Only for those who are willing to give a phone number.
Has this changed recently?
Only for those who are willing to give a phone number.
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.
My ZEN work is a living without Google.
I trust in math too, thus I agree with you.
For listening to free music, I simply use youtube. Sometimes I add soundcloud and other free music-sharing services. I've also been known to occasionally pay for subscription music services, when they have something specific that I want to listen to and can't find elsewhere. Most of the paid music I listen to on physical CDs that I rip myself.
Again, I pick up people where they stand. This depends strongly on context and geography.
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.
I do very much object to being called "sheep". I do understand pretty well how privacy works, and how these services are implemented, and I don't use them because I'm a sheep. I use them because they are convenient and useful, and I understand the privacy implications. For example, when I post something on Facebook, I expect exactly zero privacy, after all I just posted it for the world to read.
It's not peer pressure. It's practicality. When I need or want to communicate with someone, I ask them how I can reach them. If they tell me "write to me on WhatsApp", I will do that. If they ping me on Facebook messenger, I will reply there. If they say "send me a paper letter in the mail", I would do that too (except that nobody has said that in about 10 years). Given that the two or three largest IM services (including SMS and the voice phone call network) all have very large market share, it simply makes sense to use them.
You mean like SMTP?
Excellent advice. Applies worldwide, not just in the US, and it particularly applies in Russia and China. Even if it means carrying two phones in the pocket most of the day.
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.
Well Google certainly has in the past. I'm not willing to bet they'll continue to be "good".
I avoid doing anything that could be considered personal business on any equipment provided by a client or an employer. I do occasionally have to field an email from wife, but we immediately negotiate another mode of communication and switch.
Heck of a way to go. I'm sorry.
I'm not worried about the national security apparatus. They certainly have the resources to get at my information should they want it. I'm worried about Tom, Dick, and Harry with a subpoena. All of the online providers will comply with subpoenas immediately. It'll take a search warrant to get to my server, and a court order to force me to hand over passwords. This is a much higher bar.
i haven't opened a google account for a long time. I can't help you on this subject, but I'm sure there's online tutorial on the net. Also I'm not a google consumer. I hate Google and Apple. I can't provide you some rational. It just my feeling and instinct. I don't have similar feeling toward Microsoft or Amazon. For whatever reason everything about google disgust me. Its CEO and their policies, its API's (Angular, etc) and products UI/UX (Drive, etc) and Google Thumpers.
You should have created an account for a fictitious co-worker named "Honey Potts".
If "instant" means "reasonably fast" (and it does for me), SMTP is more than adequate most of the time in my experience. Notable exceptions are when you run afoul of my SPAM mitigation measures. This is a feature.
That's one way to look at it. Another is that nothing better has emerged in 48 years. Many have tried. Personally I think that no one has matched the decentralized, federated nature of the SMTP protocol. Sure, naive assumptions about who would use the protocol led to the SPAM nightmare, but again, SMTP has been there done that. I feel like a lot of the problems XMPP is experiencing right now are SMTP in the early part of this century.
Decentralized and federated designs of infrastructure are known to be the most robust. Other protocols than SMTP do utilize this as well. And yes I'd prefer this design for any communication. And yes SMTP cannot be fixed anymore (i.e metadata problem) and should be abandoned.
Or a lack of interest in social media in it's entirety...
of course not, but given the number & consequences of all the commonly well known affairs & scandals with facebook, twitter, google etc.pp. I took the freedom to express my disapproval through cocophony and I commented that.
Modern clients support cross-posting to several platforms, and once influencers start to use alternative platforms, they will convince others to follow.
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. In some cases, this is good, in some it's bad. Additionally, they're much after the metadata (who knows whom and such), that's their business model, there have been and will be numerous misuses of metadata, and you know it. Don't play dumb, please.
While it's perfectly ok to act this way, I feel that persons who have more knowledge than average Joe about IT, what is possible & what not with today's computing resources & state-of-the-art AI, can take responsibility and tell about such misuses & the dangers it implies, and point others to reasonable alternatives. EDIT: Feel free to do a quick search on the mental health issues the censors are suffering from, because they're regulary confronted with weird things like pedophile and/or overly violent topics. IIRC, most of them live on the Phillipines.
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.
