Hi, Doug. Just last week, the ACM came out with a thorough and interesting
guide on how to run a virtual conference:
https://www.acm.org/virtual-conferences
They link to an open Google Doc that lists lots of different resources and
their characteristics:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LLLniPkf48CCZyG_BNy1ylF2wXNlztqNEOnzNuMQmJc/edit
There are also a number of other useful links and appendices. There is no easy
answer to the choice, since all the tools have limitations. They don't dig much
into security and privacy aspects, but do have focus on how to restrict access
only to registered persons.
Another resource is something I posted to cpunks about earlier. I'm attaching
the email I sent. It was a CCC talk that described the different software they
used. Mastadon & Jitsi were highlighted, among others.
Jitsi has a key limitation in how the video streams are sent, which makes
larger meetings a problem due to bandwidth management - I experienced this
myself, where a meeting with 10-12 people fell apart because attendees were
getting dropped, or couldn't receive all the participant streams.
Another personal experience I have is with Slack. Slack is actually pretty good
for live audio/video meetings of 10 or so people. The nice thing is that if
you're already having an ongoing Slack chat, you can launch a "call" any time
in the same channel.
It's nice to hear from you. Enjoy!
Greg
On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 06:24:23PM +0000, Douglas Lucas wrote:
> Hey cypherpunks,
>
> So what video chat options are there that are less privacy violating and
> social graphing than Zoom, Skype, etc, while still being at least
> somewhat available to the everyday user? Imagine two use cases:
>
> 1. Audiovideo chat between Alice and Bob: they want to watch an online
> movie together whether by sharing a screen or some other method, and
> then have sexy times later by same audiovideo chat. Imagine further that
> Bob uses Linux laptop and knows more or less what he's doing, while
> Alice uses Windows or Apple or her standard-issue smartphone or w/e and
> doesn't want to spend her little weekend time off paidwork trying to
> configure stuff to meet some faraway incel's expectation of flawless
> fantasy security.
>
> 2. A video panel or Q&A being hosted by your local friendly anarchist
> bookstore. Maybe it needs 3-5 people on a panel talking, their famous
> faces visible on the screen along with their audio while they debate
> each on internecine leftist conflicts that distract from far more
> rational propaganda of the deed, while the 20 people in the audience,
> including people of all sorts of demographics who have a hard enough
> time paying their bills online, have their audio and video forcibly off
> so there's not random beeps and bloops and toddler singing during the
> panel, but the audience could still type in Q&A questions or whatever.
> It would also be cool if there was a film screening option -- imagine an
> anarchist bookstore that prior to covid19 had been doing weekly film
> screenings offline in their brick and mortar location, but now wants to
> do something similar online, while making it hopefully accessible for
> people without intense computer skills.
>
> How are Signal and Wire for the above?
>
> My big picture understanding has for a long time been that, 1. perfect
> security is snake oil, the top spy agencies can crack anything if they
> want given enough time and targetting interest, but that's not typically
> relevant to the above use cases unless you're a Supreme Court justice or
> an incel fantasizing about being James Bond, 2. encryption makes data
> packet size much bigger, and large data size is already a problem with
> video in cleartext, so there never has been a really good solution to
> this problem. However #2 was my understanding as of like 5 years ago, so
> I'm curious if some new solution has come out.
>
> It looks like EFF is fairly useless and using Zoom themselves. I suppose
> if they're not gonna go after something meaningful, like how the
> corporate voting gear in the US is closed source, they have to spend
> that sweet Papa Omidyar cash and prestige somehow and produce little
> guides about how to toggle your Zoom settings. Afte
> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/what-you-should-know-about-online-tools-during-covid-19-crisis
> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/cc-backgrounds-video-calls-eff
> https://ssd.eff.org/
>
> Guides by Riseup Networks don't have much on video understandably
> https://riseup.net/en/security/resources
> https://riseup.net/en/security
>
> Prism Break mentions something called Jami I've never heard of
> https://prism-break.org/en/all/
>
> And yeah, Signal and Wire...? I know everything is fucked but using
> something less bad for the use cases outlined above seems better than
> diving headfirst into whatever the worst popular solutions are.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Doug
--- Begin Message ---
I just watched an informative talk from 36C3 by Julian Oliver:
https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-11008-server_infrastructure_for_global_rebellion
At around minute 28 he begins talking about the specific server software,
datacenter hosting, and other aspects of their operational security
implementation. This description goes to around minute 44, and then there is
some Q&A that is also quite informative.
Nobody asked him why they didn't use TOR -- presumably it wasn't even a
contender. For sysadmin activity they use VPNs to countries with strict data
protection laws (Switzerland and Iceland are mentioned). Data partitions are
encrypted, and they have various contingency plans in the event a server is
seized.
At around minute 34, there is a list of the different software choices they
made to support Extinction Rebellion. They chose alternatives to Slack, Google,
Mailchimp, Zoom, etc. Some were found to be better than the better-known
alternatives, and some were worse, for performance, scalability and usability.
He mentioned that modern users are looking for something like a Google-based
single sign-on, which is anathema to the anti-surveillance infrastructure they
are focusing on.
The software and configuration choices are today's best-of-breed for making
surveillance and seizure more difficult. This naturally includes not utilizing
commercial solutions, and also naturally includes self-hosting the
infrastructure.
ER is a global movement that is highly decentralized and, according to the
first 28 minutes of the talk, is having an impact. This is primarily through
non-violent actions. They mainly seek progress on combating climate change.
https://rebellion.global or https://organize.earth for more info.
--- End Message ---
