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This is yet another good reason to prefer decentralized networks. When Slack or Facebook or whomever agrees to block someone there is no resolution other than a

This is yet another good reason to prefer decentralized networks. When Slack or Facebook or whomever agrees to block someone there is no resolution other than appealing to a company with a closed decision making process, something I don't think any of us really want.

pvg 8y ago
What are the decentralized networks one should give preference to?
orthecreedence 8y ago
Yep. Going to go ahead and throw Matrix/Riot out there as a great alternative.
- miaklesp 8y ago
  Which platform would be better today from practical standpoint? for a remote team of developers. Matrix?
  - orthecreedence 8y ago
    Matrix is the protocol, Riot is a Slack-like implementation of the protocol: https://riot.im/ https://riot.im/ You can use the default (free) Matrix homeserver with Riot and you'll basically have a free chat system without any setup (besides installing the client). I've been using Riot for a while now, and while Slack does seem a bit more polished, having client-side encryption for all my messages gives Riot the upper hand: I don't worry about sending passwords or sensitive info as much as I do with Slack.
    - sandGorgon 8y ago
      Modular.im is their hosted product. Much cheaper than slack as well.
      - qwertay 8y ago
        I thought it was kind of expensive at first but then I saw the price of slack. ~$1.50/user/month seems very fair when you see what slack and email cost per user
        sandGorgon 8y ago
        the new redesigned UI is at https://riot.im/experimental/ https://riot.im/experimental/ you can participate in the discussion at https://riot.im/experimental/#/room/#modular:matrix.org https://riot.im/experimental/#/room/#modular:matrix.org to understand more if you want.
- derf_ 8y ago
  I pretty much gave up on Matrix after the following exchange: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8697151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8697151 Perhaps I am overreacting, but that sort of attitude on matters core to basic privacy in the post-Snowden era seems both problematic and incurable.
  - bdefore 8y ago
    Matrix E2E encryption is opt-in per room while its support is in beta, with the intent to have on by default when it's out. https://www.uhoreg.ca/blog/20170910-2110 https://www.uhoreg.ca/blog/20170910-2110
  - ndnxhs 8y ago
    It is planned to make riot enable encryption by default when it is fully stable but I totally understand why the protocol would allow it to be disabled. Matrix is about more than instant messaging and there are possible use cases where you may be using it for something that needs no e2e. Maybe you are using it to control the lights in your house and you want to write an SQL script that can read the commands sent to your light over matrix and tell you how long they were turned on for last month. You can't do that if the commands were e2e encrypted and you gain nothing by encrypting them.
  - mikenew 8y ago
    Yes, you are overreacting. Perfect is the enemy of good. Encryption is not so easy when you have a room with potentially hundreds of users, each with many devices, and you have to safely share keys between all of them. I'm using it, and even in a 1 to 1 chat it can be a burden. They are working on it, and it will be default once it's out of beta. But there are reasons why you may not want to use it. And that's a personal choice that people should be allowed to make. Would you also disallow public rooms? Or bridges into non-encrypted services? I care about encryption, you care about encryption, and they care about encryption. "Giving up on them" and saying their attitude is "problematic and incurable" is hurting, not helping.
