Sounds like a decentralized encrypted messaging platform is needed.

Decentralized probably isn’t desirable for this use case; self-hosted is. When designing something for that purpose based on a decentralized protocol like Matrix, it’s probably desirable to mandate that the most sensitive conversations take place using a server with decentralization disabled and a client restricted to using only that server.

How to lose the civil war you’re trying to start in one easy step.

Between Firefox being its usual self and the 11.5gb of VRAM and GTT kwin_wayland is currently using, 32gb does not feel excessive.

Do you need a recommendation for an adblocker?

An app that could be a website and wants a huge intrusive set of permissions? So just like every corporate social media thing ever.

The TSA has little to do with the lack of hijacking since 2001. Secured cockpit doors and the widespread belief that hijacking means death are the main reasons it no longer occurs.

Under other circumstances, I might agree with you, but the guy built a bong into his dashboard.

That’s an impressive level of commitment to DUI.

You’re not wrong, and an open option might be an improvement over the current situation. On the other hand, it might encourage broader use of remote attestation.

I’m mostly disappointed that there’s no meaningful organized opposition. When Microsoft first proposed adding remote attestation to Windows, the New York Times called it out as oppressive. Now it seems like only hardcore open source nerds care, and I think the tech community should be doing better.

I don’t like it. Remote attestation is a violation of the user’s right to control over their own devices. We should be pushing to eliminate it, not expand its use.

Anyone who was publishing to FDroid already is not going to be annoyed about the 24 hour scare screen for users.

Bullshit.

It’s hard enough to get people to step outside the Play Store ecosystem. Any additional friction will greatly reduce the number who do, and the combination of a reboot and a long waiting period is a lot of friction for the average person.

And the reason it’s less the default in the US isn’t because people are so forward-thinking to use signal, but iOS being so uniquitous that people use iMessage.

I don’t think that’s quite it. iOS wasn’t as popular in the USA when WhatsApp use really started to take off elsewhere.

Instead, I think it was a combination of unlimited SMS plans being the norm, and most Americans having few international contacts.

How much of the data Meta can siphon is an open question as I understand it. WhatsApp definitely uses encryption, but there are a bunch of ways the client could send them the cleartext, especially if one allows their chatbot into a conversation.

It’s hard to say which is worse. I have a fair number of contacts on Signal now, and I find that’s a good balance of easy and trustworthy.

If I put someone’s number into the contacts on my phone, I will see what messaging apps are connected to that phone number in most cases. If they have Signal, I’ll try that first. I’ll try WhatsApp before SMS because it’s a better user experience and probably encrypted.

It’s definitely unfortunate that it’s a proprietary closed system owned by big tech. On the other hand, SMS/MMS is a pretty bad user experience by comparison, and it’s unencrypted.

WhatsApp has significant market dominance in Europe, to the point that only one or two people I know who live on that continent don’t use it. If you give someone your phone number in Europe, they will almost certainly send you a WhatsApp message, not an SMS.

It’s not a need in the sense that you’ll die without it, but not having it adds significant friction to social relationships.

I had an inverse experience after an adult beverage or two and talking to someone about a third party’s script they found unsatisfactory. It went about like this:

Zak: filename.py sucks

Claude: What’s wrong with it? Bugs? Code quality? Features?

Zak: yes

Claude rewrote it, claiming it had “multiple issues”. It found and corrected a major bug, added error handling, and improved command line argument handling.

A lot of network, banking, and telephony protocols historically rely on trusting that there are no bad actors in the chain. Technology has added more links to the chain increasing the opportunities for bad actors to tap into it.

Their wish to break the first rule of network security (you can’t trust the client) shouldn’t be everyone else’s problem.

could dramatically cut the energy consumed by artificial intelligence hardware

Decreasing the cost of using a resource almost always results in more use of that resource.

Laboratory tests showed the devices could reliably endure tens of thousands of switching cycles

That’s not very many when GPUs perform trillions of operations per second.

I’ve tried it, and only ran into a couple apps that wouldn’t work with MicroG. I won’t pretend it’s painless, but it’s workable for someone with sufficient motivation.

/e/os is Android without Google proprietary stuff. It runs most Android apps.