Agreed, just making sure people know. It would be nice to see people self host chat so that their data is truly theirs. I tried in the past to move people to Mumble but it was a non starter. Maybe when M$ takes over Discord some small pockets of people will move. I predict all the "lewd" groups will be purged at some point.
>> It would be nice to see people self host chat so that their data is truly theirs<<
it would also be nice to see a simple peer to peer chat server solution, something that looks and feels like ~messangerperhaps but runs more like an IRC.
peer server chaining would be a good feature.
[addndm] if each instance was capable of maintaining 2 peers then that would be a relay, or 3 peers then each one could function to route packets among peers
You are correct. It is just the closest thing I know of that can be self hosted. Jitsi is much more complicated. Definitely open to new ideas. FWIW the cpu load and voice quality are a bit better on Mumble, but the UI/UX is inferior for most people that are used to Discord and there is no screen sharing. Jitsi can do screen sharing but it is a much more involved setup that I don't foresee many people doing.
I am probably looking in the wrong place. The only self hosted option I see is to buy the Platinum plan. [1] Is there an unrestricted community edition on github?
That lists a web UI. Is Element just a front-end to Matrix much like TheLounge [1] is a web front-end to IRC? If so, then you would first have to set up a self hosted Matrix server. Not a big deal really but getting people to set these up and plumb them together is probably just enough friction to prevent migration.
> this is why anything important to keep secret should be said in unclear terms so only those in on it will understand
Obscurity does very little if it actually matters (that is, you have an active adversary). Just like you shouldn't try to use innuendo and hinting to get at secret things when sitting in a public space, you shouldn't use it in text communications online. Even more so because those text communications can be held and reexamined later with new understanding.
> but they will have one less user, perhaps even a mass exodus if they decide to sell out.
The only way (and this isn't even guaranteed) for services like Discord to remain independent is if they're bringing in money from users or by selling access to users. How many users are paying regularly for access to parts of the service? How many would pay if they charged $5/year for basic access? An independent company can't afford (long term) to operate a free service of this scale without some form of selling out (advertisements/access to users) or selling services.
>>Just like you shouldn't try to use innuendo and hinting to get at secret things when sitting in a public space<<
social ettiquette does this, yes its nice to be among other people not behaving like savages, but its often hinting such as "excuse me theres only 3 of those left, and theres 3 of us in line"
the idea of crypto in some form isnt to keep it secret forever, just to keep it secret for long enough that the info is not germaine to adversarial action, so out of date that it cant be used expediently. That means dont assume your cipher is unbreakable, and dont TX things that stay hot for a long time, such as crimes.
lewd groups were mentioned elsewhere and that has a big issue of facilitation of obvious crime and where to drop the line between consenting adults, and abuse.
Even if they "Anonymize" the data? I don't really know all the specifics of GDPR. Do they currently offer people in EU a way to download/review/delete (for real) all their data?
It's really hard to figure if a text message contains PII or not, so they would have to anonymize everything, meaning transform the text message into random garbage. At that point the only thing that remains is the metadata about timestamps.
I haven't checked whether they're complying or not, but as an European citizen it is my legal right to download all my personal data hosted by them, and to have them migrate it for me to one of their competitors.
I don't think you could anonymize chat messages with any level of confidence. Not an expert in this but my team generally has to treat free-text fields at the highest level of data classification because they could contain anything. The best you could do is try to mask obvious PII like phone number patterns but that's definitely not sufficient.
It is sufficient to delete or anonymize identifying information. For instance, in the case of discord, it is possible to delete only the account information without deleting the chat themselves to comply with GDPR. You can still see the chat messages for the account id 123456789, but you shouldn't be able to associate this account id with an email or other personal information.
I'm curious to hear peoples thoughts, who are very upset at the idea of a Microsoft takeover. Has not Microsoft been a relatively well behaved tech entity of late? I'm not naive, but is it reasonable to expect they will be worse behaved than Discord would be or has been on it's own?
The subtext seems to be that the acquisition is a bad thing? Perhaps this is worth discussing. Microsoft has had a number of great acquisitions and in recent years it has been a good steward.
With any acquisition there is risk that this ruins the platform but there is the potential that it gets tied into better systems and tools. Anyone can always jump ship but I think it's a bit early to get on the life-rafts without understanding why?
Slack is now owned by Salesforce. Should we also ditch Slack? I still like both products, Microsoft's ownership by itself doesn't change much for me. It's up to them to improve the product or screw it up. Too early to say and I'd rather it be Microsoft rather than Apple or Facebook.
A friend joined the thedonald (or whatever) discord, just to keep an eye on what was going on there leading up to the election. He was surprised a week later to discover his account was gone. He'd never posted a message there, just read it. So ... maybe you should just join a channel that'll attract the banhammer? :-/
22 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 54.9 ms ] thread>> They will still have all your messages <<
this is why anything important to keep secret should be said in unclear terms so only those in on it will understand
it would also be nice to see a simple peer to peer chat server solution, something that looks and feels like ~messangerperhaps but runs more like an IRC. peer server chaining would be a good feature.
[addndm] if each instance was capable of maintaining 2 peers then that would be a relay, or 3 peers then each one could function to route packets among peers
[1] - https://element.io/pricing
[1] - https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge
> this is why anything important to keep secret should be said in unclear terms so only those in on it will understand
Obscurity does very little if it actually matters (that is, you have an active adversary). Just like you shouldn't try to use innuendo and hinting to get at secret things when sitting in a public space, you shouldn't use it in text communications online. Even more so because those text communications can be held and reexamined later with new understanding.
> but they will have one less user, perhaps even a mass exodus if they decide to sell out.
The only way (and this isn't even guaranteed) for services like Discord to remain independent is if they're bringing in money from users or by selling access to users. How many users are paying regularly for access to parts of the service? How many would pay if they charged $5/year for basic access? An independent company can't afford (long term) to operate a free service of this scale without some form of selling out (advertisements/access to users) or selling services.
social ettiquette does this, yes its nice to be among other people not behaving like savages, but its often hinting such as "excuse me theres only 3 of those left, and theres 3 of us in line"
the idea of crypto in some form isnt to keep it secret forever, just to keep it secret for long enough that the info is not germaine to adversarial action, so out of date that it cant be used expediently. That means dont assume your cipher is unbreakable, and dont TX things that stay hot for a long time, such as crimes.
lewd groups were mentioned elsewhere and that has a big issue of facilitation of obvious crime and where to drop the line between consenting adults, and abuse.
I haven't checked whether they're complying or not, but as an European citizen it is my legal right to download all my personal data hosted by them, and to have them migrate it for me to one of their competitors.
With any acquisition there is risk that this ruins the platform but there is the potential that it gets tied into better systems and tools. Anyone can always jump ship but I think it's a bit early to get on the life-rafts without understanding why?
Slack is now owned by Salesforce. Should we also ditch Slack? I still like both products, Microsoft's ownership by itself doesn't change much for me. It's up to them to improve the product or screw it up. Too early to say and I'd rather it be Microsoft rather than Apple or Facebook.