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Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

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Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#971

Post by nobody9999 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #970
nobody9999 wrote: post #969

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also good luck doing anything with my current phone. After long enough being unable to find a reasonable phone that had 600MHz support, an SD card, and rootability, I gave up and got a samsung. The bootloader won't allow anything. I did a bunch of research as well, and recently bought a Motorola Edge[0] (not Edge+) which has pretty much everything you mentioned, including support for up to a 1TB SD card. I haven't r…

> Motorola Edge I looked at all the screen defect reports and high price and decided not to risk it. > Samsung says[1] there shouldn't be a problem with locking/unlocking the bootloader. > And other sites[2] confirm this for newer Samsung phones. More specifically, Samsung phones for the US with qualcomm chips cannot be unlocked. The nice little menu option in that article is just not there. > What's more, there's ad…

>> Motorola Edge

>I looked at all the screen defect reports and high price and decided not to risk it.

That concerned me a bit too. I got a deal ($499 IIRC) on the device and decided to risk it.

I've had no screen issues at all and like it a lot. Then again, I've only had it for four months, so I guess we'll see.

>More specifically, Samsung phones for the US with qualcomm chips cannot be unlocked. The nice little menu option in that article is just not there.

You are, of course, absolutely correct. I didn't catch that in my initial search.

That sucks. I'm glad I didn't purchase a Samsung.

I had similar goals as you did in a new device: fast processor, lots of RAM, large internal storage and large SDCard support, long battery life.

I considered another HTC device, but my experience with them dropping support almost immediately (~9 months after I bought it) for upgrades really pissed me off.

And since I'm not going to buy a new phone every year or two (there's no reason to replace a perfectly good phone just because the OEM drops support in an attempt to get you to buy a new one), especially when there are better Android implementations (e.g., LineageOS) without all the bloatware.

As such, rootable/bootloader unlockable was very important to me too.

Maybe I'm just old and crotchety, but I figure that if I purchase a physical product, I should be able to do with it as I choose, without restriction. This whole 'we decide what you can and can't do, and what software you can and can't run with the very expensive device you've "purchased"' schtick is unacceptable to me.

This is yet another area where we need legislation to address this in the US.

I am aware that there are specific FCC regulations that require specific ranges of transceiver power levels and related stuff, but since the baseband processor code is generally proprietary and requires binary blobs from the manufacturer, that really shouldn't be an issue.

Perhaps if we make enough noise, we can make that a reality.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#972

Post by Dylan16807 »

nobody9999 wrote: post #971
Dylan16807 wrote: post #970

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Motorola Edge I looked at all the screen defect reports and high price and decided not to risk it. > Samsung says[1] there shouldn't be a problem with locking/unlocking the bootloader. > And other sites[2] confirm this for newer Samsung phones. More specifically, Samsung phones for the US with qualcomm chips cannot be unlocked. The nice little menu option in that article is just not there. > What's more, there's ad…

>> Motorola Edge >I looked at all the screen defect reports and high price and decided not to risk it. That concerned me a bit too. I got a deal ($499 IIRC) on the device and decided to risk it. I've had no screen issues at all and like it a lot. Then again, I've only had it for four months, so I guess we'll see. >More specifically, Samsung phones for the US with qualcomm chips cannot be unlocked. The nice little men…

> This is yet another area where we need legislation to address this in the US.

Agreed.

I'm tolerating it on this phone since they announced pretty long term support, but it's far from what the situation should be.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#973

Post by heatedsubject »

idclip wrote: post #891
Arathorn wrote: post #857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPDATE: I just got a call from a VP at Google who apologised for the bad communication around this and explained the situation, which related to some extremely abusive content which was accessible on the default matrix.org homeserver. We don't want to go into specifics, but suffice it to say that it's not related to WallStreet Bets or anything like that, but instead is the sort of thing that causes you to get locked…

Sounds like CP ... cp is a real issue when it comes to crypto.

CP is a very touchy subject. But if we really wanted to solve the problem we shouldn't focus on someone accidentally seeing (and thus caching) CP on their device.

CP should be removed at the source, by doing everything we can to take care of kids and preventing abuse and related photography. And CP trading rings should be busted.

But individual pedophiles should be helped with their mental health issues before they act and become pederasts. The subject is so toxic that nobody dares go to a therapist with their issues. There was a recent documentary about it: https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/bb3cd43c-169a-48db-9fd6-e4cbae0d...

Coming back to crypto. Who cares if the images are shared using crypto or on paper or on usb sticks? Once you find a pederast, law enforcement should convince (without torture or similar tricks, offering therapy and help will probably be more effective) them to help expose their network. Same with any activity that is using encrypted communications: https://edri.org/files/encryption/workarounds_edriposition_2...

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#974

Post by GoblinSlayer »

hedora wrote: post #959
einpoklum wrote: post #912

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> extremely abusive content This phrasing suggests it was probably not even illegal to publish. What if this content had been something that Google finds politically or commercially disfavorable to its interests, rather than something we would all think is intolerable? What if it _is_ like that?

To the extent Google can lock you up for life for being inconvenient for their business model, I suppose it could have been innocuous content. Oh, wait. We’re still a decade away from that particular dystopia, so I’ll guess kiddie porn or actual planning of terrorist attacks.

Wait, if CP and terrorist attacks are posted in the open, then what FBI wants to read in e2ee traffic?

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#975

Post by jancsika »

hutzlibu wrote: post #826
jancsika wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reality should be yelled by a death metal band singer 24/7 at every FOSS developer.

