If voting worked, we would have solved this issue decades ago. You can vote for whomever you want, but at the end, no matter what they promise, they always end up doing nothing at all, because they are elected by using big oil donations.

Only a self-organized revolution can stop this madness, people in some nations are already blocking oil tankers and oil rigs. We can't win by only voting, you can vote for a day every few years, but we need to fight this everyday. Take turns blocking streets so no oil driven trucks and cars pass, only this will make an effect.

Email is federated as well, but I never saw anything I could call email instance wars. You can use whichever you want, no one really cares.

I don't agree, whenever I take someones phone and start reading their private messages or browsing history, they always get nervous, even if I can't find anything.

People certainly care, even an average person is aware of problems with digital privacy and they would love to get it solved. But people care about a lot of things, global warming, homelessness, police brutality, they just don't organize well enough to fight those issues and fighting them alone is hard.

Also don't forget the amount of propaganda there is to live a certain way, to chase promotions on your job, earn more money and have a high social status. All of these things get in the way of deleting instagram,whatsup and etc.

There is also a problem with lack of marketing of alternatives, most people haven't heard of lemmy or XMPP chat.

I suggest we try to get people to start using these alternatives first, until there are enough users that they actually have a choice to choose either network and then a lot of people will delete mainstream apps. First step is to make it popular, second is to delete these bad apps. However even getting someone to use a new app is hard, since they are bombarded everyday to install some new app and are even financially motivated (with deals and discounts).

It is a hard battle, but a necessary one. Without privacy there is no democracy, voting is secret for a reason. We need a real democracy, where we choose laws directly, not by someone else we are forced to vote for due too lack of better choice. That requires safe and private digital communications. In person communication is very limited.

I think people often forget federation is not a new thing, it's a first design for internet communication services. Email, which is predating the Internet, is also federated network and most popular widely adopted of them all modes of Internet communication. It also had spam issues and there where many solutions for that case.

The one I liked the most was hashcash, since it requires not trust. It's the first proof-of-work system and it was an inspiration to blockchains.

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." ― Edward Snowden

Briar is an app that is just as easy to use, plus you dont need a phone number, so it is easier. Yet it has no point of failure and it was simpler to write. It is P2P, uses tor, you dont get better privacy and security than that.

You dont know what their server is running, you cant prove that. They can release the code, but you have to trust them that they are running that exact code.

Ease of use is an excuse, they have a centralized model. That is a big flaw. There is more to security then E2E, xmpp clients have E2E as well, they use the same algorithm.

People join massive protest all around the world for these things. They are willing to spend a day walking around and yelling even if it is an inconvenience.

It is lack of organizing and having a trust that if we just vote for right politician it will be solved. For decades of elections, nothing changed.

We need to organize ourselves as the people, like they do in some countries. Stop the traffic, organize in shifts to stay on road blocking all gas powered trucks. You need to stop businesses from operating normally to give the system some reason to change, instead of just ignoring us and promising us that next election it will be better.

Same for soical media, do the internet equivalent of blockades, DDOS them like anonymous did. They can't arrest us all. And organize to block police cars when they try to make an example of the few.

It is burning in part because any organized movement against social or economy change that is big enough is stop by interference by the government. You can't organize a blockade of streets or a riot it the FBI is in every chat that you use to organize a group of activists.

It goes hand in hand. We need to fight for privacy in order to have direct democracy

I think we can be more certain that they can't afford losing all workers on a strike, then that they can't possibly cut down on CEO's salary and let workers keep the jobs.

Also I think that the very fact that if companies workers are not in a union, they are more likely to make risky decisions, such as these, to expand too fast and risk losing all the works when they go on a strike.

I use gpg to encrypt my passwords with my public key. Benefit is that adding credentials to a new file doesn't require me to type the master password (password for private key). I trust gpg the most for security.

XMPP is decentralized, you can run your own server. In open decentralized protocols, such issues are resolved by design. Further more most XMPP servers don't require a phone number, why would they, unlike Signal.

