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Wired's Attack on Privacy
- skeptrune 2y ago>SimpleX design restricts message visibility and file retention, making it far from ideal for those looking to coordinate large networks. Telegram's and discord's "news" style channel features have always seemed to attract the wrong kind of usage. An article criticizing private messaging apps for dedicated features like that which enable hate groups and scammers would be more interesting. Encryption seems like a red herring.
- inquirerGeneral 2y agono one cares what enables hate groups, it's not 2022 anymore
- mind-blight 2y agoI'm also curious how it would affect CSAM proliferation. That's one of the biggest angles of attack on encryption (see how many times the UK has tried to ban it). If their techniques mitigated that, then it could take done if the wind out of the sales of folks trying to weaken encryption
- racked 2y ago> Telegram's and discord's "news" style channel features have always seemed to attract the wrong kind of usage. The only ones I've seen are for porn distribution and crypto banter. What do you refer to when saying 'the wrong kind'?
- VariousPrograms 2y agoIt's silly how privacy detractors try to associate so-and-so terrible group with any software that simply lets people talk without corporate or government surveillance, as if the concept of a private conversation is a strange and suspicious thing now.
- AlexandrB 2y agoTo play devil's advocate: private face-to-face conversations do not allow for effective coordination of actions across large distances. There are plenty of good arguments for keeping the government out of everyone's private messages, but this kind of messaging and a conversation are not the same thing.
- big-green-man 2y agoYes, they do, it just takes longer to enact what was coordinated. There's no fundamental difference between a conversation in a meadow and one online.
- jgwil2 2y agoSometimes quantity has a quality all of its own. The difference is in the number of people who can be involved and the distances that can be conquered, but those differences completely change the possibilities of online speech.
- big-green-man 2y agoBut there's nothing fundamental about that distinction that warrants a separate set of societal rules. It's just scale: more people, farther distance, shorter time frames.
- janderland 2y agoThis is not true. We’ve all observed how differently people behave online. The anonymity aspect creates different social outcomes. While there are arguments for preserving encryption, acting like online communication is the same as face to face is disingenuous.
- big-green-man 2y agoWe are talking specifically with regard to private communication between people, not speaker's corner online, that's a separate discussion, although I'd have similar views on that topic as well. It's not the same. But it's not fundamentally different, it's just the technology makes it such that meeting up with someone to talk, no matter where they are, is trivial. It's like a pulley.
- remram 2y agoWow what a hit piece from Wired. And not even a month after their article "Seriously, Use Encrypted Messaging". What the hell happened? Do they hate someone at SimpleX? Or hate Jack Dorsey? This is not journalism...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- from-nibly 2y agoThey don't hate anyone. They just love money.
- emodendroket 2y agoSo what are they doing in the magazine business?
- red-iron-pine 2y agoFlailing, mostly
- sunaookami 2y agoGovernment propaganda
- aaron695 2y ago[flagged]
- LeafItAlone 2y ago> If you have to tell me about the bad Nazis I'm not interested in what you have to say. I'm going to be either be pushed to pro-Nazi or have a IQ above the Redditor NPCs who sit around circle jerking about who they don't like, rather than the actual issues in this world. I’m having a real hard time understanding what you are trying to say here.
- Dalewyn 2y agoHe's basically talking about Godwin's Law[1], which reads: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." and "Any off-topic mention of Hitler or Nazis will cause the thread it is mentioned in to come to an irrelevant and off-topic end very soon; every thread on Usenet has a constantly-increasing probability to contain such a mention." The TL;DR is that whatever you are saying isn't worth anyone's time of day if you're using Hitler or the Nazis in your argument, and you made everyone in the room dumber with just your sheer presence by doing so. [1]: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodwinsLaw https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodwinsLaw And yes, it's a TVTropes link, but for once it actually is a good read if you aren't familiar with old internet lore. If you prefer less modern examples, see also Reductio ad Hitlerum[2] which was noted in 1953 by Leo Strauss. George Orwell also observed it in passing in an essay in 1944.[3] [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_(insult) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_(insult)
- unethical_ban 2y agoYeah, the re-emergence of far-right nationalism isn't real! And if it is, why report on it?
