6 ms·

SMS is far less convenient and lacks many important features, like groups, emojis, speed and presentation. Independence from known data harvesters is the only

SMS is far less convenient and lacks many important features, like groups, emojis, speed and presentation. Independence from known data harvesters is the only reason I got pretty much all of my contacts to switch.

baxtr 2y ago
What are you afraid of? What can happen? This is a serious question
- inamorty 2y ago
  Do you have a front door to your house? Why? What can happen?
  - baxtr 2y ago
    Just answer the question if you have the answer.
    - freetanga 2y ago
      I remind you Turings fate by his own government for being gay not 60 years ago. Today being gay or straight is a non issue in most countries, and Turing life would have been different. My take is the following: we have governments because we tolerate them. Constitutions are nothing more than a social agreement, and they could be torn apart and remade at any point in time. Politicians are our employees - we hire them, we pay them, we can fire them. Sadly in the past 80 years we have started seeing them as our saviors and forgot their power emanates from us. I don’t want my employee (the government) telling me what to do and tracking me. It’s irrelevant whether I have or not something to hide.
      - baxtr 2y ago
        I understand this stance and it makes sense. The OP, and that’s how it started, said he switched to signal due to “data harvesters” like Meta. I feel like the conversation here diverged from that to something different. PS: I absolutely follow the logic of restricting politicians. Unfortunately these people are versed with power and how to use it. Otherwise they would have not ended at the top…
    - stoperaticless 2y ago
      Parallel with front door was appropriate answer: 1. This is default expectation (to have privacy, to have doors) 2. If you go abstract, it’s not too useful (its good to have of control of information sharing/ it’s good having control who access your house) 3. It seems impractical to go into details, due to very many different scenarios, details, expectations. Take a set of different “motivations” (incompetence+personal gain+for terror+for ideology push), multiply it by types of actors (phone manufacturer, government, enemy state, criminals), mix in the possibility that law and approach can be changed/ expanded, while keeping in mind that motivations and actors will change year to year. (One thing when such tool is available for consertive gov., other thing when such tool is available for extreeme right/left gov.) Parallels do diverge eventually, with door if somebody breaks it you most probably can see it immediately. While negative effects of privacy breach can take years to surface.
      - baxtr 2y ago
        For me it’s a very bad analogy avoiding to give an answer. Doors and how they’re used is highly cultural and has evolved. There’s nothing “fundamental” you can derive from your mental model of today. Same goes with bike locks and the like. I used to live in a student town where people simply never locked their bikes. It was a custom of that time and place.
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument#Criti...
- wafflemaker 2y ago
  Companies harvesting the data and using it to build extremely correct psychological profiles, which will then be used to successfully manipulate election results. It has already happened btw.
  - baxtr 2y ago
    Thanks, that’s very specific and actually happened. Good point
    - Dystakruul 2y ago
      [1] Overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_d... [2] Documentary: "The Great Hack" (2019) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4736550/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4736550/
  - dfawcus 2y ago
    Which elections would those be, in which country, and which candidate benefited?
    - adastra22 2y ago
      Look up Cambridge Analytics and the Trump campaign in 2016.
      - doublepg23 2y ago
        I think you missed the firmware update from 2020 when we decided American elections are not rigged.
        adastra22 2y ago
