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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: November 3rd, 2021

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  • I second xmpp + omemo, and would caution that as far as I can remember matrix leaks significant metadata when syncing between instances/services.

    As a personal decision I got away from signal (molly in fact) more than a year ago.

    I’m also keep jami working with my family, particularly for things not requiring immediate response. It’s a different beast, since it’s p2p, but there’s no server associated to it, no matter if decentralized or not. It’s easy as well, just not as responsive, in particular if looking for immediate responses… I like and keep both, hoping jami improves.


  • Ohh, I understand now what you’re saying. LOS (upstream) finally allowed uG to work on their images, though not pre-installed with them, it’s mentioned on LOS4uG FAQ, see question Why do we need a custom build of LineageOS to have microG? Can’t I install microG on the official LineageOS?, the answer includes a couple of references to LOS MRs. I was not aware of that, and that makes all derived ROMs inherit such ability from upstream LOS, including divestOS, so now I see what you were talking about. The answer in that FAQ doesn’t indicate that the official F-Droid client can be installed, and even better neither it or it’s lighter official client (that one never supported privileged extension) require privileged extensions to install apps in the background, so no need to install such extension through adb, and once installed the F-Droid client, one can add the microG repo to keep the uG apps up to date. Therefore no need for LOS4uG actually.

    The sad thing is that divestOS images/ROMs are no more, since divestOS is dead. I hope LOS ports divestOS’ boot locking/unlocking mechanism from the still available divestOS repos, that would make LOS even better.

    The other sad thing is that as LOS4uG signs with its own keys, different than the LOS ones, once you start with such images, unless you can backup everything, apps, apps settings and contents, LOS settings, and so on, without a google account, you’ll have to keep using it, until you change phone, or you are OK with a factory reset and having to set everything again, since moving to LOS implies different signatures and keys, which in turn implies factory reset and further cleanup to make the image work, :( That holds true if wanting to move to divestOS images as well.

    Sorry I didn’t understand what you were saying. I’ve been using LOS before it was named like that (cyanogen), and as far as I can remember when uG showed up, LOS decided it didn’t want to support it, and it was until early last year that it decided to finally allow it, though not helping a bit providing it pre-installed, which is fine, because then the user can get to it, or rather Gapps. So I never read back about LOS criteria changing…


  • What do you suggest? If they get forced to use something encrypted, they won’t choose XMPP for sure, most probably something like whatsapp or telegram.

    Being forced to use non standard protocols, and specially non federated ones is also a concern. Where I live, it’s assumed that all clients/users must use whatsapp, so they don’t answer your questions, you can’t ask them anything, you can’t share any doc with them if in need for support, it it’s not through whatsapp. And everyone seems happy with it.

    e2ee by itself is not enough for privacy, metadata counts, and on proprietary communication systems one doesn’t even have a clue what data is mined by the company/owners or even worse if they have non disclosed mechanisms to do that or even worse to introduce back doors.

    If I’d suggest something, that would be a standard and federated protocol with e2ee like xmpp + omemo. But again, I’d be naive to assume that’s a possibility, if forced to do something corporations will choose what’s more convenient to them not to the user, and that usually translates into proprietary abusive mechanisms.

    Now about nerds using gnuPG/openPGP keys, ohh well, thunderbird chose what to me is the wrong path of not using gnuPG underneath (now by default all keys are exposed unencrypted, unless you choose to use TB’s master password for example, between several other limitations, the good thing is that there’s sequoia-octopus-librnp to the rescue), but that path allows them to offer a really easy way for users to interact with openPGP keys. On Android K9, now a days Thunderbird, has made it really easy as well to use gnuPG/openPGP keys when accompanied with openkeychain for example. There’s nothing obscure neither truly complex about current gnuPG/openPGP usage these days. I would agree like 15 years back one really needed to learn how to maintain the gnuPG keyring, how to add and manage public keys and how to manage your own private keys. But even then there was Enigmail, which after TB chose that path turned into just a shell to help move from Enigmail to the chosen TB’s librnp way, and Enigmail made it really easy to do all that gnuPG stuff. Besides thunderbird, which I wouldn’t say is a nerdy thing, there were/are several other easy alternatives to use and handle gnuPG/openPGP keys. So, not really nerdy, I’d think just willing to go a bit beyond what the corporations offer you, for “your own convenience”. But how many people even care? I’d say we’re a sleepy society, accepting everything imposed to us, even when there’s no need to, because of the hassle to look for truly privacy respectful, security respectful (from the user perspective, not just the corporations perspective), and also really important user liberties/freedom respectful, which Today’s corporations with the help of some communities and the banning culture we all embraced, have been successful in convincing us that’s unnecessary in favor of more “practical” alternatives, including proprietary ones…



  • That’s great if not having to use any proprietary apps depending on google services, including push notifications, since part of divestos unsupported stuff includes:

    Google Apps or microG or Sandboxed Play Services are NOT supported.

    Which is fine, if you don’t need to use such apps. An alternative to /e/os, which now a days is actually murenaOS, is lineageOS for micro G, which does sort of monthly releases based on whatever is available as nightly releases on lineageOS. It does provide you with microG and also with F-Droid with privileged extensions installed and already set for you. This might be more suitable than divestos if in need for some such apps.