple don't have them saved in the contact list.

I think university should have a mandatory course where IT student go and interact with real users and have a budget to manage according to the success of their exhange. It would make those questions much less likely.

Re: The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]

#26

Post by j88439h84 »

hobofan wrote: post #22
j88439h84 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Signal have any advantages over Riot? Riot is a popular client, though not the only one. Competition is good. http://riot.im/

> Does Signal have any advantages over Riot? I think you meant to write Matrix?

Aren't Signal and Riot both chat clients?

Re: The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]

#27

Post by ekianjo »

corndoge wrote: post #20
j88439h84 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Signal have any advantages over Riot? Riot is a popular client, though not the only one. Competition is good. http://riot.im/

It's usable and you can put your mom on it

I put non technical users on Riot and so far working well, too.

Re: The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]

#28

Post by dijit »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #25
dijit wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use something like an email address instead of a phone number though. A phone number can be used to track you in the real world, it’s worse than having someone’s IP in some cases. In fact some countries (Russia, at least) require you to give over Government issued ID when you get a new phone number. So it’s directly tied to your real persona, this is not just one country doing that either. I believe it is als…

Because of contact discovery and migration. The success of those apps is directly related to the fact you can instantly see all your contacts with it when it first start. Email wouldn't have the same effect because poeple don't have them saved in the contact list. I think university should have a mandatory course where IT student go and interact with real users and have a budget to manage according to the success of…

Not sure I agree. Although I’m not 100% certain of all smartphone implementations. But I definitely have emails for everyone in my addressbook/contacts list.

It’s the only thing that exists which can be anonymised properly and is static through many centralised providers.

Otherwise it’s back to usernames and the bazaar that is: does this person /actually/ have their names on telegram/skype/whatever

Re: The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]

#29

Post by bertman »

This talk is basically an elaboration of Moxie's blog post from 2016 with the same name [1]. See also a response to this blog post by Daniel Gultsch, developer of the popular Android XMPP app Conversations [2].

[1]https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/

[2]https://gultsch.de/objection.html

Re: The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]

#30

Post by cyphar »

Glosster wrote: post #19
Ninn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is referencing end to end encryption. Google can see Your to/from/subject/metadata headers even if you bother to use gpg

Then that's a problem with us using a centralized system (Google) for emails, right? So email is not really decentralized.

Replace "Google" with "your email provider". Even if there were many diverse email providers with significant adoption, the problem would remain.

Unless you're using PGP (and -- critically -- the other people know how to use it as well), then your email is stored as plaintext on your email provider's email server (and the email provider of anyone you send the email to, as well as any forwarding agents that passed the email along).

Post reply on HN