I was not suggesting that the encryption was compromised. I was suggesting that signal is being targeted.
Likely, they are infiltrating Signal groups specifically. Not through breaking encryption, but still joining these groups BECAUSE of the encryption.
The fact that these groups are using private encrypted messages are what piques the interest of the FBI in the first place. Signal is just the most popular and thus the most likely target.
The American education system is underfunded, and politicized in every negative way. Then we get posts like this that attempt to bash it further.
The fact that we are in good company in regards to reading levels only speaks to the dedication of most educators. They certainly aren't in it for the money...
I teach 7th and 8th graders, and proficiencies certainly fluctuate from year to year. That is even more exaggerated with the pandemic "virtual learning" year.
Each year we have been able to pinpoint exactly what content they missed, because at this age group the content they missed was foundational.
That said, though technology has affected how we all relate to information, students in my classroom are able to approach novel challenges in creative and unique ways, and it is always exciting to see them grow and develop new skillsets from the unique vantage their lifetime has provided them.
Sure, it can be jarring and frustrating when we approach a lesson or topic that presumes a skill set they are missing, but part of being an educator is providing students with opportunities to grow those skills.
Educators deserve to be able to vent to each other, but I think it is irresponsible to post things like this publicly, because it gives the wrong impression and feels very negative.
A side topic, but this pulls to mind the gay rights movement in my lifetime. It always felt like an extension to the civil Rights movement. Which is all the more concerning with the current rhetoric around gender and sexuality.
This really hit home to me when I was a teenager and a colleague at work started talking about the famous demonstrations she attended. She was probably 60, but looked and acted 40, which made it especially jarring.
A similar thing happened when I visited the Martin Luther King Jr national museum in Atlanta. They have pictures and items scattered throughout, and as we were browsing, an older man was nearby excitedly talking about each of the people in the exhibit on a personal level. As it turned out, he was friends with all of them. It made it feel bizarre, because we walked into a history museum, and left with it feeling too recent to be history.
The final shock for me was when my mom casually mentioned that her elementary School was segregated! My siblings and I were shaken. She acted like it was something we should have already known, and maybe we should have already pieced that together when analyzing the time frames. The problem was that the Civil Rights movements in my mind were compartmentalized in the History section.
I don't know what the number is, but I'll arbitrarily say, anywhere under a quarter million is perfect.
I know the federation model provides a strength against the cascading list negatives that plague popular platforms, but I don't doubt that with a large enough user base, exploits would certainly seep in, particularly with ease of AI bot manipulation and astroturfing.
It reminds me of the Linux saying "security through obscurity".
Here's the author Jason Pargin riffing on the topic of nostalgia , and the key takeaways for him are that:
Nostalgia is toxic because it is the intense grasping for something that is definitionally forever outside of your reach
Nostalgia is a false rose-colored filter to view things through.
That said, I have a penchant for sentimentality, and fall victim to nostalgia at every given whim I get, especially when visiting my parents' house where I grew up.
I love to allow myself to be transported to the viewpoint of my younger self, which I feel I have lost some connection to.
I often find I was stronger and more worthy than I gave myself credit for.
If only I could properly translate that into the current moment, it would remove a lot of self-doubt that holds me back from living with confident authenticity.
I was not suggesting that the encryption was compromised. I was suggesting that signal is being targeted.
Likely, they are infiltrating Signal groups specifically. Not through breaking encryption, but still joining these groups BECAUSE of the encryption.
The fact that these groups are using private encrypted messages are what piques the interest of the FBI in the first place. Signal is just the most popular and thus the most likely target.