PS. With all the Discord stuff, in case you wonder why you never see me promoting Matrix, it’s not because it’s a usability nightmare (which it is) but because it’s made by the kind of people who’d be happy to call ICE a customer.
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@aral @precariousmind @element Hahaha. So next time I see someone putting down Signal and boosting Matrix, I can say “signal isn’t run by fascist bootlickers.”
@MisuseCase @aral @precariousmind @element b-but they tried to hid that almost all of their funding came from the fucking CIA for a decade...
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@kravietz @couscous @aral @element @ahltorp
I see it that opponents view it as "blood money" that poisons the project, and supporters see it as "the police/military have these fuckloads of money, might as well have them go to some commons"
now, is "tapping MIC budgets for a good cause" enough to outweigh "selling your services to the oppressor"?
two things can be true at once, and there's an (at least perceived) risk of the project getting too chummy with the violence-dispensing institutions
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@kravietz
those alternatives make no sense, but I guess you already know it
TBH I don't know when you can start saying france is fascist (US is falling more blattantly, even though our gov follow them at every step)
what france is though is plain and simple : colonialist and white supremacist (or tries to be at least), and I can't see how taking their money isn't helping crushing humanitarian views, from domestic or international point of view (think palestine...) -
PS. With all the Discord stuff, in case you wonder why you never see me promoting Matrix, it’s not because it’s a usability nightmare (which it is) but because it’s made by the kind of people who’d be happy to call ICE a customer.
The “F” in FOSS doesn’t stand for fascism.
@element https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110340953550548309
When I read your post I was like…
this will generate a lot of discussions, yet still a good post Aral 
Also one of the many reasons why I don't use it or promote it too…
&
why not matrix?
at this point it seems like most of the tech community is familiar with matrix, the "open network for decentralized communication". lots of projects and communities have migrated from a host of other platforms, including irc, discord and slack with the promise that their new spaces will be free forever. i first discovered matrix in 2021 and have dedicated a lot of time trying to understand exactly how it works, as well as trawling through github issues to try and understand whether we should consider matrix…
Telegraph (telegra.ph)
BundesMessenger shows Germany's embrace of open standard messaging
The beta launch of BundesMessenger is a significant step in Germany adopting independent, interoperable and data sovereign communications.
Element Blog (element.io)
Cool kids use Signal/Molly & Delta Chat
Rysiek posted this during that Signal foo two days ago
Everything You Think You Know About DeltaChat Is Wrong
I am smitten with DeltaChat... DeltaChat has been making massive strides lately and I think you should consider using it as your full time secure messenger.
Makefile.feld (blog.feld.me)
Sincerely
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@MisuseCase @aral @precariousmind @element b-but they tried to hid that almost all of their funding came from the fucking CIA for a decade...
@cygnathreadbare @aral @precariousmind @element And somehow they are *still* better than Matrix
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@SuperDicq @aral @precariousmind @element Help, I’m getting mobbed by anime avatars
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@davidgerard I'd be prepared to pay for it as a service.so that I don't have to run it myself, which I wouldn't know ho to anyways. I can't believe it's not possible to make it private, even with payments. Not that I 'd know anything about it, but just looking at all the solutions that people have found, like linux on apple silikon chips or countless others.
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@aral @precariousmind @element Hahaha. So next time I see someone putting down Signal and boosting Matrix, I can say “signal isn’t run by fascist bootlickers.”
@MisuseCase@twit.social @aral@mastodon.ar.al @element@mastodon.matrix.org @precariousmind@neopaquita.es well signal is not something I recommend. After all they use fascist hardware.
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PS. With all the Discord stuff, in case you wonder why you never see me promoting Matrix, it’s not because it’s a usability nightmare (which it is) but because it’s made by the kind of people who’d be happy to call ICE a customer.
The “F” in FOSS doesn’t stand for fascism.
@element https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110340953550548309
@aral@mastodon.ar.al @element@mastodon.matrix.org Yeah... apart from this, Matrix is also a way overengineered protocol with not a single working implementation, and Element in particular is bloated as heck and frequently dies for running out of memory on an iPad Apple still supports.