I laughed hard ... but actually no. That should be yelled at every FOSS evangelist, those people who claim everywhere that no one needs Windows, because Linux has everything Windows has, just better, etc. We FOSS developers are free to do what we want. Most of us develope mainly for pleasure, not to ease the workload of some corporate helpdesk.

I'm arguing against the hidden premise that "having a dozen different client thingies" is a potentially good thing for users. It nearly never is, and the fact that a dozen devs derived pleasure from creating them doesn't change that.

I'll go even further and claim that "user choice" is code for, "warning: nobody in this space is competent enough in UI/UX to derive pleasure from working on it." In fact in mastodon's design, it's not even code-- the "choice" of servers by topic is literally a limitation imposed on the user before even signing up. So the very first part of the UX has a circular dependency-- choose a server to try out the service and discover which server most suits your interests. It'd be like Google redesigning search so that you have to type subreddit-style topic into the URL before searching.

Additionally, this "choice" meme seems to conveniently disappear for software that has a thoughtful UI. I don't see anyone talking about the downside of Krita not having multiple other half-baked UI's than very impressive one it ships with.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#976

Post by skynet-9000 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #892
skynet-9000 wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we're at it, should we ban email apps as well? And probably the Internet itself and go back to "safe" walled gardens like AOL, since there are almost certainly bad people on the net?

> should we ban email apps as well? And probably the Internet itself and go back to "safe" walled gardens like AOL Huh? The AOL you're thinking of included an enormous cross-section of the population, with no controls on who could talk to who. If the Internet is unsafe, then so is AOL, because they're the same thing .

Right, that was the point. You can never get rid of "bad actors", and even if possible, that would have a myriad of unintended consequences (such as living under authoritarianism).

The irony in this case is that the speech that is attempted to be censored isn't even illegal. (at least in the U.S., where our liberal, cherished "anything goes" approach is enshrined in the Constitution.)

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#977

Post by brmgb »

jhabdas wrote: post #965
Arathorn wrote: post #857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPDATE: I just got a call from a VP at Google who apologised for the bad communication around this and explained the situation, which related to some extremely abusive content which was accessible on the default matrix.org homeserver. We don't want to go into specifics, but suffice it to say that it's not related to WallStreet Bets or anything like that, but instead is the sort of thing that causes you to get locked…

> We don't want to go into specifics This kind of language is very wishy-washy and leaves everything to the imagination. 9/10 times the issue is terrorism or CP. So which of the two was it? And why aren't you comfortable enough to share that reason with your prospective users?

Why should the details of the Matrix.org server moderation be of significance to Element users? We are talking about a decentralized and optionally end to end encrypted chat client.

Anyway, Matrix.org is hosted by a foundation with an independent board. You can ask them if you want but given your post you already know full well why they are not sharing. No one is going to do a press release to say they were involuntary hosting CP or helping terrorists. What good would come out of it?

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#978

Post by hertzrat »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #864
Arathorn wrote: post #857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPDATE: I just got a call from a VP at Google who apologised for the bad communication around this and explained the situation, which related to some extremely abusive content which was accessible on the default matrix.org homeserver. We don't want to go into specifics, but suffice it to say that it's not related to WallStreet Bets or anything like that, but instead is the sort of thing that causes you to get locked…

But I can visit sites and do things in chrome that will get me locked up for life as well yet it's still on my phone.

Wait until Firefox gets taken down for the same reason and chrome starts blocking things

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#979

Post by remram »

feanaro wrote: post #916
remram wrote: post #844

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8% CPU average actually sounds like a lot, unless your 25 users are chatting around the clock.

The federation is chatting around the clock. Remember, joining a Matrix room means that your server needs to handle all of the room's traffic. And 25 users can easily be in a lot of large rooms. However, each room only needs to be handled once, so if more of my users join a room in which my server is already participating, the cost doesn't increase. That said, this isn't an average but a spot value. It frequently fal…

If I run Weechat on my VPS, and join a few high-traffic IRC rooms, I expect my average CPU use to be 0%. Same if I run mailman with a few messages per minute, or an IRC server.

The fact that we can now run it on a VPS is an improvement, but it is still orders of magnitude heavier than equivalent non-decentralized systems.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#980

Post by torified »

panarky wrote: post #785
tabbott wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really upset that this happened to you folks, and it's scary, because incident could just as easily have happened to us at Zulip (or any other OSS app that connects to self-hosted servers!). I expect we'll never get a useful explanation from Google for why this incident happened -- abuse teams, like fraud teams, are worried about the bad guys using the explanations to tune their tactics and so tend to never expla…

If you accept that (1) there is a substantial amount of mal-content that Google should censor, and (2) a key use case for federated messaging platforms is to evade censorship, and that (3) client applications can be functionally part of a federated messaging platform while legally separate from it, then those client applications are fair game to be censored when they deliver mal-content. Now I may disagree with parts…

I just want to chat with my friends without spooks putting it into a permanent database to later be used out of context against me. A crazy, dangerous idea, I know.

It's amazing to see how far we've fallen - to be at ease with the idea that there can be no such thing as a private conversation, and therefore that any private conversation is by definition illegal.

Any crime should require an actual victim. Which means there is evidence of it happening. You don't need a permanent record of everyone's conversations to uncover such crimes, police just need to do the job which we pay them for, which is to investigate.

CP and terrorism are both disgusting, horrible things, but even those are not worth losing all our basic human freedoms over, or we won't be left with a lifestyle worth defending.

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