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And yet, Signal insists on having centralized power over the network, the very vulnerable SGX metadata encryption servers, and the binary supply chain. These t

by lrvick 2y ago

And yet, Signal insists on having centralized power over the network, the very vulnerable SGX metadata encryption servers, and the binary supply chain. These things are power and they can be co-opted to decrypt the messages of any target surreptitiously, without even the knowledge of Signal. Centralized power you have no vote in is a dictatorship, and dictatorships have a single point of failure, no matter how benevolent, that will be co-opted by a more powerful governing body. Centralized control of communications is fundamentally incompatible with the free and private speech required for a functioning democracy. Delete Signal and rebuild your social graphs on fully open decentralized or federated platforms.

beardedwizard 2y ago
Which signal replacement do you recommend?
- lrvick 2y ago
  Matrix
cageface 2y ago
Or, maybe the tech nerd fantasy that bad policy can be circumvented by clever hacking is just that and really freedom depends on taking an active role in government and making sure what legislation and regulation does get passed serves the users. It doesn't matter how federated your system is if the pipes are controlled by an autocracy.
criddell 2y ago
Do you plan on leaving HN for a more open social media site?
itscrush 2y ago
What are your recommendations amongst open sourced + decentralized + bring your own federation then for Signal meets Discord replacement? Your points are pretty accurate and yet lead folks into 'shred your social networks, the other side is greener'. I've been generally following the advice wherever I can without success for long term now. - First it was dump Gmail etc taking aim at Google messenger / Google Chat, folks ask why you are walking away from the connection / leaving them and only your parents install Signal, and a decade later one sibling does but only uses it every other time they message. - Dump Facebook and What's App, recommend folks snag Signal etc, none do since all their international comms are What's App only. Take a look at options beyond Signal and laugh. - Telegram is like for like situation as a friend tried to do the same with his graph that I did with mine on What's App, unsuccessful and he's back to Telegram as the graph is more worth it to him. - Drop Slack or other group chats w/o E2EE, even though they are technical groups maybe 1 in 20 grab Signal, losing the group aspect of that social graph. They won't still have Signal installed 5+ years later. - Dump discord next too? What replacement would you consider for that last centralized bastion providing voice + text? Self host matter most with me and myself while walking on my social friend groups on Discord next? - Do we draw the line before or after HN? Why isn't the recommendation to just run away from anything social graph related at this point? The experience of swapping and dumping for better options never brings along the social parts that brought you to the bad option in the first place like Discord or Facebook. TL;DR: I've been shredding my social graph in the name of privacy for quite a while, it's an efficient means at losing friends along the way though.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lolinder 2y ago
I'm all for the existence of fully open options for people whose opsec requires full control of the stack and/or for techies who can handle it. But there's a disturbing tendency for people to throw more shade on the people, organizations, and technologies that get things almost perfect than they do on the ones that aren't even trying. Signal has managed to create a product that is so easy to use that my non-technical brother-in-law got my wife's entirely-non-technical family to choose it over various Facebook properties and other clearly-worse-than-Signal for-profit chat apps. That's extremely impressive, and part of what makes that level of ease of use possible is that there's only one Signal server. In the absence of Signal someone like my brother-in-law wouldn't have been able to navigate Matrix himself, much less help my mother-in-law to do so—in the end he would have pointed everyone at WhatsApp. Signal isn't hurting adoption of federated tooling, Signal is stealing mindshare from for-profit data hoarders, and that's something I can wholeheartedly endorse even with their imperfections.
- Vinnl 2y ago
  > there's a disturbing tendency for people to throw more shade on the people, organizations, and technologies that get things almost perfect than they do on the ones that aren't even trying. Also known as The Copenhagen interpretation of ethics, and once you know it, you see it everywhere. https://gwern.net/doc/philosophy/ethics/2015-06-24-jai-thecopenhageninterpretationofethics.html https://gwern.net/doc/philosophy/ethics/2015-06-24-jai-theco...

by lrvick 2y ago

beardedwizard 2y ago

Which signal replacement do you recommend?

lrvick 2y ago
Matrix

cageface 2y ago

Or, maybe the tech nerd fantasy that bad policy can be circumvented by clever hacking is just that and really freedom depends on taking an active role in government and making sure what legislation and regulation does get passed serves the users. It doesn't matter how federated your system is if the pipes are controlled by an autocracy.

criddell 2y ago

Do you plan on leaving HN for a more open social media site?

itscrush 2y ago

What are your recommendations amongst open sourced + decentralized + bring your own federation then for Signal meets Discord replacement? Your points are pretty accurate and yet lead folks into 'shred your social networks, the other side is greener'. I've been generally following the advice wherever I can without success for long term now. - First it was dump Gmail etc taking aim at Google messenger / Google Chat, folks ask why you are walking away from the connection / leaving them and only your parents install Signal, and a decade later one sibling does but only uses it every other time they message. - Dump Facebook and What's App, recommend folks snag Signal etc, none do since all their international comms are What's App only. Take a look at options beyond Signal and laugh. - Telegram is like for like situation as a friend tried to do the same with his graph that I did with mine on What's App, unsuccessful and he's back to Telegram as the graph is more worth it to him. - Drop Slack or other group chats w/o E2EE, even though they are technical groups maybe 1 in 20 grab Signal, losing the group aspect of that social graph. They won't still have Signal installed 5+ years later. - Dump discord next too? What replacement would you consider for that last centralized bastion providing voice + text? Self host matter most with me and myself while walking on my social friend groups on Discord next? - Do we draw the line before or after HN? Why isn't the recommendation to just run away from anything social graph related at this point? The experience of swapping and dumping for better options never brings along the social parts that brought you to the bad option in the first place like Discord or Facebook. TL;DR: I've been shredding my social graph in the name of privacy for quite a while, it's an efficient means at losing friends along the way though.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lolinder 2y ago

I'm all for the existence of fully open options for people whose opsec requires full control of the stack and/or for techies who can handle it. But there's a disturbing tendency for people to throw more shade on the people, organizations, and technologies that get things almost perfect than they do on the ones that aren't even trying. Signal has managed to create a product that is so easy to use that my non-technical brother-in-law got my wife's entirely-non-technical family to choose it over various Facebook properties and other clearly-worse-than-Signal for-profit chat apps. That's extremely impressive, and part of what makes that level of ease of use possible is that there's only one Signal server. In the absence of Signal someone like my brother-in-law wouldn't have been able to navigate Matrix himself, much less help my mother-in-law to do so—in the end he would have pointed everyone at WhatsApp. Signal isn't hurting adoption of federated tooling, Signal is stealing mindshare from for-profit data hoarders, and that's something I can wholeheartedly endorse even with their imperfections.

Vinnl 2y ago
> there's a disturbing tendency for people to throw more shade on the people, organizations, and technologies that get things almost perfect than they do on the ones that aren't even trying. Also known as The Copenhagen interpretation of ethics, and once you know it, you see it everywhere. https://gwern.net/doc/philosophy/ethics/2015-06-24-jai-thecopenhageninterpretationofethics.html https://gwern.net/doc/philosophy/ethics/2015-06-24-jai-theco...