Hi. Sometime ago I submit to a proprietary instant messenger for a work chat room. I want to get rid of it ASAP.
As I had it installed and active on my smartphone (for the work room), I ended up joining three other chat rooms about civil service public exams. These three are big, so I have no hope of convincing everyone to switch to an ethical network. I then intend to join these rooms from my wife’s account, on her smartphone, which I would consult weekly for new chat messages¹. The other room (the work one) has only seven members (including me), so I hope to convince them to switch to a better platform. If they don’t want to switch, then I’ll ask them to forward me the rare important messages via an ethical technology like SMS or e-mail. Now, what if my six work colleagues accept switching to another chat network but refuse both XMPP and Matrix because "no one uses that", accepting only Telegram or Signal? I do currently have Telegram and Signal accounts, but I worry about their ethics. Telegram /does/ have free clients on GNU Guix and PureOS repositories, which is great, but it is a centralized network, the server code is hidden, and it doesn’t even have end-to-end encryption! So is it a real improvement over the fully proprietary---but allegedly end-to-end encrypted---status quo? What about Signal? Compared to Telegram, it has the big advantage of end-to-end encryption, but the disadvantage of obstructing the distribution of modified versions of its client; it is not even available on F-Droid, Guix or Debian (let alone PureOS). So, should I insist on a really ethical network---XMPP or maybe Matrix---despite the big likelihood that they will refuse, or should I swallow Telegram or Signal? Regards ¹ You may wonder what is the point of refusing to use the proprietary application on my smartphone, but still using it on my wife’s smartphone. It is clearly still not ideal, but it does have significant advantages: 1. I would not be discoverable in the network, so people who want to reach me (outside those three remaining rooms) would send an email or SMS instead. 2. I would be able to delete my account, thus reducing the unethical network’s market value. 3. The surveillance AI would be confused with two people using the same account. 4. I would be less tempted to join other rooms in the unethical network. Regards -- - Disinformation flourishes because many people care about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org> - I am Brazilian. I hope my English is correct and I welcome feedback. - Free Software Supporter: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter - If an email of mine arrives at your spam box, please notify me. _______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
