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Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: February 27th, 2021

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  • can you trust it when a researcher was able to identify Tor users 100% of the time in a lab experiment and 81% of the time in real-world tests [1][2]?

    I know that you are doing this conspiracy thinking on purpose to confront Dessalines about their bias, but while this is not obvious to everyone:

    While it is true what you say, it is beyond meaning for the most usage of Briar. The researchers result depended on a honeypot that served a large file. Don’t have contacts that act as honeypot and you’re safe. When chatting with strangers, the technique discovered by that researcher might not be relevant to Briar, but I have not enough knowledge to make a claim about that.


  • @KLISHDFSDF You may like to make a TL;DR that clarifies the intention of that post.

    It’s very confusing for anyone who didn’t read Dessalines anti signal article, and even more if one doesn’t know that you are questioning their conspiracy thinking.

    Anyway, don’t use Signal, Briar and Tor, they are shit-lib-CIA regime change tools. [meta: the last sentence is sarcastic]




  • You can either make e2ee easy to use and enable it by default, or you can try to make people understand what they are doing to protect them from edge cases. Conversations does the former, while not making the latter impossible.

    …the “edge case” that e2ee should protect from third parties such as an admin to read the messages. A new key could create a pop up window that informs the user. If user doesn’t care, there can be an option for “never show again”. Having a function that says “verify key”, should also be expected from an app that argues to have secure e2ee implementation.

    as most people don’t really need strong e2ee anyways.

    Most people don’t need any. It’s infosec larping what people do. And then software developers build software for LARPing.


  • That’s true, but how do opposing ideologies deal with it?

    There are many means. Some of them are: Practicing mutual aid. Building spaces that try to be non-discriminant. Listing to marginalized people and learn to one can be supportive to their cause. Learning about structural oppression and how oneself takes part in upholding such and how one can undo that. Building mutual respectful relationships. But of course it also means to confront those who are discriminating especially if they aim to uphold/organize society in a way that brings huge risks for those they discriminate.

    What remains true: humans aren’t prefect. And we easily reproduce behavior that we actually wish to abolish. Machismo in antifa structures is a good example of such.

    and an extreme is never good by definition.

    Do you notice that by your own definition, this statement is “never good” and so it is contradicting itself, because you present it as an extreme that does not allow other options. This means you don’t argue based on logic but based on ideology, and I would argue an ideology that is by your definition extreme, because it is strongly opposing those ideas you call to be extreme.


  • Conspiracy theories exist because the government’s version is a shameless lie attempting to cover its involvement in risky affairs.

    If you’re giving an example of something that is one among several reasons why conspiracy theories exists, I agree with you. If not I strongly disagree with you.

    Governments are justifying their existence with conspiracy theories. Governments use conspiracy theories to distract and create fear, or to justify an action. Common people create/follow conspiracy theories to find stability and feel superior. Common people create/follow conspiracy theories for personal gains. Common people create/follow conspiracy theories because they present an simple answer. …and many more reasons.


  • I think in Conversations it switches from a green to a yellow sign).

    There is no button called: verify key or something in conversations. It is a hidden setting. Do you know how to verify a contact without using the qr code? It’s a hidden setting and most users won’t know it. Neither does it give you info that you can verify keys by scanning qr code. How should a user know? Not. So they stick to default settings, and the default setting is, that an admin can inject keys anytime they want, without user noticing.

    As for file sending, these are (usually still transport encrypted)

    I’ve mentioned Gajim, not any client. Gajim uses jingle without transport encryption.


  • So your issue isn’t about extremism, but with hating others just for being others? The ideology of facism is very much about that. Anarchists and anti-authoritarian communism are opposed to such, and actually wish that different concepts how to life can peacefully coexist.

    The concept of extremism is strongly tight to a status quo bias, where you define a status quo as norm, and everyone who’s strongly opposing it as extremists. If that is your definition I am an extremist.




  • So here is my question. Why?

    The main reason is that the lead developers are Marxist-Leninists (aka tankies), and so they attract fellows tankies to join their platform.

    Why people hold onto such believes varies from case to case, but I make the following observation:

    Political positions are still widely understood as singular dichotomous (left/right), as extremes that oppose each other. If you don’t like what is presented on the one site, you tend to choose what is opposing it. And so does this political compass also present one authoritarian position as a solution for another authoritarian position.

    Many grown up in the so called west, have been grown up within a propaganda machine that presents itself as the protectorate for human right. As soon as you begin to research into post-colonialism, their war-crimes, their exploitation through capitalism you’ll notice that it’s nothing but a lie. And then you gonna look for answers why that is, and what alternatives there are.

    The so called west has made lot’s of campaigns against communism. While at this point you are well aware that “the west” spreads lies, you might start to study communism.

    You’ve grown up in an nationalist reality. Nearly everything is divided among nations with top down command chains. Alternatives to organize society in large scale without such authoritarian tendencies are underrepresented. Even so there are many examples, you don’t learn about them in school and you barley read about them in history books.

    Conspiracy theories are attractive, as they present simplified reality that is easier to understand, offer often a clear defined enemy and a solution. They usually also offer an answer if challenged, that will continue to uphold the conspiracy thinking. Once you’re in, it gonna be hard to break through. In terms of tankies, criticism of their ideology often result in answers like: “this is cia propaganda”, “you are a shit lib”.



  • So apparently the admin of that instance is into “The Great White Brotherhood”, some spiritual cult and theory.

    While “white” here doesn’t refer to skin color, it does reinforce the narrative: white = good and black = bad. And so even just that name as it is applied to contemporary reality, is part of an reality that enforces anti-black narratives which are related to skin color. And then “Brotherhood”, I can’t imagine that this means anything else then something about a protective force to patriarchy, …but they are white, hence they are the good guys, so it’s ok if they protect and reinforce patriarchy?

    I’m not sure about the origin of that cult, but it got mentioned 18th in some book from someone called “Eckartshausen”. But the idea first got populated by Alfred Percy Sinnett and Helena Blavatsky, yes this Helena Blavatsky that also helped the german nazis to build a spirituality that defines the “german white race” as superior.

    So yes the “the great white brotherhood”, is linked to white supremacy, but not of those skin-head typ, more those “New-Age” and esoteric hippies, where white-supremacy isn’t like a goal, probably more a side effect caused by the lack of anti-racists and anti-classist analysis.

    Anyway, that’s also a characteristic of any major religion/cult that I’m aware of, nevertheless I think it’s important to deconstruct it.