Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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Why not to trust Signal (Blogpost from 2018) (drewdevault.com)

submitted 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

49 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Good summary of several red-flags in regards to using the Signal messenger.

Also interesting is this one.

Use a locally hosted XMPP with the Conversations client :)

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) (2 children)

Jeez, I just looked at moxie's comments here, and was like woahhhh! - https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217339450

    > Some time ago you federated with CyanogenMod. What has changed since then?

What changed was going through that experience. It seriously degraded the UX for our users and held us back in the development process at many times. I'd estimate that all told, we lost about 6 months to a year of progress. It's something we'll probably never do again, and has fully convinced me that federated protocols are a thing of the past in this world of ours.

    > I hope you see the difference between LibreSignal and the SignalPlus-like apps that just want to earn something using somebody else's work. I really see the space for a good cooperation here.

If people want to use our source code to develop their own products, that's fine, so long as it's done under the terms of the license. That's the deal we're making with everyone, and I agree that it allows for possible collaboration. However, we are not running a service for other people's products, and we are not letting other people use our name in their products. Those things aren't part of the deal.

    > Let's just use XMPP/Conversations and be done...

You have no idea how much I would love it if you did, but the fact that you don't is sadly telling.

It's something we'll probably never do again, and has fully convinced me that federated protocols are a thing of the past in this world of ours.

This one!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 years ago (1 children)

This response by the matrix devs is a good read.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago)

Thanks, will give it a read.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) (2 children)

https://signal.org/blog/there-is-no-whatsapp-backdoor/

It is great that The Guardian thinks privacy is something their readers should be concerned about. However, running a story like this without taking the time to carefully evaluate claims of a “backdoor” will ultimately only hurt their readers. It has the potential to drive them away from a well-engineered and carefully considered system to much more dangerous products that make truly false claims. Since the story has been published, we have repeatedly reached out to the author and the editors at The Guardian, but have received no response.

We believe that WhatsApp remains a great choice for users concerned with the privacy of their message content.

There we have it, let's all switch back to WhatsApp and be done with this issue :D

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 years ago

'Believe me, there is no back door'

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago

Not if average users fall into herd mentality and guilt by association. WhatsApp is part of Facebook after all. Given how hyper-polarized everything can be now, I'm not surprised people are flocking to alternatives.