I understand that it may be problematic sometimes but this was very smooth. I didn’t even say anything.

A: what’s your number for the whatsapp group Me: I don’t have whatsapp because of facebook. B: ok, we have to use signal then A: ok

And that was it. Life can be very easy sometimes

0 points

Now tell them you just switched to matrix and see if they’ll follow

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0 points

Matrix can be pretty unstable at times

I like Mattermost but it isn’t federated

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15 points

I don’t have to. Matrix is coming anyway. It’s not an if but a when.

For official (internal) company communication though I will advertise matrix instead of signal. I’ll report back once I’ve talked to the right people about it.

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1 point

Nice

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60 points

Never abuse kind people. That’s what breaks them.

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2 points

Its a joke if that wasn’t obvious.

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-26 points
*

Signal is so bloated compared to Conversations on Android. Also it’s a walled garden requiring your ph number to register (edit: and requires owning a smart phone👎). Based in the US so not great for privacy. Marginally better than Whatsapp suppose.

Edit: and it requires a smart phone.

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2 points

Not that I will convince you to use signal, but there are desktop versions as well, so technically not required to use a smart phone.

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4 points

That requires a phone …

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2 points

Yes

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4 points
*

I use Signal. It’s the in thing in my circles.

The desktop version cannot be used independently; you still need to make and maintain an account on a smart phone. Also the desktop version uses crazy memory. It’s a pos. I no longer use it. Also you’re limited to 2 devices: one phone & one comp. I sync my xmpp chats between 3 or 4, depending.

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2 points

Signal works across more than two devices.

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4 points

Signal app size 165MB. Conversations: 42MB.

I can’t message someone on Signal without installing Signal or Molly which also uses Signal servers, which has to be trusted on good faith (can’t run my own). Ergo a walled garden just like Whatsapp.

I can’t register with just a username & password. I have to trust their PR saying they don’t store my ph #.

US has some of the worst legislation when it comes to privacy; when the agencies decide they want your data, Signal will not be allowed to tell you. And don’t give me the bs line that they only store 3 pieces of info about you. Unless you’ve built their server software you don’t know what they collect am store.

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-8 points

It is good indeed they’re actually decent people, however I’m sad they switched to a piece of shit of a software that fails to sync messages at any opportunity and delivers a poor user experience in most platforms by not being native / following platform specific UI guidelines.

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1 point

What do you recommend instead?

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-1 points

Anything else other than Signal.

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3 points

Whatsapp?

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-1 points

What’s wrong with Signal: https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/why_not_signal.md

TLDR: Funded by the CIA, centralized in the US and phone numbers make you personally identifiable.

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2 points

I’m assuming OP didn’t just accept a position with the fucking Hezbollah, so Signal probably fits his usecase

It’ll be fine. If the fucking CIA wanted OP to spill the beans they’ll just send an agent with a wrench directly to OP’s kneecaps.

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0 points

Yeah if you have nothing to hide, what is the problem with spying?!

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Isn’t that the guy who invented Lemmy? Reminds me of TG’s founder doing the same.

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-12 points

Why don’t you use WhatsApp?

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10 points
-12 points

I work in cyber security and this is dogshit.

Most of it debunked thanks to the EU also.

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6 points
*

Well, WhatsApp is owned by Facebook. They are a large player, so they are under a bunch of scrutiny.

But at the end of the day, WhatsApp clearly states it takes all this information. They only claim to keep your messages end-to-end encrypted.

I wonder if this applies to text messages only, or to things like voice memos, images/videos, gifs, etc. as well.

WhatsApp doesn’t let you send documents if you don’t give it full access to your files. Sure, maybe they pinky-promise don’t do anything but this is Facebook we’re talking about.

The same caveat goes for photos and videos - you can’t even send a photo if you don’t give it the camera permission and gallery access, something it clearly doesn’t need just to send a single picture.

Additionally, WhatsApp loads previews of websites. Sure, on the privacy violations list that’s pretty low-priority but I’d still like to not have a link contacted before I can take my 3 seconds to look at it and decide wether it’s worth clicking. Especially since a lot of my contacts send obvious scams (“send this message to 10 contacts for a chance to win a free iPhone” type bullshit mostly).

Revoking WhatsApp’s contacts permission will not show peoples’ nicknames - it will only ahow numbers. Yet you have to give yourself a nickname on WhatsApp, so they clearly have some interest in your contacts. Otherwise they wouldn’t block it outright when it’s an already implemented feature to show nicknames for numbers not in the contact list.

All quite suspicious if you ask me. Although I don’t work in cyber security so it’s clearly just incoherent rambing from me.

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14 points

Because it’s proprietary garbage. If there are FOSS alternatives, I’m most definitely going to use them instead of proprietary software, let alone proprietary software by companies like Meta. And since there are plenty of those alternatives: No WhatsApp for me.

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17 points
*

Meta owns it, and meta is one of the large, evil tech corps.

They are probably the easiest one for most people from English-speaking countries to cut from their lives.

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11 points

You must be lost

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-16 points

Nope just well informed and educated, not a shrieking pearl clutcher “cUz fAsEbuK”

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3 points

Lol

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Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

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