Why would you trust Signal more than XMPP that uses same encryption? I think people are just afraid of things they haven't heard of, even if they have been there for longer and have a better reputation. This is why marketing is the biggest business in the world, google and facebooks only revenue is selling ad space and they are richest companies in the world. Fight that marketing, learn a bit about XMPP and you will see it is far better than Signal.

Exactly. It is not that they don't care about privacy it is just that they trust them because they are the standard, they are big and government is supposed to keep them in check.

People trust the system way too much

Every worker needs to be in a quality grassroots union. Even if you have a good Tech job now, this can change. Strike in solidarity with other workers, only a fair and safe society will bring you personal well-being.

It is important for a society to have privacy, not just you as an individual. There are journalists and activist that need privacy for a very good reason.

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." ― Edward Snowden

I disagree. There are many FOSS decentralized projects that are still running today, including XMPP, that are doing fine and make even better and more secure software than Signal. All centralized privacy apps so far closed or started sharing data with governments. Statistically that is far more likely scenario then a popular FOSS app to lack devs.

Exactly my point is that if it closes we will have to push for new apps anyway and it is better to do it now, before more users potentially use SIgnal and are left without their app.

The reason we don't have democracy is not because we don't fight enough with each other, but because we can't fight together for a common goal. 98% want a democracy and would prefer privacy. We need to stop letting politicians pin us against each other, but let us understand that despite our differences, we have a lot of common interest and that they are the actual enemy.

As some did in Russia during conscription for war in Ukraine, shoot the officer that made you fight in a war, not the unwilling solider on the other side of the border. People don't want to fight each other, it is politicians that throw other people's lives away while they sit far away from action, pretending to be actual war heroes.

What about pinephone?

I disagree, both about alternatives and about trust. I outlined XMPP (and even matrix) as alternatives in my post. If only popularity is an issue with these alternatives than we have to work on that, to make it popular, that is what this post is for. Just like Lemmy had few users once, XMPP and matrix are not as big as Signal. But their design is better and their use should be encouraged. I don't think that trusting a single entity, such as Signal is something we have to do. Trust should be only depended on if there is no way to build a system without or less of it. It is better to fight for it now, since Signal use can eventually grow and make it harder to switch. We can debate over likeliness of this corporation being good forever, even when it's current members are replaced (due to old age if nothing else), but I think it is easier to debate over their capability to be good if they are under pressure of US security agencies. Even if they are willing to risk their freedom (and their lives) for their users, they can't stop the government of shutting them down. The state has killed people for far less over the years.

I think XMPP is more well-known than SimpleX, I simply mentioned Briar for the sake of possible ease of use argument over some XMPP clients.

Yes, I write credentials in a file and encrypt them with my public key. Then I use my private key to decrypt them when needed.

I never claimed that you should pick a random server. You can pick servers run by groups that have just as good record of privacy or even better or are run by the person you know or yourself.

When you have a decentralized service you can choose who you trust, you are not stuck with one corporation. Picking a completely random server is the worst possible example you could have chosen.

You can pick servers run by groups that have just as good record of privacy or even better or are run by the person you know or yourself.

When you have a decentralized service you can choose who you trust, you are not stuck with one corporation. Picking a completely random server is the worst possible example you could have chosen.

Why would you need to trust their choice? The only data that is sent from your server to theirs is your username (called JID in xmpp terms) and E2E encrypted message. The worst thing their server can do to yours is to send you a message, if your server decides to pass it on.

Most of these battles are very interconnected. Destroying one part of this horrible system will leave a flank open for the rest to fall.

They need to spy on us, so they can stop any real fight, riot against other issues that are plaguing us, like inflation, climate change and etc.

Not really true, people are willing to fight for a better life and a better world. We just need to organize, to fight together. There is a lot each of us can do make using these decentralized apps more convenient, including simply making valuable content on these networks, but also translating it into different languages, reporting bugs and trying to fix them or write tutorials on how to use it or get around a bug.