I need an alternative, but sadly none exists, as I absolutely require multi device support and being able to talk to people without handing them my phone number. Maybe XMPP needs to have a revival - collect a good set of extensions, give that a new name and start over? -
When I read your post I was like…
this will generate a lot of discussions, yet still a good post Aral Also one of the many reasons why I don't use it or promote it too…
&
why not matrix?
at this point it seems like most of the tech community is familiar with matrix, the "open network for decentralized communication". lots of projects and communities have migrated from a host of other platforms, including irc, discord and slack with the promise that their new spaces will be free forever. i first discovered matrix in 2021 and have dedicated a lot of time trying to understand exactly how it works, as well as trawling through github issues to try and understand whether we should consider matrix…
Telegraph (telegra.ph)
BundesMessenger shows Germany's embrace of open standard messaging
The beta launch of BundesMessenger is a significant step in Germany adopting independent, interoperable and data sovereign communications.
Element Blog (element.io)
Cool kids use Signal/Molly & Delta Chat
Rysiek posted this during that Signal foo two days ago
Everything You Think You Know About DeltaChat Is Wrong
I am smitten with DeltaChat... DeltaChat has been making massive strides lately and I think you should consider using it as your full time secure messenger.
Makefile.feld (blog.feld.me)
Sincerely
@nemo @aral I've worked in UK public service and am currently employed in a highly regulated industry (health and social care).
Even if there isn't any covert backdoor to the FOSS version, communications services considered suitable for use by public services and corporates are *expected* to provide some way of monitoring comms and inspecting data for regulatory and compliance purposes (usually at server level), its extremely difficult to get contracts/funding for software without this.
So once they are chasing funding from these sources, there is now no commercial incentive to make a system secure to the point its safe for users such as activists etc, it just needs to be "good enough" for the govt/corporates...
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@aral Your position implies that the police is an enemy and that states shouldn't have any kind of law enforcement called "police". But can you pledge that you will never, ever call the police, nor expect any police intervention or involvement, no matter what?
States are human super-organisms and their existence is both necessary and unavoidable in our world. And states need a police force to be effective. @element
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Imagine regaining effective, broadly inclusive democratic control where it was lost (or winning it where it was absent). Then the problem of slave-patrol mentality will be easy to solve. Otherwise, you will end up recreating the same thing under a new name. It's not the name that is the issue, it's the shape of the institution within societies that don't adhere to democratic standards.
@mpsi
Well then until society can be made to adhere to democratic standards, we shouldn’t support the mechanisms that allow it to suppress resistance and dissent. -
@MisuseCase @aral @element Do you know that there are many different countries on this planet and some of them function much better than the US?
@mpsi @MisuseCase @aral @element
A rapidly shrinking number given the realization that so many of them are effectively vassal states to America. -
@davidgerard I'd be prepared to pay for it as a service.so that I don't have to run it myself, which I wouldn't know ho to anyways. I can't believe it's not possible to make it private, even with payments. Not that I 'd know anything about it, but just looking at all the solutions that people have found, like linux on apple silikon chips or countless others.
@Tamtam
What exactly do you mean by "private"?
And, service needs to run *somewhere*. And "just buy servers and rent datacenter space" leads do "and who goes in to replace disks and RAM when they fail? And who pays those people?"
And, depending on your needs etc, I'm quite intrigued by Zulip, though it's a specific niche. And yes, they can host it for you. But then they have access to servers.
@davidgerard -
@MisuseCase @aral @element Do you know that there are many different countries on this planet and some of them function much better than the US?
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@MisuseCase@twit.social @aral@mastodon.ar.al @element@mastodon.matrix.org @precariousmind@neopaquita.es well signal is not something I recommend. After all they use fascist hardware.
@Stomata @aral @element @precariousmind What kind of hardware are you posting from?
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PS. With all the Discord stuff, in case you wonder why you never see me promoting Matrix, it’s not because it’s a usability nightmare (which it is) but because it’s made by the kind of people who’d be happy to call ICE a customer.
The “F” in FOSS doesn’t stand for fascism.
@element https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110340953550548309
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@MisuseCase @aral @element Do you have any personal experience of living in other countries than the US and encountering police violence?
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@mpsi
Well then until society can be made to adhere to democratic standards, we shouldn’t support the mechanisms that allow it to suppress resistance and dissent.@freediverx Fight for that, this is the only way.
