David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)Much as I like #Signal, threatening to leave a country if they pass laws banning end to end encryption demonstrates a weakness in the system. The Signal Foundation should not have the technical ability to 'leave' a country. At worst, they should be able to stop receiving donations from people in that country.
jwz@david_chisnall And this problem only exists because Signal chose the business model of being a growth-at-all-costs social network running in a closed data silo, no different from Facebook, instead of being a protocol and set of applications capable of meaningful federation. I am constantly [ Nathan Fillion Face ] at people's seemingly-intentional blindness to this. https://jwz.org/b/yjnA
Thomas Guyot-Sionnest@jwz @david_chisnall I think the issue has more to do with the current app distribution model. Most users will never install an app outside their phone vendor's app store, and in fact for iPhone it's almost impossible to do so. Even if Signal resisted or offered direct app downloads, blocking from the app stores would affect most users.
AlexanderMars@dermoth @jwz @david_chisnall If Signal got blocked from the iOS store, it would be game over for the plebes. My aged mother couldn't handle switching to GrapheneOS, she'd tell me to go fuck myself.
This is why I think protocols like #veilid are the way forward. No centralised architecture, which in our current dystopia seems like a ridiculous failing of imagination from Signal. #sup may be interesting, but the encryption needs to be much more serious than current Fediverse platforms.
@AlexanderMars @jwz @david_chisnall That doesn't solve geo blocking, if one country forces Apple to remove all apps supporting a messaging protocol it doesn't matter how open it is, it won't be available for the masses.
@dermoth @jwz @david_chisnall Sure. This is exactly why I will never use Apple's hardware again.
I don't trust trust Apple or Google or use any of their services, not even for notifications. I only use FOSS software that I have an acceptable level of control over, GrapheneOS or an atomic Linux distro.
Everything else, I assume is fully comprised and unsafe.
Some of my friends think I'm crazy, but I think it's crazy to comply with the broligarch surveillance industrial complex.
Resist!
@dermoth @jwz @david_chisnall alternatively, Darkwire is a self-hostable encrypted chat web app. Be pretty hard for the authoritarian minded regimes to block this.
Could be hidden in plain sight for opsec.
