Mastodawn

Ampersand Jul 11, 2023

psychopomp disaster

Don't talk about illegal things (abortion in certain places, DIY HRT, etc) on facebook messenger. Don't do it on whatsapp or via SMS or Instagram DMs or Twitter or Mastodon or Discord or whatever.

Use signal. Use a PIN on signal. Turn on auto-destruction of messages. If your data is not fully end-to-end encrypted, that data can and will be handed over to police and it will be used to prosecute you.

psychopomp disaster Jul 7, 2023

Nothing you transmit over the internet is private unless encrypted in a way only you and the recipient can decrypt it. Nothing.

LisPi Jul 11, 2023

@ieatkillerbees I find that there is value in purposely spreading illegal information anonymously.

It just requires adequate precautions, a willingness to self-sacrifice/martyr or living in some place where it won't have consequences (due to being locally legal, laws being unenforced, etc).

SCIFI.radio Jul 12, 2023

@ieatkillerbees Moreover, it completely uncontrollable once it leaves your fingertips and will end up in the most unlikely places, and used for purposes you never intended, in ways you cannot remove.

John of the North Jul 7, 2023

@ieatkillerbees what are your thoughts on Telegram?

psychopomp disaster Jul 7, 2023

@shutupmac you need to opt into encrypting conversations on telegram, and the encryption they use is not as battle-tested as signal's. Signal also avoids using long-term keys, so even if a key is compromised it doesn't expose all messages between participants.

Skylar Caulfield

@ieatkillerbees honestly use session, even if they somehow got a hold of the messages it hard to grab the origin of them

Skylar Caulfield

@ieatkillerbees I know people hare on it cause it has proof of stakes model to prevent the feds from taking over 90% of the network but it is still very private

oceaniceternity Jul 13, 2023

@skymtf @ieatkillerbees what are you guys thoughts on matrix then. Also I've never heard of session, going to look into it.

Skylar Caulfield

@oceaniceternity @ieatkillerbees matrix will hide the contents of your conversation but not a ton of meta data, like they 100℅ prove a conversation happen between two people. Session hides this pretty well.

Skylar Caulfield

@oceaniceternity @ieatkillerbees signal in terms of meta data is the same, I guess matrix could protect you from charges on abortion but likely not in cases where they just need to prove you talked to someone

oceaniceternity Jul 14, 2023

@skymtf @ieatkillerbees Unfortunately, I'm not certain how well encryption would help you in a court of law given Key Disclosure Laws exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law

Key disclosure law - Wikipedia

Skylar Caulfield

@oceaniceternity @ieatkillerbees depends, most communication encryption provides deniability, like session provides not only zero metadata. If I were talking about it I would also use disappearing messages. Secondly at least in the US you can be forced to disclose information to incriminate yourself. Also even device encryption in some cases provides two ways to decrypt the data

Skylar Caulfield

@oceaniceternity @ieatkillerbees so like fake data etc

oceaniceternity Jul 14, 2023

@skymtf How does it get around the necessity of metadata for routing, i.e I understand metadata as "this packet needs to go to this destination"

Skylar Caulfield

@oceaniceternity so session works similar to Tor in the nature they know you connected but not much else. only the last node knows the destination and only the first node knows who the sender is.

Skylar Caulfield

@oceaniceternity the oxen network functions really simularlly to the tor network other than you need to put stake in before you can operate a node(cypto shit)(kinda makes sense after reading the whitepaper on a common attack for tor which is to just host so many nodes you can pretty much log an entire circuit

Karen Strickholm Jul 8, 2023

@ieatkillerbees I want to say this is exaggeration, but it is not. There is real legal peril involved. 🤬

AuthorKatieOslow Jul 8, 2023

@ieatkillerbees 100%
If you are involved in any organizing, learn operational security and when to use what apps.

Zac Jul 9, 2023

@ieatkillerbees

If you’d like private encrypted messaging WITHOUT having to tell the service your phone number, @threemaapp is a great alternative to Signal.

There’s no such thing as private messages unless it’s end-to-end encrypted.

Fénix Jul 10, 2023

@ieatkillerbees all of this, and I hope it's okay to add: I've seen people talking about Telegram supporting encryption, and while it technically does, encryption is only enabled for "secret chats" and it doesn't make starting those easy. In other words, as you said, use Signal.

Paranoid Factoid Jul 10, 2023

@ieatkillerbees

Don't forget Element and Matrix.

