[social media] Community-driven, open (source) alternatives for "FresseBuch", TW;TR, WhatsApe etc.

[ekvz]

Good boy! Seven years after Snowden my enthusiasm for educating others got to a reasonable level. That is I inform only when asked for. No more crusading.

And what is most important: No more to anyone unseen. I won't teach potential adversaries and people acting against my interests anymore. There are so many dumb people outside on the Internet that I'm thankful that they gather at places I strictly avoid. And I love it meantime that security agencies scan this places. And it is a pleasure seeing that they get commercially exploited there. At least the dumbest deserve what they get there, but if Bezos, Zuckerberg & friends do a great job on this, they have to pay their taxes on their profits like every blue-collar is forced to do so.

A little cynical aren't we? Well, it's not like i can really blame you.

 

[ralphbsz]

Do you have any evidence that Facebook (owner of Messenger and WhatsApp), Microsoft (owner of Skype), OS vendors (Android, Apple) for SMS, or Google and Apple (for Hangouts and Messages) look at the content of my IM chats? On the contrary, there is strong evidence that they do not.

Are you serious??? It's well known that they do, with linguistic AI software, and "human resources" read the posts where some flags go up, and censor where their policy is violated.

I was talking about IM - it even explicitly says so in my sentence. I don't remember any case where there were credible allegations that services read instant messages. From an expectation of privacy point of view, IM is like two people standing in the park, whispering into each other's ears. And as far as I know, that expectation of privacy has been honored (with the exception of government security services, which is why WhatsApp exists).

Postings are different. Those are published, there for everyone (or at least all members of a large group, in closed groups) to read. Publish means they become public. At that point, there is an expectation that they can be read by things like administrators or moderators. The fact that publishing mechanisms such as Facebook have administrators and moderators (usually virtual ones, implemented using software) makes perfect sense, and I find nothing objectionable about that. Postings are like walking around carrying a big poster, for all to see. It shouldn't surprise anyone that people will read the poster. And it shouldn't surprise anyone that on private property, certain forms of expression are unwelcome: if you walk into a bar with a poster that says "alcohol kills, drink only water", it makes perfect sense that the barkeeper will throw you out of the bar. Similarly, Facebook suppresses certain opinions.

From a privacy point of view, e-mail is like IM: It should be private, as it goes from one sender to one or a small number of recipients, and there is an expectation of privacy there, which is (usually) well supported by laws for traditional paper mail. The fact that some e-mail services have at times inspected the content of the e-mail is troubling, and that practice in general should be stopped.

 

[bookwormep]

If by commercial you mean proprietary, then it would be hard to know either way.
I would have to do a lot of research on this question to give a fair and objective answer. So, I just don't know. This has nothing to do with level of education.

 

[Jose]

'Naive assumptions about who' would use a protocol *should* not affect it's reliability. Can you give an example please?

Sure. Everyone ran an open relay back in the '90s, and it solved more problems than it created. It was nice to know you could send your messages to your buddy's Sendmail when yours was on the fritz for whatever reason. No one thought to send thousands of unsolicited emails this way. It just wasn't done. You know what happened next.

Forging "From:" headers was (and is!) trivial. No one thought this would be used for reflection attacks. Again, you know what happened next.

Why would you want to encrypt your email? It would just waste precious CPU cycles. See later in this thread for more on this.

'Experiencing a feeling' is an upmost personal arousal. What's the purpose of talking of 'a lot of problems' and not listing at least a few of them?

I can experience feelings other than arousal. I'm truly sorry for you if that's the range of your feeling.

I was thinking specifically of SPAM. Here are a few links for you

XSender: The Source of All the Recent XMPP Spam

In recent months, security researchers, hackers, and other dwellers of the cyber-criminal underground have noticed an uptick in XMPP (formerly Jabber) spam.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

Spam Reduction on yax.im - yaxim

yaxim.org

Why We DO NOT Fully Support "The Jabber Spam Fighting Manifesto" - XMPP.is

As it stands, XMPP.is does not support “The Jabber Spam Fighting Manifesto” for various reasons. It stands in the way of those looking for anonymity/privacy, and spam can be easily mitigated client-side. Certain measures should NOT be applied server-side. The … Continue reading →

xmpp.is

 

[a6h]

I ha[vt]e to refer to a Wikipedia, but here's a nice compiled article on phony apocalyptic events and related links to how people fell for it. STFW. Now how that related to this thread?
No matter how many times I told people, not to post their private life (part?!) on Instagram [Privacy Implications] or asked them to send me emails, instead of sending PM/DM from IM at a rate of 1 ppm (one post per minute), like a lunatic from booby house [Sanity Considerations]. So forth and so on. When it come to dumb topics, people love to hear and follow them. Just spread the message and you're good to go. But if you want to warn them, about danger of real things, good luck with that. Similar to getopt, I take the position that, I gave up!

 

[Mjölnir]

I was talking about IM - it even explicitly says so in my sentence. I don't remember any case where there were credible allegations that services read instant messages. From an expectation of privacy point of view, IM is like two people standing in the park, whispering into each other's ears. And as far as I know, that expectation of privacy has been honored (with the exception of government security services, which is why WhatsApp exists).

Well, IMHO it's naive to assume that user-to-user communication on a commercial instant message (not only textual, also voice) service is not scanned by AI-enhanced linguistic software & read by human censors if some lights go on. I have no publicy known example at hand, if I stumble upon one, I will post it here.