        This isn’t about rigging elections. Nobody thought the 2016 election was rigged. What happened was hyper specific advertising profiles for voters, generated from all the info on Facebook, were used to customize person-specific political campaigns. If you were in a key swing district, you would’ve got nonstop ads for Trump that told you he was going to do X, Y, and Z, where those happened to be the exact three political issues you cared most about. It is widely believed in political science circles to have been what led to the surprise Trump victory. This isn’t rigging an election because real votes were cast and counted. However is it still a fair election if the electorate doesn’t have access to sufficient information so as to make an informed choice? That is the issue at stake here.
- newaccount74 2y ago
  Is that a joke? Any data that is stored about you can be used against you. We know that Meta tracks everything you do in a pretty invasive manner. We know they use this data to target ads, and while they claim not to share data with advertisers, we do know that people have figured out ways to leak some of that data. Since they share data with a lot of 3rd party tracking companies, we would have to trust all of them to keep our data safe. It is highly likely that some of these companies employ malicious actors. Now, maybe you think you have nothing to hide. But the political landscape changes all the time, and things that were legal one day might be criminalised the next day, or some terrorist organisation gets a hand on your data and figures that you are an enemy of their god for some reason, ... The only way to protect against these things is to not store the data in the first place.
  - baxtr 2y ago
    No it’s not a joke. Outside of tyrannies it’s ok to ask questions. Specifically, I am interested in tangible examples. The one thing I got from your post is: Meta can target you to deliver better ads. If you have other specific examples of what else can happen, please elaborate. I am curious
    - anonzzzies 2y ago
      I worry about future use of my data. If it’s not e2e encrypted, future despots (or, less extreme, insurance companies, which tend to be only slightly less evil than despots anyway) can mine it (with not very good AI) to see if I am a good servant to the state , even though my remarks might be from 15 years ago and not related.
      - baxtr 2y ago
        Ok understood, so a vague fear of being punished for what you said today in the future by governments or insurance companies. I can see that happening in the future albeit with a low probability in the Western World at least. Of course you never know
- n_ary 2y ago
  Well, nothing interesting can happen in short-term, but not sure about long-term given how much surveillance is being built under our noses. Currently, only issue I face is, due to unlimited text/calls benefit in Germany, I also receive a lot of scam/phishing sms or random sales sms about some random agency offering digital marketing, webdev, wordpress etc irrelevant service unsolicited. I noticed that, somehow when such sms arrives, I am very proactive in immediately blocking those numbers, but may be by evening, I start seeing adverts all around the web creepily related to those same sms(mostly different vendors but related business area). Thanks to the garbage that LLM is, now I suspect Google SMS as well as other Android based sms apps are also scanned and profiled to feed to advertisers, which I can't prove but my experience above is definitely not the Frequency Fallacy.
  - baxtr 2y ago
    Thanks. So short-term: annoying spam and phishing calls/sms Long-term: hard to say. Makes sense
- internet101010 2y ago
  It isn't about being afraid. The interaction between two people is nobody's business except the two people.
- af78 2y ago
  I’d like to add that it is not just about governments (democratic or otherwise). Large corporations wield disproportionate powers, in comparison with individuals, and may have a presence across countries and continents. Even if they don’t use the data directly, they may pass it to some other entity. I’m not comfortable with the idea that anything I read or write today may be made available one day to my current or future employer, customers, providers etc. ... In a way I have already internalized this idea. These days every time I use an electronic device I behave as if an unintended recipient was peeking above my shoulder. So my behavior isn’t as free is it was, say, in the 90s, before networked communication was so ubiquitous.
FMecha 2y ago
Also, is SMS even that secure anyway? There are security attacks surrounding SMS (hence why SMS is looked down as an OTP method from security standpoint).
- johnisgood 2y ago
  What about https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.smssecure.smssecure/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.smssecure.smssecure/?