  - Arathorn 8y ago
    Yup, you’re overreacting, especially given I wrote that >4y ago when we hadn’t even started implementing E2E encryption. Nowadays it’s almost complete and as others have said we will be turning it on by default for private comms in the coming month(s). (There is little point in E2E for a conversation which is public and being indexed by Google etc). Some deployments already have E2E on by default in fact (eg the french government deployment).
- sftwds 8y ago
  We use Mattermost at my company, which works well for us and is entirely self hosted.
  - SomeHacker44 8y ago
    Seconded. I like controlling things myself and hosting them myself. Nobody (um, but AWS, our ISP, our DNS registrar, ARIN, oh and heck tons of others) can shut me down now.
    - Crosseye_Jack 8y ago
      > Nobody (um, but AWS, our ISP, our DNS registrar, ARIN, oh and heck tons of others) can shut me down now. But in theory all of those can be replaced, a site that was recently in the news for being kicked off Godaddy, Google, tucows, Cloudflare, the Russian media watchdog, namecheap, DreamHost and a ton of others. Today its online using a Chinese based provider. But yeah, if SV takes a disliking to you, it can be a right PITA to find some where to get back online. But you are right, Someone somewhere has to host you and/or provide you with services (even if you self host) you are still dependant on to be able to stay online.
- techntoke 8y ago
  I'm still hoping they'll implement an SMS gateway. If Matrix could replace Google Voice too, that would rock my world.
  - mikenew 8y ago
    There is one. I'm using it, it works, but it's a little buggy: https://github.com/tijder/SmsMatrix https://github.com/tijder/SmsMatrix. I haven't been able to ignore my message app and trust the bridge 100% yet. I'm hoping to spend some of my christmas break contributing some work to the project. I agree, bridging SMS into a chat service that you can use from anywhere is a killer feature.
    - xf86alsa 8y ago
      If you do make any updates, feel free to throw them into the This Week in Matrix room which may catch some more dev's attention! https://matrix.to/#/#twim:matrix.org https://matrix.to/#/#twim:matrix.org
      - mikenew 8y ago
        Awesome, will do!
dehrmann 8y ago
This is especially scary with SSO systems. Google/Facebook blocks your account? Guess what else you can't log into.
- qwertay 8y ago
  Its interesting to imagine what would happen if google blocked you from captcha.
aga98mtl 8y ago
This event made me realize I needed a good independent backup solution for Slack. I bought some tool to do it daily locally. I'll be able to move on to an alternative like Mattermost if the need arise.
lkrubner 8y ago
Why is this a good reason to prefer decentralized networks? Slack is a tool for employees at a company to communicate with each other. At some point those communications need to arrive back at a server that lives inside the boundaries of a nation state that is one of the world's major economies. Most of the major governments of the world work together to regulate the worlds networks. But even if that wasn't true, what would you get by trying to leave the networks? Are you trying to evade the law? If so, why? If you don't like the law, you can always lobby to change it, but there will always be laws. You can and should work to make the laws better, but still there will be laws, and we all gain some benefit from living in a society with laws. Or if you disagree, what do you think the alternative is?
- fulafel 8y ago
  If you are not US based, you may want to trade and work with us-embargoed countries. Especially as the embargoes may come and go unpredictably as US foteign policy gets increasingly erratic.

