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I see that the author has a point, there are more people I have to trust with federated protocols. But what's the state of instant messaging now? I have to tr

I see that the author has a point, there are more people I have to trust with federated protocols. But what's the state of instant messaging now? I have to trust Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal. That's still three entities that require my trust, and it's very difficult to verify any of their claims. If I could at least have my federated Whatsapp instance that I use for family and friends, then I would at least know that none of the metadata created in these groups will be available to facebook, and I can find someone I trust in my group of friends, more than I trust Zuckerberg. I'm not too sure about the scale argument from a technical point of view. But centralized platforms have scale problems too, such as moderation. Facebook and Twitter are basically unable to moderate their platform. With more instances there would be more people operating those instances and more people moderating as well. I think this is one of the reasons for twitters recent activity to develop a decentralized social media protocol.

ComodoHacker 7y ago
>If I could at least have my federated Whatsapp instance that I use for family and friends. You can use p2p solutions for family and friends (Retroshare, Tox etc.) But in reality pople prefer the benefits of having BigCorp behind the service, paying for availability and fixing bugs.
- buovjaga 7y ago
  Retroshare needs Qt GUI devs: https://github.com/RetroShare/RetroShare/issues/1712 https://github.com/RetroShare/RetroShare/issues/1712 Please join the project and help, if you can!
- ailideex 7y ago
  With Tox I cannot share an account between multiple devices - or that is I cannot switch seamlessly between PC and phone. That is dumb and I don't want that.
  - ComodoHacker 7y ago
    It's a cost you pay for true decentralization. Otherwise your devices would have to authorize each other, which is even dumber. >I don't want that. That's the point, you prefer benefits of centralization.
    - ailideex 7y ago
      > Otherwise your devices would have to authorize each other, which is even dumber. Not sure why that is so dumb, presumably if one device gets compromised other linked ones are also compromised but if one device gets compromised now it is still compromised.
      - ComodoHacker 7y ago
        Because if one device gets compromised, you want to regain control of your identity and deny access from compromised device. Also you want to prevent the hacker from doing the same. We have not yet invented a way to do it without central authority, which is also acceptable in terms of usability.
        ailideex 7y ago
        So say I use this on my phone, and someone steals my phone, my "identity" is compromised anyway. I have to create a new Identity anyway. User experience of sending everything to someone N times over is not acceptable either. If I want to talk to someone I don't want to have to send a message to each of their devices.

ComodoHacker 7y ago

>If I could at least have my federated Whatsapp instance that I use for family and friends. You can use p2p solutions for family and friends (Retroshare, Tox etc.) But in reality pople prefer the benefits of having BigCorp behind the service, paying for availability and fixing bugs.

buovjaga 7y ago
Retroshare needs Qt GUI devs: https://github.com/RetroShare/RetroShare/issues/1712 https://github.com/RetroShare/RetroShare/issues/1712 Please join the project and help, if you can!
ailideex 7y ago
With Tox I cannot share an account between multiple devices - or that is I cannot switch seamlessly between PC and phone. That is dumb and I don't want that.
- ComodoHacker 7y ago
  It's a cost you pay for true decentralization. Otherwise your devices would have to authorize each other, which is even dumber. >I don't want that. That's the point, you prefer benefits of centralization.
  - ailideex 7y ago
    > Otherwise your devices would have to authorize each other, which is even dumber. Not sure why that is so dumb, presumably if one device gets compromised other linked ones are also compromised but if one device gets compromised now it is still compromised.
    - ComodoHacker 7y ago
      Because if one device gets compromised, you want to regain control of your identity and deny access from compromised device. Also you want to prevent the hacker from doing the same. We have not yet invented a way to do it without central authority, which is also acceptable in terms of usability.
      - ailideex 7y ago
        So say I use this on my phone, and someone steals my phone, my "identity" is compromised anyway. I have to create a new Identity anyway. User experience of sending everything to someone N times over is not acceptable either. If I want to talk to someone I don't want to have to send a message to each of their devices.