baxtr 2y ago

What are you afraid of? What can happen? This is a serious question

inamorty 2y ago
Do you have a front door to your house? Why? What can happen?
- baxtr 2y ago
  Just answer the question if you have the answer.
  - freetanga 2y ago
    I remind you Turings fate by his own government for being gay not 60 years ago. Today being gay or straight is a non issue in most countries, and Turing life would have been different. My take is the following: we have governments because we tolerate them. Constitutions are nothing more than a social agreement, and they could be torn apart and remade at any point in time. Politicians are our employees - we hire them, we pay them, we can fire them. Sadly in the past 80 years we have started seeing them as our saviors and forgot their power emanates from us. I don’t want my employee (the government) telling me what to do and tracking me. It’s irrelevant whether I have or not something to hide.
    - baxtr 2y ago
      I understand this stance and it makes sense. The OP, and that’s how it started, said he switched to signal due to “data harvesters” like Meta. I feel like the conversation here diverged from that to something different. PS: I absolutely follow the logic of restricting politicians. Unfortunately these people are versed with power and how to use it. Otherwise they would have not ended at the top…
  - stoperaticless 2y ago
    Parallel with front door was appropriate answer: 1. This is default expectation (to have privacy, to have doors) 2. If you go abstract, it’s not too useful (its good to have of control of information sharing/ it’s good having control who access your house) 3. It seems impractical to go into details, due to very many different scenarios, details, expectations. Take a set of different “motivations” (incompetence+personal gain+for terror+for ideology push), multiply it by types of actors (phone manufacturer, government, enemy state, criminals), mix in the possibility that law and approach can be changed/ expanded, while keeping in mind that motivations and actors will change year to year. (One thing when such tool is available for consertive gov., other thing when such tool is available for extreeme right/left gov.) Parallels do diverge eventually, with door if somebody breaks it you most probably can see it immediately. While negative effects of privacy breach can take years to surface.
    - baxtr 2y ago
      For me it’s a very bad analogy avoiding to give an answer. Doors and how they’re used is highly cultural and has evolved. There’s nothing “fundamental” you can derive from your mental model of today. Same goes with bike locks and the like. I used to live in a student town where people simply never locked their bikes. It was a custom of that time and place.
JoshTriplett 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument#Criti...
wafflemaker 2y ago
Companies harvesting the data and using it to build extremely correct psychological profiles, which will then be used to successfully manipulate election results. It has already happened btw.
- baxtr 2y ago
  Thanks, that’s very specific and actually happened. Good point
  - Dystakruul 2y ago
    [1] Overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_d... [2] Documentary: "The Great Hack" (2019) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4736550/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4736550/
- dfawcus 2y ago
  Which elections would those be, in which country, and which candidate benefited?
  - adastra22 2y ago
    Look up Cambridge Analytics and the Trump campaign in 2016.
    - doublepg23 2y ago
      I think you missed the firmware update from 2020 when we decided American elections are not rigged.
      - adastra22 2y ago
        This isn’t about rigging elections. Nobody thought the 2016 election was rigged. What happened was hyper specific advertising profiles for voters, generated from all the info on Facebook, were used to customize person-specific political campaigns. If you were in a key swing district, you would’ve got nonstop ads for Trump that told you he was going to do X, Y, and Z, where those happened to be the exact three political issues you cared most about. It is widely believed in political science circles to have been what led to the surprise Trump victory. This isn’t rigging an election because real votes were cast and counted. However is it still a fair election if the electorate doesn’t have access to sufficient information so as to make an informed choice? That is the issue at stake here.
newaccount74 2y ago
Is that a joke? Any data that is stored about you can be used against you. We know that Meta tracks everything you do in a pretty invasive manner. We know they use this data to target ads, and while they claim not to share data with advertisers, we do know that people have figured out ways to leak some of that data. Since they share data with a lot of 3rd party tracking companies, we would have to trust all of them to keep our data safe. It is highly likely that some of these companies employ malicious actors. Now, maybe you think you have nothing to hide. But the political landscape changes all the time, and things that were legal one day might be criminalised the next day, or some terrorist organisation gets a hand on your data and figures that you are an enemy of their god for some reason, ... The only way to protect against these things is to not store the data in the first place.
- baxtr 2y ago
  No it’s not a joke. Outside of tyrannies it’s ok to ask questions. Specifically, I am interested in tangible examples. The one thing I got from your post is: Meta can target you to deliver better ads. If you have other specific examples of what else can happen, please elaborate. I am curious
  - anonzzzies 2y ago
    I worry about future use of my data. If it’s not e2e encrypted, future despots (or, less extreme, insurance companies, which tend to be only slightly less evil than despots anyway) can mine it (with not very good AI) to see if I am a good servant to the state , even though my remarks might be from 15 years ago and not related.
    - baxtr 2y ago
      Ok understood, so a vague fear of being punished for what you said today in the future by governments or insurance companies. I can see that happening in the future albeit with a low probability in the Western World at least. Of course you never know
n_ary 2y ago
Well, nothing interesting can happen in short-term, but not sure about long-term given how much surveillance is being built under our noses. Currently, only issue I face is, due to unlimited text/calls benefit in Germany, I also receive a lot of scam/phishing sms or random sales sms about some random agency offering digital marketing, webdev, wordpress etc irrelevant service unsolicited. I noticed that, somehow when such sms arrives, I am very proactive in immediately blocking those numbers, but may be by evening, I start seeing adverts all around the web creepily related to those same sms(mostly different vendors but related business area). Thanks to the garbage that LLM is, now I suspect Google SMS as well as other Android based sms apps are also scanned and profiled to feed to advertisers, which I can't prove but my experience above is definitely not the Frequency Fallacy.
- baxtr 2y ago
  Thanks. So short-term: annoying spam and phishing calls/sms Long-term: hard to say. Makes sense
internet101010 2y ago
It isn't about being afraid. The interaction between two people is nobody's business except the two people.
af78 2y ago
I’d like to add that it is not just about governments (democratic or otherwise). Large corporations wield disproportionate powers, in comparison with individuals, and may have a presence across countries and continents. Even if they don’t use the data directly, they may pass it to some other entity. I’m not comfortable with the idea that anything I read or write today may be made available one day to my current or future employer, customers, providers etc. ... In a way I have already internalized this idea. These days every time I use an electronic device I behave as if an unintended recipient was peeking above my shoulder. So my behavior isn’t as free is it was, say, in the 90s, before networked communication was so ubiquitous.

FMecha 2y ago

Also, is SMS even that secure anyway? There are security attacks surrounding SMS (hence why SMS is looked down as an OTP method from security standpoint).

johnisgood 2y ago
What about https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.smssecure.smssecure/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.smssecure.smssecure/?