 

[Jose]

Think about how accurately Facebook's face-recognition system is going to be able to pick out your face from even the most jumbled crowd picture given how many training samples you gave it in your Instagram account. Keep playing with those funny filters, by all means. (Paraphrase of an actual conversation I had with my daughter.)

 

[a6h]

I'm wondering how far SM will go in the future.

Marked as 'deprecated'. Everything has an EOL.

 

[mikethe1wheelnut]

Or what I'm really saying: From my viewpoint, there is no alternative to Facebook for efficient quick checking of what my friends are saying or doing.

..wow, I so don't believe this. at least, that's my knee-jerk reaction. maybe there isn't one -now-.. that's no reason not to create one! ..but I digress.. ;-)

 

[Deleted member 30996]

20-100-2fe and mjollnir
We do have a choice. And we are free not to choose.

That is your choice. You chose not to chose.

 

[Mjölnir]

BTW where's getopt?

 

[PMc]

What can be done to enhance the publicity of these alternatives?

Bombs. Nuclear bombs.

In fact, recently I came across a paper, about the British government having decided to buy a lot more nuclear bombs. They argue with the increasing threats imposed by (among others) internet corporations. So there appear to be chances that the Brits might just nuke Amazon an Google and Fressenheft - or did I get something wrong here?

P.S.: I bothered to look it up - so if you have difficulties to believe, here it is:
the UK’s way of life is threatened by rogue states, terrorists and big tech firms.

 

[wolffnx]

Bombs. Nuclear bombs.

In fact, recently I came across a paper, about the British government having decided to buy a lot more nuclear bombs. They argue with the increasing threats imposed by (among others) internet corporations. So there appear to be chances that the Brits might just nuke Amazon an Google and Fressenheft - or did I get something wrong here?

if you or in your work have spreadsheets
in gmail download a backup now

 

[ralphbsz]

In fact, recently I came across a paper, about the British government having decided to buy a lot more nuclear bombs.

Did they order them from Amazon or Alibaba?

<- That's a joke. I know about the AWE.

 

[Deleted member 30996]

What makes you think that e-mail and SMS are any more or less secure than message systems such as WhatsApp? If you listen to what the national security apparatus can do and does, you would not think for a moment that SMS, voice calls, or e-mail is particularly secure.

Missouri, the Show Me State, is a "one party consent" state. Take note, drhowarddfine.

That means if I want to covertly record any conversation whatsoever, in person or by phone, no matter what state you live in, if I consent to the recording, that's one party.

Therefore, if you operate in Missouri, you may record a conversation or phone call if you are a party to the conversation or you get prior consent from one party to the conversation.

Agent of Chaos 101 - Wiretapping

Do you think I'm going to tell you I'm covertly recording this phone conversation while I'm recording you? Doesn't stand to logic I would, and no law says I have to. And if I'm covertly recording this call because I'm not as stupid as you think don't expect me to start getting that way by telling you, much less ask you.

When it became in what I considered my own best interest to start recording every conversation I had with Admin, then HUD too. it was the tool I used agains't them with stealth and ease in phone and personal conversations. The one thing I had going for me they could not have anticipated and made all the difference. A $60 Sony pocket digital audio recorder.

I held back in submitting into evidence, covert evidence until they had turned down what could have been settled for $1700 into a $100,000 case by waiting to submit it. I bet $100,000 I could predict what they would do in this instance as a Behaviorist and rub their nose in it for thinking I was stupid.

I'm going to make a surprise call at 8am Eastern and guess who I'll be recording? Because, I feel let down... And I am not the one who should feel sad. ..

 

[fjdlr]

Hi,
For me, Don't know / don't care
Social networks send you sociopath; isolation, madness

 

[sidetone]

I'm now interested in Mastodon, and Identi.ca (Pump.io). Twitter was good for reading, though now, Musk is going to use it too much for influence. Some of Musk's intentions were good. At other times, his ego has gotten conflated with world events, he has used social media or a tv appearance to manipulate a market, or he is overly political. A lot of times, people take political stances that I don't agree with, but it's rare when someone makes a political statement that irks me. Good for him, that he's acquiring it. He also has free choice, as do consumers. I may go back and read Twitter feeds from time to time, though I won't as often anymore.

as far a messaging systems goes, I strongly recommend to use Signal messenger. Its protocol passed formal security analysis: Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2016/1013 and it became European Commission’s messaging app of choice.

Only for those who are willing to give a phone number.
Has this changed recently?

No but you don't have to give your real number. Create a pseudonymous Google account and Voice VoIP and use that in signal to receive confirmation SMS.

That, or Signal is only good for communicating for those you would give your phone number to. It's an upgrade for texting over SMS, and it's good for bypassing long distance charges. Signal also has an extra feature of video communicating. Because the transport is encrypted, Signal is more secure than traditional means of SMS texting, calling and video calling. It also asks for a password every week or so, which is inconvenient. Only one device can use it at a time, which can be good for the reason that, you know the messages are only going to your device, and aren't being read from another device on the same account plan. Telegram is easier to use, and while people have used it in a somewhat secure way maybe for the moment, its security is fundamentally compromised.

If not Signal, XMPP, but that takes a learning curve, and it has lacked compatibility with other XMPP applications/servers/clients/extensions/features in the past. Everyone knows a phone number isn't needed for that.

 

[grahamperrin]

… interested in Mastodon, …

I recently discovered BSD Network, <https://bsd.network/about/more>.

I created my account a week ago, it's simultaneously "fully operational" and "pending review".

In other words: not fully operational. I can't view <https://bsd.network/about> without signing out. In the absence of that page, there's no obvious link to <https://bsd.network/public>. I can't add favourites whilst signed in, and so on.