EngineerGaming @ EngineerGaming @feddit.nl

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2 yr. ago

If we are comparing it to Chrome, it is more like Ungoogled-Chromium.

Funny that the crypto wallet also upset people in the space who like crypto. Because crypto, IF USED CORRECTLY, can be a privacy tool (because it is the main way to pay online that can be utilized without KYC). However, such people got upset not just with Proton broadening their product scope for no reason, but also the fact that Monero was not even considered, despite it having built-in privacy protections unlike Bitcoin, and overall being agreed on as today's "digital cash".

Yeah, but even them you'd need to be careful in choosing the model, because so many manufacturers make it either impossible or very hard to unlock the bootloader!!

It is understandable that the answer is "because they can". But another jarring thing is how common locked bootloaders are. You can make pretty much any random laptop privacy-respecting by installing Linux, but there is a good chance your random given phone cannot have things like Lineage?! Or they can but it is so complicated that might as well not count, like Xiaomi...

Writing the directions down on a paper is still more convenient than taking out and unlocking ypur phone if a) you're on a bike; b) if it is cold out and you don't want to take off your gloves.

When I was buying mine, 9s weren't out yet - even now, the 8s are around $400 where I bought, while 7s are at an already crazy $300.

I didn't get the impression that the plastic was easily breakable - seems relatively soft. While the base and pro have glass.

Pixel 7a is the absolute biggest I can semi-comfortably type one-handed on. I can't imagine why bigger ones are more popular - don't people ever use their phone while on a bus and holding onto a handle?? I guess you could use a "one-handed mode" on the keyboard, but I never use it because it makes the keys waaay too small.

a) Pixel 9's are still new and completely unaffordable; b) I personally got an "a" because it has a plastic back instead of glass.

Yeah, I know that - I am myself in a situation where we need increasingly obfuscated evasion solutions. However, my issue is not in that it developed such a proxy - but rather, that it doesn't give an option to use a different one. For example, I have my proxy set up - so why does Signal need its own separate proxy rather than using the one everything else already uses? Why can't it use Tor without torifying the whole device's traffic?

Not to mention that dedicated solutions (XRay and such) are focused on censorship evasion while for Signal stealthy proxies are comparatively more of an afterthought. So there is a chance it wouldn't be able to evolve fast enough to keep up with the censors.

P.S. I think in Iran, there was also a bigger issue - the SMS codes for registration just didn't arrive.

Yes! Because unlike stock Signal (which, last time I tried, restricts you to their own proxy implementation), you can use whatever Socks proxy you want. Including Tor. Yeah, sure, you could use a VPN with Signal - but for people who want a persistent connection, having a VPN on 24/7 would be inconvenient. Such a frustrating part of the official app...

It would be very weird if it was - when a "ban" happens, at least here, they block the website. I doubt Sweden would fight even basic Wireguard/OpenVPN tho, so I don't see it as a big problem. The bigger problem would be carriers denying registration confirmation SMS, which is yet another downside of the phone number requirement.

Bridges are trivial to use tho. And even if they get blocked too actively, a lot of people in such censored regions have a VPN anyway (although I still don't have an understanding whether a VPN decreases Tor's security if used like this.

It can be blocked, but blocking bridges is a constant whack-a-mole (especially now that they have Webtunnel which, while apparently not as robust as some dedicated obfuscation solutions, is still a noticeable improvement). My bigger problem with Briar is that both recipients have to be online to message, or you have to set up a "mailbox".

I am pretty sure that if asked, the serverside protections can be circumvented - I think in one Github issue they even confessed that Sealed Sender is not bulletproof and is "best effort". I prefer to assume that if everything goes through a single server, and they know what and when each account does upon connecting - they can correlate the identities if they want to.

I just have two identical but independent profiles. They also double as my remote copypaste buffer.

"Harder to spin up"? Hard disagree. Matrix's main server implementation is very resource-heavy, and alternatives like Conduit are not full-featured (and broke in some ways for me when interacting with mateix dot org). Meanwhile Simplex servers are pretty light and aside from a couple errors in the documentation that took a while to figure out, it has been easier than Conduit. And unlike Matrix, it has never broken for me so far.

Fair - I was referring to the fact that here it isn't even an option.

Also, XMPP or Simplex are very easy to set up, Nextcloud is indeed more complicated.

Idk, I meant my personal experience. She doesn't see much difference between ease of use of her XMPP client compared to, say, Whatsapp.

The main turnoff for me is that it is essentially impossible to selfhost - you use random nodes from the network, and to host such a node, you have to lock up a whole fortune (last time I looked I remember it being around $1500, might've changed) in their own cryptocurrency. They do promise returns, but I am skeptical - where would they take so much money to guarantee compensation for everyone within a sane amount of time? They claim it is against a Sybil attack, but it seems to me that it would be a lot easier for a government/company to have more nodes in a situation when "competition" is reduced like this.

They probably meant tech-savviness compared to other Signal alternatives.

Although even then XMPP with modern clients is simple enough for my mom to use, so I don't entirely buy the "complication" argument either.