- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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@cyrano The “problem” (actually, the feature) with those censorship algorithms is that they rely a lot on the “exact contents” of the message (“Scunthorpe Problem”), so X is probably programmed to detect the Signal’s domain and block due to the presence of such link (similar to how Facebook was/is blocking links to the largest PixelFed instances, and then they also decided to block links to DistroWatch and official websites from various Linux distros), so it’s not programmed (yet) to censor just the “hexadecimal/base64/whatever” portion of the link alone. And there’s where Tox could shine: a handle is literally a hexadecimal sequence, without Tox’s domains, without URI Schemas, just a bunch of digits and letters from A to F.
I don’t know why Tox isn’t mentioned as a “instant messaging platform for whistleblowers”: it got Onion (Tor) tunneling possibility (as well as tunneling it through I2P outproxies because it actually accepts any kind of SOCKS5 proxy), it’s registration-less (even Matrix needs registration) so it’s effectively anonymous IMO.
SimpleX seems to be that, too, although I didn’t have the opportunity to use it more than I used Tox. But from the little I’ve used it, it’s similar to Signal in the sense that it’s a link (and a large link) and not simply a hash/hex sequence.
Tox is nice. My favourite flavour is qTox.
The typical pattern over here: if someone uses Signal, you guess they’re some military type (wants things to be secure, doesn’t care much about anonymity, wants things to work one way and simply).
If someone uses Tox, you guess they’re some hacker / anarchist type (wants things to be secure, but also anonymizable, wants things to be flexible, even if it can backfire).
Interesting, I did not know about that app https://tox.chat/index.html
You know, for a free speech supporter, he sure seems to hate it when people speak freely.
He wants to speak freely, but he doesn’t want to afford anyone else the same right.
It’s not an uncommon stance, but it’s a hypocritical one.
hes quite the selective speech supporter
Been using Signal for years. Love it.
Makes sense than an anti-free speech dipshit like Elon Musk would oppose it.
Supposedly they’re unblocked again, but there’s been no explanation from Xitter about the issue. Definitely seems suspicious that this happened while DOGE is having trouble with whistleblowers using Signal, though.
They have a pattern of trying something and seeing how far they can get. Then they’ll say it was an oversight or a joke.
Someone recently called it similar to “reconnaissance in force” by the military – you go out with an uncommitted force and learn from the kind of resistance you get so you can be more effective.
The point is “mistakes” like these are not benign, or at least should not be treated as benign, since we can’t ever really know for sure.
Yeah. I thought it was important context that they had backpedalled, but I did not intend to downplay the severity of the issue.
I was waiting for such endorsement, maybe my friends will switch now.
It’s not easy to leave WhatsApp. I’ve transitioned to Signal a month ago and lost contact with a lot of people. My friends and family think I’m going crazy for attitudes like these. “You can’t change the world on your own”… like that was the plan 😅
Thanks Musk, that was the motivation I needed to keep away from WhatsApp.
Obviously not a X/Twitter user, I’m not a fkin idiot.
Didn’t Signal get big after Musk endorsed it? What gives?
4years ago yeah https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-signal
Yes, but then last year he started saying it had known vulnerabilities that weren’t being fixed, around the same time Telegram was attacking Signal’s credibility. I seem to remember him outright endorsing Telegram but have only done a quick search and that hasn’t popped up.
saying there are unspecified “known vulnerabilities” within Signal
His source: Trust me bro
So what’s the opinion here between Signal and SimpleX?
Signal gets all the attention, and seems more approachable but ties to a phone number which can be a big deal.
SimpleX ties to nothing but I could absolutely see people I know fucking it up and wondering where their “account” went.
So, Signal as an common man’s adoptable compromise and SimpleX to nerd out with full “opsec” and disposability? That about right?
I’m trying to use simplex, mainly for the instance’s chat. 2 things to say:
- notifications work perfectly even without play store
- every device has a separate account - I can’t reuse the same one. Not the end of the world, but it’s really annoying
From the looks of it, the variety of ways you can purposefully or accidentally destroy your local database, and the strict limits on accessing your profile, really gives me the feeling SimpleX is intended to be extremely disposable and deniable.
After playing with it I just don’t see it being used for anything expected to be convenient or ongoing. Regarding the one device per account thing, I think the whole point is you just protect your one app, nobody is sneaking in your laptop or tablet, no remote leaks possible from a sync engine. On iOS you can link to a desktop app, but your phone must remain not just on, but in the app and on the pair screen. One twitch out, PC disconnects.
Feels like something for journalists, whistleblowers, protesters, and all the bad ones. It’s a burner app for your burner phone.
Only the cool kids know where to get FOSS.
Is signal foss?
Yeah look: https://github.com/signalapp
Their backend is closed source.[EDIT: Incorrect, see below]
https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server
On Wikipedia it says the servers are open source but spam prevention is proprietary.
Here are some workarounds:
- Don’t use Xitter
- Use your phone number
- Use a URL shortener
He’s not doing anything except getting more bad press for himself.
I’ve blocked Twitter on my Adguard Home DNS already last year, so no “X” shit in my house/our mobile devices anywhere.
I don’t think it is a good idea to block twitter completely. Some countries use twitter for official announcements, including emergency warning.
That’s a weird reason to keep using X. Hopefully these places also does other forms of communications, otherwise it’s a sad state of affairs.
They also block any content, even private messages that contain Bluesky for example.
Time to create redsky, yellowsky, and pinksky URL forwarders
I think we need laws against platforms censoring discussion of their rivals, particularly with shadow bans and shadow delistings.
like anti-competitive laws? We have those. They tend to rely on certain people enforcing them though
You wish. It’s not gonna happen with these douchebags in power.
It was never about free speech
I would really like to know who is using ‘X’ now ? I mean apart from Musk and his bot army
A lot of people unfortunately. Specially people outside the US, I think mastodon is ready for people to switch, but nobody does, the most they do is switch to bluesky
Unfortunately fedverse isn’t really ready for the general population, it’s why so many people flocked to bluesky over mastodon. I know I prefer blueskys UI and features over what Mastodon has to offer.
Though Tumblr is planning to enter the fedverse so maybe that’ll help somehow.
Yeah idk, maybe I’m not that much of a micro blogger, i was never a twitter/tumblr user, so mastodon is kind of new to me, so I don’t miss any features. As far as UI, I believe most mastodon instances look pretty good, just not a twitter carbon copy like Bluesky, but that’s a matter of taste.
I believe the biggest problem is “clout” or following, with likes and boosts and stuff like that not being properly federated most of the time, people simply can not “grow”
One thing I did recently was search mastodon for some “normal” topics like fashion and yoga, but I didn’t find much.
The nice thing about Mastodon and ActivityPub is that they’re designed for the long run, and don’t need profits to be successful. So they can have slow growth year over year and still survive and slowly build up a user base that gradually adds more and more topics to attract more people.
Yeh that’s a big problem too. People on Mastodon are mostly IT/Technical people and maybe musicians, some artists and a lot of activists.
I hope at some point people understand that Bluesky is basically the same as twitter, and at some point, the company can become evil.
But yea h, activitypub is pretty much immortal haha
No one outside the USA cares about the politics of who owns what social network
Crazy I know
I am outside of the US, and I do care. Biggest army and economy and so on. Even if not, I would not want to be associated with, idk, Australian wannabe tyrants either.
What? I’m talking about ownership of a private company, not a country