- pessimizer 2y agoI guarantee to you that Wired has been an intelligence front for 20 years at this point. This is an absolutely predictable position from them, and it's meant to be quoted in Congress and in courtrooms.
- dullcrisp 2y agoLike everyone working for Wired is an undercover Fed?
- cool_dude85 2y agoI don't know anything about wired, but very few people need to be explicit feds for something like wired. Maybe one person high enough just has friends in the intelligence community, and that could more or less be enough - few or none are hired if their perspectives on key issues don't align with management. It's a conspiracy theory, especially when talking about any specific media organization, but the intelligence agencies certainly did this before, and it came out in the Church committee. There are a few journalists who continue to work at big-name outlets despite being named as assets in the diplomatic cable leaks, for example. So it's not unreasonable to suggest, I'd say.
- CatWChainsaw 2y agoObviously! It's in the name!
- teractiveodular 2y agoCitation needed. Wired has generally sided with hackers against government overreach, see eg this recent piece of investigative journalism: https://www.wired.com/story/fbi-section-702-us-person-queries-email/ https://www.wired.com/story/fbi-section-702-us-person-querie... I was personally rather surprised to seem them posting the kind of mainstream media style hit piece justly criticized here.
- _zagj 2y ago> Dozens of neo-Nazis are fleeing Telegram and moving to a relatively unknown secret chat app that has received funding from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. Isn't Telegram notorious at this point for being the go-to app for people distributing CSAM? Not trying to tar Telegram, and obviously, most people are using it legitimately. But it's crazy that Wired seems more concerned about what messaging service "dozens" of "neo-Nazis" (no doubt generously defined) are using rather than child exploitation. In fact, the article only mentions child exploitation in two paragraphs. It would be like an article about "Roblox Racists" that ignores its much more serious predator problem.
- wkat4242 2y agoTelegram gets a bad name too much IMO. I use it with groups of thousands and nothing illegal. It's just a really good chat app if you have large groups. Way better than WhatsApp or signal. Where I live in Spain it's super popular.
- _zagj 2y agoSame is true about Rbolox, which is why I compared Telegram with it. My objection was to the ordering of Wired's priorities.
- wkat4242 2y agoRoblox has a bad name? I've never tried it as it seemed really kiddy. A bit like Meta Horizons in fact. Too 'nintendo'. I like the more gritty platforms like VRChat.
- novok 2y agoIMO telegram is slavic whatsapp with some crypto spice. And almost any communication medium will be used to transmit bad things and managing that is an expensive arms race. If you really care to, you can probably find examples everywhere.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- skybrian 2y agoAlthough I have no real need to know about it, it's somewhat useful to read about what extremist groups are doing. I hadn't read the Wired article yet, so I thank the people linking to it (both at SimpleX and Hacker News) for bringing it to my attention.
- AlienRobot 2y agoAm I the only who finds it odd how Wired is treated as a person? The article begins with >The Wired article by David Gilbert Acknowledging that there is a real person called David Gilbert who wrote the article and it wasn't just an amalgamation known as "Wired" who did. Yet later it says: >Wired just a month earlier encouraged its readers to adopt encrypted messaging apps, making its current stance even more contradictory. But that article was written by Lauren Goode and Michael Calore. If Wired had a stance in this, it would be exercising editorial control, which some would criticize for censoring the authors. Instead, Wired publishes whatever its authors write, and then some criticize for writing contradictory articles. If I was Wired I'd just shrug because you can't win.
- big-green-man 2y agoWhen you own a trademark that is for publishing and you let people slap your logo on their writing, you take responsibility for what they say. That's the whole point of the trademark, to take credit for publishing the words. You can't have it both ways.
- solarkraft 2y agoWired can choose to be known for publishing conflicting view points though, of course. (though if that is the case it hasn’t really made it through to me until now)
- shiroiushi 2y agoUsually, when real journalism publications do this, they make sure to prominently display "OPINION" before these writings, along with a disclaimer that the views of the author do not reflect the views of the editorial board.
