Skip Navigation

EngineerGaming

@ EngineerGaming @feddit.nl

Posts
0
Comments
1214
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Qualcomm and Google team up to offer 8 years of Android updates

    Jump

  • It is understandable that the answer is "because they can". But another jarring thing is how common locked bootloaders are. You can make pretty much any random laptop privacy-respecting by installing Linux, but there is a good chance your random given phone cannot have things like Lineage?! Or they can but it is so complicated that might as well not count, like Xiaomi...

  • VPN Providers Consider Exiting France Over 'Dangerous' Blocking Demands * TorrentFreak

    Jump

  • A TON of people in Russia still use the Three-Letter Word tho, because blocking them is a whack-a-mole. Wouldn't be surprised if this is above 50% already, given how omnipresent the usage of blocked services are.

  • VPN Providers Consider Exiting France Over 'Dangerous' Blocking Demands * TorrentFreak

    Jump

  • There is already precedent for that. Wireguard/OpenVPN traffic going out of the country is blocked, the same traffic within thwecountry is allowed. However, then we have issue with protocols mimicking normal HTTPS... So they may block the ranges of popular hosters instead. But I doubt it would be done to a full extent even in an extreme situation because way too much breaks... And the Internet is still much more than Hetzner or OVH.

    P.S. From what I have seen, people have even been doing setups of two servers - one inside the country running WG/OVPN that their and their family or friends' devices connect to, and one abroad - connected to the first one using a stealthy protocol that you could change at any time if the censorship situation changes, without the end devices having to bother or noticing anything.

  • MapQuest Lets You Name The Gulf of Mexico Whatever You Want

    Jump

  • Writing the directions down on a paper is still more convenient than taking out and unlocking ypur phone if a) you're on a bike; b) if it is cold out and you don't want to take off your gloves.

  • Small frame phone, privacy respecting

    Jump

  • When I was buying mine, 9s weren't out yet - even now, the 8s are around $400 where I bought, while 7s are at an already crazy $300.

    I didn't get the impression that the plastic was easily breakable - seems relatively soft. While the base and pro have glass.

  • Small frame phone, privacy respecting

    Jump

  • Pixel 7a is the absolute biggest I can semi-comfortably type one-handed on. I can't imagine why bigger ones are more popular - don't people ever use their phone while on a bus and holding onto a handle?? I guess you could use a "one-handed mode" on the keyboard, but I never use it because it makes the keys waaay too small.

  • Small frame phone, privacy respecting

    Jump

  • a) Pixel 9's are still new and completely unaffordable; b) I personally got an "a" because it has a plastic back instead of glass.

  • [SWE] Swedish government wants a back door in Signal

    Jump

  • Yeah, I know that - I am myself in a situation where we need increasingly obfuscated evasion solutions. However, my issue is not in that it developed such a proxy - but rather, that it doesn't give an option to use a different one. For example, I have my proxy set up - so why does Signal need its own separate proxy rather than using the one everything else already uses? Why can't it use Tor without torifying the whole device's traffic?

    Not to mention that dedicated solutions (XRay and such) are focused on censorship evasion while for Signal stealthy proxies are comparatively more of an afterthought. So there is a chance it wouldn't be able to evolve fast enough to keep up with the censors.

    P.S. I think in Iran, there was also a bigger issue - the SMS codes for registration just didn't arrive.

  • [SWE] Swedish government wants a back door in Signal

    Jump

  • Yes! Because unlike stock Signal (which, last time I tried, restricts you to their own proxy implementation), you can use whatever Socks proxy you want. Including Tor. Yeah, sure, you could use a VPN with Signal - but for people who want a persistent connection, having a VPN on 24/7 would be inconvenient. Such a frustrating part of the official app...

  • [SWE] Swedish government wants a back door in Signal

    Jump

  • It would be very weird if it was - when a "ban" happens, at least here, they block the website. I doubt Sweden would fight even basic Wireguard/OpenVPN tho, so I don't see it as a big problem. The bigger problem would be carriers denying registration confirmation SMS, which is yet another downside of the phone number requirement.

  • What do you think about Session as a potential replacement for Signal?

    Jump

  • Bridges are trivial to use tho. And even if they get blocked too actively, a lot of people in such censored regions have a VPN anyway (although I still don't have an understanding whether a VPN decreases Tor's security if used like this.

  • What do you think about Session as a potential replacement for Signal?

    Jump

  • It can be blocked, but blocking bridges is a constant whack-a-mole (especially now that they have Webtunnel which, while apparently not as robust as some dedicated obfuscation solutions, is still a noticeable improvement). My bigger problem with Briar is that both recipients have to be online to message, or you have to set up a "mailbox".

  • What do you think about Session as a potential replacement for Signal?

    Jump

  • I am pretty sure that if asked, the serverside protections can be circumvented - I think in one Github issue they even confessed that Sealed Sender is not bulletproof and is "best effort". I prefer to assume that if everything goes through a single server, and they know what and when each account does upon connecting - they can correlate the identities if they want to.

  • What do you think about Session as a potential replacement for Signal?

    Jump

  • I just have two identical but independent profiles. They also double as my remote copypaste buffer.

  • What do you think about Session as a potential replacement for Signal?

    Jump

  • "Harder to spin up"? Hard disagree. Matrix's main server implementation is very resource-heavy, and alternatives like Conduit are not full-featured (and broke in some ways for me when interacting with mateix dot org). Meanwhile Simplex servers are pretty light and aside from a couple errors in the documentation that took a while to figure out, it has been easier than Conduit. And unlike Matrix, it has never broken for me so far.

  • What do you think about Session as a potential replacement for Signal?

    Jump

  • Fair - I was referring to the fact that here it isn't even an option.

    Also, XMPP or Simplex are very easy to set up, Nextcloud is indeed more complicated.

  • What do you think about Session as a potential replacement for Signal?

    Jump

  • Idk, I meant my personal experience. She doesn't see much difference between ease of use of her XMPP client compared to, say, Whatsapp.

  • What do you think about Session as a potential replacement for Signal?

    Jump

  • The main turnoff for me is that it is essentially impossible to selfhost - you use random nodes from the network, and to host such a node, you have to lock up a whole fortune (last time I looked I remember it being around $1500, might've changed) in their own cryptocurrency. They do promise returns, but I am skeptical - where would they take so much money to guarantee compensation for everyone within a sane amount of time? They claim it is against a Sybil attack, but it seems to me that it would be a lot easier for a government/company to have more nodes in a situation when "competition" is reduced like this.

  • What do you think about Session as a potential replacement for Signal?

    Jump

  • They probably meant tech-savviness compared to other Signal alternatives.

    Although even then XMPP with modern clients is simple enough for my mom to use, so I don't entirely buy the "complication" argument either.

  • John Oliver launches "Make yourself less valuable to Meta" website, suggests Signal, Mastodon, Pixelfed, and BlueSky as Meta alternatives

    Jump

  • Not easy for mobile devices? Firefox-based browsers on mobile can have Ublock Origin :/