We are all normies

By starting early enough and being persistent. It will take time, but we had this issues for decades and we will have it for decades more. Best time to start a revolution is yesterday, second best is today.

I suggested XMPP in my original post. It is hard, but still will take just few minutes, for a lifetime of solved privacy and centralization issues. Unlike centralized apps, decentralized networks don't really die, just look at email. XMPP is over 20 years old and will live for 20 more, few minutes spent to set it up is well worth it.

Old people are hard to change, but you can always try. Still at very least we should motivate young people to use this decentralized alternatives and not trying to promote centralized ones like Signal.

We need direct democracy. What we live in is no democracy at all, they choose for us and then we just pick the worst of two evils.

They don't need to be. I am talking about the security being in your hands, it is end to end encrypted and you can hide your IP behind tor, since unlike Signal, XMPP clients support use of Tor.

It might be a good idea to ask local schools to talk to every class about digital privacy, teacher might be into that. Telling them about examples, such as XMPP, might be very useful.

It is important that you do bother, since the people that need it can't reach you otherwise while keeping their anonymity.

XMPP clients support end to end encryption, so the servers only get encrypted messages. Also unlike Signal, XMPP clients support use of Tor to hide your IP.

I dont know why I cant reply to any of you in this thread. EDIT: I will do it here:

That’s a terrible line of thinking. Why not just use it till the end, if it ever comes?

It is perfectly reasonable to sail on a solid boat instead of jumping from one sinking ship to another.

I get that you want to promote XMPP but accusing others of corruption is not how to do it, unless you have solid proof of it. Do you have any sources suggesting Signal has sold data?

I never mentioned in my main post that Signal is selling data and I also clarified in this post what I was exactly referring to. It is unreasonable to put words in my mouth

Either you have some centralization to help facilitate its ease-of-use for customers, or it becomes more difficult to setup and use. Much like the rest of life, there are trade-offs.

I disagree. There are many decentralized apps that are easier to use than centralized apps, including Signal. It is simpler to create an account on a P2P app like Briar then a centralized app that requires a phone number like Signal.

See the difference is, you need to convince non-technical people to use xmpp. Most of my non-technical friends already have Signal, no convincing required.

Every XMPP server gets as much as data from your private messages as Signal does and since XMPP clients have an option for using Tor, unlike Signal, it requires even less trust with data.

The benefits of decentralized network compared to centralized are very significant and worth trying to convince your friends. There is no single point of failure. If Signal closes due to government pressure, you will need to convince them to another app anyway and at that time there might be another popular centralized app that will again close after certain amount of pressure. The only way out of this is by pushing decentralized apps and pushing them now, rather then latter.

Signal launched in 2014 and is open source. It is literally impossible for them to “sell out”. If the main developers want to stop developing it, it will simply be forked. Do you even understand what open source software is?

I understand what open source is and I fully understand the dangers of centralized apps as well. I have addressed these arguments in my main post already. If it gets forked we will need to again develop a new app and grow the userbase from scratch. It is far more reasonable to make a switch now to decentralized services. I am simply trying to explain to people the dangers of centralized apps, just like I did for reddit (which was also open source centralized app until 2017 and here we are on decentralized lemmy now). Seeing people fighting for decentralization, out of no possible personal goal, while defending centralized system run by small group of people that gain funding for it, should never sicken you. You should encourage people like me that try to warn you in time and let you know about alternatives instead of booing me off, like people did lemmy advocates on reddit before this recent scandal.

As you can see I spent a lot of time trying to teach people about this stuff to make an actual social change that will benefit us all, so please read about XMPP and think about it. Spread the word, because I can't possibly reach everybody.

I wouldn't if that was a viable option. Today it is not really possible to not use technology, even not using mainstream apps will make you socially isolated and unemployable (which due to lack of decent social services, is a death sentence)

I don't know too much about lemmy yet, but all of these things (tagline,siudebar and legal info) sound like they should be controlled only by admins, that should be able to add html code anyway (since it their website).