pvg 8y ago

What are the decentralized networks one should give preference to?

orthecreedence 8y ago

Yep. Going to go ahead and throw Matrix/Riot out there as a great alternative.

miaklesp 8y ago
Which platform would be better today from practical standpoint? for a remote team of developers. Matrix?
- orthecreedence 8y ago
  Matrix is the protocol, Riot is a Slack-like implementation of the protocol: https://riot.im/ https://riot.im/ You can use the default (free) Matrix homeserver with Riot and you'll basically have a free chat system without any setup (besides installing the client). I've been using Riot for a while now, and while Slack does seem a bit more polished, having client-side encryption for all my messages gives Riot the upper hand: I don't worry about sending passwords or sensitive info as much as I do with Slack.
  - sandGorgon 8y ago
    Modular.im is their hosted product. Much cheaper than slack as well.
    - qwertay 8y ago
      I thought it was kind of expensive at first but then I saw the price of slack. ~$1.50/user/month seems very fair when you see what slack and email cost per user
      - sandGorgon 8y ago
        the new redesigned UI is at https://riot.im/experimental/ https://riot.im/experimental/ you can participate in the discussion at https://riot.im/experimental/#/room/#modular:matrix.org https://riot.im/experimental/#/room/#modular:matrix.org to understand more if you want.
derf_ 8y ago
I pretty much gave up on Matrix after the following exchange: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8697151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8697151 Perhaps I am overreacting, but that sort of attitude on matters core to basic privacy in the post-Snowden era seems both problematic and incurable.
- bdefore 8y ago
  Matrix E2E encryption is opt-in per room while its support is in beta, with the intent to have on by default when it's out. https://www.uhoreg.ca/blog/20170910-2110 https://www.uhoreg.ca/blog/20170910-2110
- ndnxhs 8y ago
  It is planned to make riot enable encryption by default when it is fully stable but I totally understand why the protocol would allow it to be disabled. Matrix is about more than instant messaging and there are possible use cases where you may be using it for something that needs no e2e. Maybe you are using it to control the lights in your house and you want to write an SQL script that can read the commands sent to your light over matrix and tell you how long they were turned on for last month. You can't do that if the commands were e2e encrypted and you gain nothing by encrypting them.
- mikenew 8y ago
  Yes, you are overreacting. Perfect is the enemy of good. Encryption is not so easy when you have a room with potentially hundreds of users, each with many devices, and you have to safely share keys between all of them. I'm using it, and even in a 1 to 1 chat it can be a burden. They are working on it, and it will be default once it's out of beta. But there are reasons why you may not want to use it. And that's a personal choice that people should be allowed to make. Would you also disallow public rooms? Or bridges into non-encrypted services? I care about encryption, you care about encryption, and they care about encryption. "Giving up on them" and saying their attitude is "problematic and incurable" is hurting, not helping.
- Arathorn 8y ago
  Yup, you’re overreacting, especially given I wrote that >4y ago when we hadn’t even started implementing E2E encryption. Nowadays it’s almost complete and as others have said we will be turning it on by default for private comms in the coming month(s). (There is little point in E2E for a conversation which is public and being indexed by Google etc). Some deployments already have E2E on by default in fact (eg the french government deployment).
sftwds 8y ago
We use Mattermost at my company, which works well for us and is entirely self hosted.
- SomeHacker44 8y ago
  Seconded. I like controlling things myself and hosting them myself. Nobody (um, but AWS, our ISP, our DNS registrar, ARIN, oh and heck tons of others) can shut me down now.
  - Crosseye_Jack 8y ago
    > Nobody (um, but AWS, our ISP, our DNS registrar, ARIN, oh and heck tons of others) can shut me down now. But in theory all of those can be replaced, a site that was recently in the news for being kicked off Godaddy, Google, tucows, Cloudflare, the Russian media watchdog, namecheap, DreamHost and a ton of others. Today its online using a Chinese based provider. But yeah, if SV takes a disliking to you, it can be a right PITA to find some where to get back online. But you are right, Someone somewhere has to host you and/or provide you with services (even if you self host) you are still dependant on to be able to stay online.
techntoke 8y ago
I'm still hoping they'll implement an SMS gateway. If Matrix could replace Google Voice too, that would rock my world.
- mikenew 8y ago
  There is one. I'm using it, it works, but it's a little buggy: https://github.com/tijder/SmsMatrix https://github.com/tijder/SmsMatrix. I haven't been able to ignore my message app and trust the bridge 100% yet. I'm hoping to spend some of my christmas break contributing some work to the project. I agree, bridging SMS into a chat service that you can use from anywhere is a killer feature.
  - xf86alsa 8y ago
    If you do make any updates, feel free to throw them into the This Week in Matrix room which may catch some more dev's attention! https://matrix.to/#/#twim:matrix.org https://matrix.to/#/#twim:matrix.org
    - mikenew 8y ago
      Awesome, will do!

dehrmann 8y ago

This is especially scary with SSO systems. Google/Facebook blocks your account? Guess what else you can't log into.

qwertay 8y ago
Its interesting to imagine what would happen if google blocked you from captcha.

aga98mtl 8y ago

This event made me realize I needed a good independent backup solution for Slack. I bought some tool to do it daily locally. I'll be able to move on to an alternative like Mattermost if the need arise.

lkrubner 8y ago

Why is this a good reason to prefer decentralized networks? Slack is a tool for employees at a company to communicate with each other. At some point those communications need to arrive back at a server that lives inside the boundaries of a nation state that is one of the world's major economies. Most of the major governments of the world work together to regulate the worlds networks. But even if that wasn't true, what would you get by trying to leave the networks? Are you trying to evade the law? If so, why? If you don't like the law, you can always lobby to change it, but there will always be laws. You can and should work to make the laws better, but still there will be laws, and we all gain some benefit from living in a society with laws. Or if you disagree, what do you think the alternative is?

fulafel 8y ago
If you are not US based, you may want to trade and work with us-embargoed countries. Especially as the embargoes may come and go unpredictably as US foteign policy gets increasingly erratic.