huh, yeah that’s fair i did not actually notice that :/

yeah i’m rethinking some stuff too, even in some utopia i think some information related to me might make life inconvenient, so the best way to protect that (e.g. not disclosing it digitally) maybe needs outta the box solutions.

related, does anyone even bother to look at physical mail for stuff? like if i put a cipher in a letter with no return address, using that pen ink that you can erase (which comes back if you put it in a freezer) and only i and my contact have the key to the cipher which we exchanged in-person; could anyone reasonably know it?

it seems digital stuff might be a carrot for surveillance people, maybe it can be made into a honeypot and physical or analog means can make a return.

Hi, could you touch on why F-Droid is less safe? Is it because they package (I think that’s the term?) stuff themselves?

I think they wanted to be, they were advertising themselves!

I have a newer Redmi Phone and I can install an app at least twice. There’s the ‘second space’ as well which is like having a cordoned off user. I use a different fingerprint or PIN and it takes me there.

SimpleX looks neat.

Yeah, fair. It can’t delete your messages to the extent a centralized system, and that’s an indication of the lack of centralized control? It’s a different threat model I think many find satisfying (though perhaps not most).

I think most of your criticism makes sense.

The part about “not reading private messages” I think is mistaken, or rather, maybe amiss. I mean I don’t have evidence, so this is all conjecture. The sophistication of data surveillance and data gathering makes the content of the message rather meaningless in my view.

EDIT: Oh, I don’t think any adversaries of US, even if working together, make any meaningful threat towards it. It’s really hard to imagine, esp. considering the US has a bunch of successful coups & stuff under their belt.

Huh, would it be possible to provide a source? I might be bad at searching, I’m not finding anything…

EDIT: Ok I found one with some search operators. I can provide links, most were less trustworthy, I’d reserve judgement.

1. An organization which was initially responsible for Matrix, AMDOCS, is allegedly (I say allegedly since I didn’t confirm it to a reasonable extent) an organization based in Israel which appears to have products related to surveillance
2. By association, Matrix is tainted, perhaps it has sophisticated backdoors along with the other myriad of issues mentioned by other commenters

To give an alternative explanation with plausible hypotheses

1. An organization linked to intelligence surveillance, created and discarded software, which occurs with most software, and I would imagine occurs with software developed at an organization linked with surveillance as well (if it’s publicly funded, i.e. by a government, I’d lean into this)
2. Though suspect in origin, the amount of time the software has been independent, and with its open codebase, means any backdoors or other nefarious artifacts can be reasonably said not to exist
3. An organization linked to an intelligence agency would perhaps be the one to expect to have a secure messaging platform, one could imagine said organization would develop a solution in-house as even with software audits, they may not be certain of any external software which may itself be compromised by an antagonist or have vulnerabilities which they could not control

Some food for thought. I’m not one to jump to conclusions, I think claims require proportional evidence, and obviously my judgement isn’t the same as a security researcher or clandestine operator, so settling on what ‘appears’ to be true without proper investigation isn’t something I do.

Thanks for the info though!!

I use signal as well, might be worth looking into these two links to better manage expectations.

First here and second here.

Related post by Matrix here

Would you say like in the case of your comment, where the ratio skews heavily towards negative, something like having the thread collapsed by default or like hiding the score would be a better way to facilitate productive discussion? I think it works as a temporary middle ground (say the first 24H a post is up and folk’s aren’t completely decided, it gives controversial ideas a fightin’ chance)

So I actually want to engage with you. If some stuff ends up being like “collapsed” or “hidden by default” because some just had a one-off bad experience with users from a particular community, do you think you’d agree that it is an OK compromise or is that relenting too much for freedom of expression?

oh is that not the case anymore? is that because world is the biggest instance now? might be preferable if most don’t appreciate their politics. Also like, I wouldn’t want server downtime or anything to effect the devwork of lemmy…

Being intolerant does not necessarily mean complete exclusion. Like one-way federation is still allowed right? So if some folks wanna comment they can still get the same content, the folks who don’t won’t. I think that’s a decent middle ground for the meantime.

There is another solution. Make it so witches cannot cause harm, everyone gives a little bit to make everything work for everyone.

We already give things away: money with taxes, certain liberties, information, hours of our lives; how many of those are done with complete intentionality? i.e. could we choose to do something else? I’d rather do something I choose or want to do even if its harmful or less pleasant because it’s something I am privy to instead of not.

This really sounds like a reformulation (with more accessible language and preferable IMO) of Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance. I have it below for your convenience:

Less well known is the paradox of tolerance:

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. (in note 4 to Chapter 7, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1)