@gthutbwdy
@lemmy.sdf.orgI have already explained this in my post, it's a second paragraph. I will quote it for you:
"I am sure people will make an argument that its FOSS and people will just fork it if it goes bad, but a new fork will have 0 users and Signal will still have all of your old contacts. Why not make a switch now? Before it is even more popular and you have more reasons to stay? Why fork it if there are already decentralized apps that use same encryption, like XMPP apps?"
XMPP is there for more than 20 years, we shouldn't need to make a switch everytime a new app comes along. If there are some problems with how clients look, its FOSS and open protocol, instead of forking centralized apps, you can fork an already used services.
I was successful in getting about 20 people now to use XMPP and that is the only way of contact between us now.
Once nobody used lemmy, now it's growing. We should all do our part to be on XMPP so others that want to make a full switch from centralized services can do so. We should use it and encourage others to do so as well.
XMPP is decentralized, you can run your own server. In open decentralized protocols, such issues are resolved by design. Further more most XMPP servers don't require a phone number, why would they, unlike Signal.
Briar is an app that is just as easy to use, plus you dont need a phone number, so it is easier. Yet it has no point of failure and it was simpler to write. It is P2P, uses tor, you dont get better privacy and security than that.
You dont know what their server is running, you cant prove that. They can release the code, but you have to trust them that they are running that exact code.
Ease of use is an excuse, they have a centralized model. That is a big flaw. There is more to security then E2E, xmpp clients have E2E as well, they use the same algorithm.
Every non-profit organization I know of was run as a company. Non-profit is for organization, not for people, you can still pay yourself a nice salary and trips around the world, expensive dinners and so on. A lot of non-profits I know of extract every cent from the donors, which are often big companies like Google, by making an invoice for a clearly overpriced service at company owned by their friends, that send them the money back.
Being a nonprofit tex-exempt charity corporation in United States is no defense of their character, their interests, nor their capability to provide a quality service or withstand a legal pressure.
I will be perfectly clear then, you cant trust them and you cant depend on them. Reddit was a good open service once, now its dying, we need to move to Lemmy. Same will go for Signal. They still work with police, still give data such as phone numbers, when you created your account and we have no proof that they are not storing your IP, when you are sending and getting messages (so they can do a timing attack to figure out who you are talking to, if they don't give that info directly).
I don't need proof that they have done something wrong to prove a point that no single entity should be trusted when we have the technology for over 20 years now that makes that unnecessary.
Every worker needs to be in a quality grassroots union. Even if you have a good Tech job now, this can change. Strike in solidarity with other workers, only a fair and safe society will bring you personal well-being.
I use gpg to encrypt my passwords with my public key. Benefit is that adding credentials to a new file doesn't require me to type the master password (password for private key). I trust gpg the most for security.
If voting worked, we would have solved this issue decades ago. You can vote for whomever you want, but at the end, no matter what they promise, they always end up doing nothing at all, because they are elected by using big oil donations.
Only a self-organized revolution can stop this madness, people in some nations are already blocking oil tankers and oil rigs. We can't win by only voting, you can vote for a day every few years, but we need to fight this everyday. Take turns blocking streets so no oil driven trucks and cars pass, only this will make an effect.
Email is federated as well, but I never saw anything I could call email instance wars. You can use whichever you want, no one really cares.