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Authoritarianism Through Coding: Signal

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Re: Authoritarianism Through Coding: Signal

#21

Post by stonesweep »

seisvelas wrote: post #6

Just two nitpicks: 1. Marlinspike is misspelled throughout the article as "Merlinspike" & 2. This article is super mamón. That's a word here in Mexico I'm not sure how to perfectly put into English, but here are some examples from the article: >Open Whisper Systems led by Moxie Merlinspike, who is behind Signal, is and was never behind freedom. >People died for freedom, they are still dying and struggling around the…

In this instance (slang/idiom/etc.) the UrbanDictionary description provides me a basic idea of what you're trying to convey (assuming it's generally correct): https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mam%C3%B3n

Re: Authoritarianism Through Coding: Signal

#22

Post by enkid »

seisvelas wrote: post #6

Just two nitpicks: 1. Marlinspike is misspelled throughout the article as "Merlinspike" & 2. This article is super mamón. That's a word here in Mexico I'm not sure how to perfectly put into English, but here are some examples from the article: >Open Whisper Systems led by Moxie Merlinspike, who is behind Signal, is and was never behind freedom. >People died for freedom, they are still dying and struggling around the…

I think the word you're looking for is hyperbole/hyperbolic?

Re: Authoritarianism Through Coding: Signal

#23

Post by logicchains »

eitland wrote: post #12
alisonkisk wrote: post #4

By denouncingly Movlxie Marlinspike (not Merlinspike) authoritarian because he run his free software project, the author pushes the communications ecosystem toward actual authoritarian systems. Fortunately the argument is utterly unconvincing as it is buzzword-based without logical reasoning.

> By denouncingly Movlxie Marlinspike (not Merlinspike) authoritarian because he run his free software project, There is a funny "law" that whoever publicly corrects a spelling in someone elses writing is doomed to introduce a worse one themselves and it seems it held true this time :-D

Maybe it's not a misspelling, movlxie is just the vectorised instruction form of moxie for 64 bit (long) addresses?

Re: Authoritarianism Through Coding: Signal

#24

Post by jtxx »

seisvelas wrote: post #6

Just two nitpicks: 1. Marlinspike is misspelled throughout the article as "Merlinspike" & 2. This article is super mamón. That's a word here in Mexico I'm not sure how to perfectly put into English, but here are some examples from the article: >Open Whisper Systems led by Moxie Merlinspike, who is behind Signal, is and was never behind freedom. >People died for freedom, they are still dying and struggling around the…

self-righteous and a bit immature is how it came off to me. I definitely agree that tone is distracting from the article. made me stop reading faster

Re: Authoritarianism Through Coding: Signal

#25

Post by marcinzm »

zajio1am wrote: post #15

It is sad to see this push for yet another centralized client-locked comm-tool, being justified that this time it is OK because backing corporation is non-profit. Ther real problem of centralized, closed systems is not profit, but concentration of power. Using such power to extract profit is just one of many perks of having such power.

Power's impact is on how it is used. It can be used, for example, to help make better software for the end-user.

Re: Authoritarianism Through Coding: Signal

#27

Post by Freak_NL »

marcinzm wrote: post #9

My only thoughts are: put your money where your mouth is and help build a better solution that does follow your ideals. You can apparently even use the Signal source code to start as long as you don't use their servers and don't use their name. Build things up rather than tearing others down for doing things differently.

Alternatives exists, but the network effect means that just building a better solution is not enough. In many countries even Signal can't put a dent in WhatsApp's dominance.

So even though we have alternatives like Matrix and whatnot: it doesn't matter much. The entrenched platform will persevere, and its successor is chosen not by features or user freedom, but by whatever the masses find shiny and convincing, and the investor driven budget of whatever startup-du-jour is hip at the time ­— and sometimes it just seems random.

A philanthropist could build a free, fully supported messaging platform that does everything anyone here can ask for as an act of altruism tomorrow, but succeeding in dislodging the incumbent solution can only happen if that platform fucks up so greatly that a mass exodus is possible. And that means a real royal fuck up of epic proportions; not just gathering more data (e.g., Facebook/WhatsApp), because the masses don't care — they want what they have now, and any change is too inconvenient to deal with.

Re: Authoritarianism Through Coding: Signal

#28

Post by nebulous1 »

ptero wrote: post #3

Can someone provide a short technical summary for folks, like me, not closely tracking libre signal, F-droid, etc.? I get the freedom arguments, but what is the technical crux of the issue? Did a reimplementation (competitor?) of signal without nonfree dependencies get removed from google store? If so, why? Etc.

my recollection:

Signal uses Google cloud messaging to wake up the phone when the server receives a message for the user. The message itself does not go through GCM. It does this because GCM was (is?) the only way to reliably wake up the phone on a push notification.

Libresignal removed GCM and used websockets for this wakeup message (?).

OpenWhisper didn't want them to use the Signal servers or the name Signal.

Re: Authoritarianism Through Coding: Signal

#29

Post by Closi »

pi-victor wrote: post #8

"This approach is not only a threat to free software it is a recurring threat to human kind!" wut? From 'Decentralized systems are hard to build' to 'Democracies suck because...'. The mental gymnastics in this post. Sounds more like someone has beef with Moxie.

100% - the argument in this article is illogical beyond belief.

“Decentralised systems are hard to build, but democracy is also hard to build, so you are a fascist.”

Re: Authoritarianism Through Coding: Signal

#30

Post by YesThatTom2 »

Shut up and code.

Ok, if decentralized systems are harder but worth it: go write code. Prove you are right.

Over the years I’ve kept a mental list of all the dudes that claim they could write better code than some existing major project. Recently I did a little “where are they now” experiment and they were all still working entry-level jobs and (surprise surprise!) never created that better system they promised.

This goes back to the 1989ish “teenage ninja mutant netnews” project plus many others over all those decades.

If you read Dennis Ritchie’s response to The Unix Haters Handbook you’ll find it very polite says hate all you want, but until you’ve written code that changed the world, duck you.

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