- unethical_ban 2y agoIn my mind, magazines have had more editorial discretion than "papers of record" like the News section of a national paper. Though I would expect a magazine to have some more consistency in ideology.
- someonehere 2y agoI’ve been a subscriber to Wired for almost the entirety of the publication. I also subscribe to their RSS feed. Lately they have been heavily pushing articles painting conservatives as being the most destructive in tech, politics, and society. Their bias has been overwhelming to the point where I feel someone is pulling their strings to push a narrative. You can argue however you want about conservatives, but Wired is losing my ability to like them. They’re becoming a political rag. The Verge has also been dabbling in articles like this one as well lately too. There are forces here trying to influence the media recently.
- BLKNSLVR 2y agoInteresting, then, that a hit piece on encryption is exactly on trend for conservatives.
- novok 2y agoI think it's flipped recently, or maybe I'm thinking of another kind.
- Dalewyn 2y ago[flagged]
- stahtops 2y agoYes there is a lot of rage/clickbait now. Often times the title doesn't even align with the content...
- unethical_ban 2y agoI challenge the notion that "media" or journalism as a concept are bad for society, or that real journalism is impossible.
- Dalewyn 2y agoMedia in the sense of sensationlist dopamine hits is bad for society in the same way smoking is bad for your lungs. It'll get you high, but you will become worse off for it because you waste so much time and energy being artificially angry about shit that doesn't matter to you. The worst case is when the media is being sensationalist propagandists on someone's dime, then you're artificially angry about shit strictly for someone else's benefit. Proper journalism, which the media is not, is the so-called Fourth Estate which is of great benefit to society and it isn't impossible. However, proper journalism like any product of labor costs money. Most people by and large do not pay for content that isn't sensationalist, and proper journalism cannot take public money from the government due to conflicts of interest. The practical prerequisites to enable proper journalism therefore make it impossible.
- aaomidi 2y agoCurious how their anonymous groups work: https://simplex.chat/contact#/?v=2-7&smp=smp%3A%2F%2FN_McQS3F9TGoh4ER0QstUf55kGnNSd-wXfNPZ7HukcM%3D%40smp19.simplex.im%2FyLZWzYNjHa9wAEDGqCXdsOs2WEDBoy9a%23%2F%3Fv%3D1-3%26dh%3DMCowBQYDK2VuAyEASkSOMEt2R16dALloiIJeQvGa33NXeJSY5Kd7IH9H-XI%253D%26srv%3Di53bbtoqhlc365k6kxzwdp5w3cdt433s7bwh3y32rcbml2vztiyyz5id.onion&data=%7B%22type%22%3A%22group%22%2C%22groupLinkId%22%3A%22TPAKLzFLRCbthm8qHFxoag%3D%3D%22%7D https://simplex.chat/contact#/?v=2-7&smp=smp%3A%2F%2FN_McQS3...
- metalman 2y agotruely private comunication is the abdolute and fundimental requirement for a healthy civilisation and the archiological record is strewn with the evidence of human endevor to achive a private and reliable mail system going back to the very first attempts at symbolic representation of ideas the failures and pitfalls were known from ancient times,and in the case of the Mongol tribes,there were some who looked down on the tribe of Temugin and his decendents,because they would write things on paper,as "literacy" was seen as proof of a weak mind..... face it,secure absolute trust comunication,or fatal dependencies....on the civilisational level
- snvzz 2y agoTry and use full stops. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_clause_structure#Run-on_sentences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_clause_structure#Run-...
- krunck 2y agoIf they made a desktop version you'd know they are serious about privacy. Instead you are forced to use mobile platforms which are, in reality, anti-privacy.
- unethical_ban 2y ago1) It makes sense to go where the users are. 2) Major mobile platforms are anti privacy in some ways, reasonably private in others 3) Mobile devices have cameras which make QR/key sharing much easier than desktop 4) GrapheneOS
- snvzz 2y ago>desktop version There is an official Linux client for the terminal. It is likely that someone will eventually make a multi-platform GUI.
- akimbostrawman 2y agoThere is also a GUI client for Linux written in java