Russ Sharek Jul 10, 2023

@ParanoidFactoid @ieatkillerbees

Came here to agree, and also recommend xmpp and matrix.

sadmac356 Jul 11, 2023

@ieatkillerbees I hate that it's come to this

BlackDutchSnark Jul 11, 2023

@ieatkillerbees better yet, just call and talk in person. The Southern states aren’t tapping phones…

ilyess Jul 11, 2023

@johnettesnuggs @ieatkillerbees As long as the call is end-to-end encrypted. I’d personally rather rely on crypto/math as a guarantee that my call isn’t being tapped, than take their word for it.

BlackDutchSnark Jul 11, 2023

@ilyess @ieatkillerbees most of the southern states don’t have the $$ or the (technical know-how) to be tapping phones, and hopefully the NSA isn’t sharing. Some of the areas here still don’t even have cell service🙄😬

LisPi Jul 11, 2023

@johnettesnuggs @ieatkillerbees You can also use encrypted IP protocols over modem P2P connections, to mitigate the hazard of eavesdropping if any.

It incidentally represents a loophole for places that make encryption illegal as well as wiretapping.

Doctor Memory Jul 11, 2023

@ieatkillerbees strongly agreed but it’s worth noting (ugh, am I well-actually-ing here? Apologies) that WhatsApp is default E2E encrypted by default these days and uses the same protocol for that as Signal: https://signal.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/

WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete

At Open Whisper Systems, our goal is to make private communication simple. A year ago, we announced a partnership with WhatsApp and committed to integrating the Signal Protocol into their product, moving towards full end-to-end encryption for all of their users by default. Over the past year, we...

Signal Messenger

Jacqueline Jul 12, 2023

@ieatkillerbees Afaik RiseUp should work too, if you can get an account. They're known for refusing to turn data over to the feds.

David Fleetwood - RG Admin Jul 12, 2023

@ieatkillerbees It's really too bad that Signal after four years of promises hasn't yet made it possible to use a nickname rather than a phone number. If anyone in the conversation is compromised, everyone is.

mischief brewer Jul 12, 2023

@ieatkillerbees @briar is making strides, too. It's P2P and routed over Tor.

They recently rolled out a mailbox feature which turns a spare android device into a private server for asynchronous communication (one of the downsides to P2P)

CautionWIP (he/him) 🏳️‍🌈🇨🇦🕎Jul 12, 2023

@mbrewer @ieatkillerbees @briar Had not heard of @briar before, many thanks for the headsup!

epicEaston197 Jul 12, 2023

@ieatkillerbees
you can also use a trusted matrix server

Théotime Jul 12, 2023

@ieatkillerbees
Aren't messages on WhatsApp end-to-end encrypted? I mean, they still collect more data than on Signal, but I thought they used the same protocol on WhatsApp and on Signal?

Stuck Here Jul 12, 2023

@ieatkillerbees
On social media sites you'll often see the unmentionable subject discussed as camping and camping advice. If anyone needs to find travel ideas and get camping advice you might be able to find it under those terms.

Don't forget that a Tor browser beyond using Signal is a good idea. Tor can run off of thumb drive and doesn't have to be installed.

Good lord, how we've returned to the 1950s when it comes to abortion laws.

ErosBlog Bacchus has moved!Jul 12, 2023

@ieatkillerbees Yes to all this and furthermore, if you aren't doing any of those things now, install Signal anyway and use it to chat with your people about all the random things you normally text each other about.

Future you will thank you when you DO need secure communications and you don't want signal intelligence to figure out that you just developed a strong need for privacy.

And meanwhile, your mundane traffic will help protect all the people who do need privacy right now.

frigginGlorious ✅Jul 13, 2023

@ieatkillerbees I agree. Don't incriminate yourself. There's quite a few times where I end conversations with friends with "but I don't wanna talk about that idea here. You should get signal"

But is anyone being sent away for HRT or abortion?

undead enby of the apocalypse Jul 13, 2023

@ieatkillerbees agreed, even tho I wish signal wouldn’t force you to reveal your phone number. (And yes I know there’s a workaround with using some service to generate a sort of throwaway phone number, but as long as you have to use complicated workarounds the issue is still there because most people won’t do that)

SPICY EVIL CAET🍬🍭🎄

@ieatkillerbees dystopian world

Iris Richardson Fine Art 🇩🇪🇺🇸📷Jul 13, 2023

@ieatkillerbees It's a sad world we are living in

steelman Jul 14, 2023

@ieatkillerbees In some(!) settings Matrix may be even better because it doesn't require a phone number, which sometimes(!) may be traceable.