Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one
Joined Aug 2019
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
The Wireguard android app is now Reproducible and distributed with Jasons own signing key.
https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2023-April/008045.html
Pretty cool.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
🇺🇦 🇹🇼
#WhatsApp implementing #KeyTransparency is pretty nice, and definitely an excellent step in the right direction against shadow accounts and the service provider trust problem. However, without the client being #OpenSource, it is not that meaningful. Yes, of course somebody could implement an independent monitor for the transparency log to check keys registered for an identity, but what percentage of the user base will actually do that when the only realistic way to use the service is to rely on the #proprietary client, which can still be used to maliciously target (groups of) users to break #E2EE?
Secure messenger clients should both use identity security protections like #KeyTransparency and have a *default* implementation that is #OpenSource and, ideally, be distributed with #BinaryTransparency and verified through #ReproducibleBuilds. Oh, and allow other identifiers than just phone numbers (still looking at you, @signalapp - which is otherwise ticking a lot of the right checkboxes).
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
@Gargron @fdroidorg That is incorrect and the GitHub issue shows it. The F-Droid team asked for .apk files of the Google Play build as it was compliant with F-Droid policy. Not a new flavor.
Mastodon made a change to the version they provided to F-Droid (the GitHub version) that broke policy. F-Droid even went out of their way to tweak policy in Mastodon'a favour to not require complete removal of the in-app updater, just a good explanation.
@jr @Wyndix It is supported in the latest version of the official client. You have to enable it in an expert preference. The https://guardianproject.info/fdroid repo is also shipped on IPFS.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Help needed: are there any graphic designers who could help create matching #FDroid category images for missing categories? My "quick hack" doesn't really fit: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/13059
Thanks in advance!
PS: if the same could be done for the additional categories in the #IzzySoftRepo that would be great 
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
@iThreepwood @fdroidorg this whole drama actually went down exactly because F-Droid distributed the developer signed version at the beginning, but for this to work, F-Droid needs a reference APK that complies with F-Droid policy, which then in turn became to much work for the Mastodon team to upload, so they asked to get switched to the F-Droid owned signing key.
In other words: F-Droid tries their best, but sometimes upstream developers won't/can't cooperate
@indyradio I don't have DMs in Mastodon, I choose this instance because it does not have them. Email and Matrix are good.
This turning so much #FreeSoftware #Android work towards this huge focus on locking everything down and limiting things. #Android started out as a much more hackable mobile OS than any major one before it, and that's why it became so popular. Locked down devices have their use cases, like for journalists and whistleblowers. And computing devices should not be easy to abuse. Locking down devices is also useful for maintaining monopolies. All this is also limiting the promise of mobile computing.
I see a shift in how people think about #privacy in #software. Now that people are aware of how bad software can be for privacy, I see a lot of pressure to not include useful functions because they might appear to be invading privacy. #Android permissions are a good example: so many people are rightly concerned about location tracking, as represented by location permissions. The first question is ask when seeing a suspicious one is: do I trust that app's people and process to do the right thing?
@stefan @Gargron I've worked on #decentralized systems for many years now, including #XMPP clients, #Matrix, #Tor, and @fdroidorg and I think the new #Mastodon client onboarding experience is a good idea. But it also means there is a new slippery slope towards centralization, and it needs to be heeded and monitored to make sure it doesn't do more harm than good. The good news is that there are multiple, good clients, so that helps quite a bit.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Truly disturbing information. You certainly should not trust any large tech companies, but #ByteDance makers of #TikTok is emerging as just about a worst-case scenario. Support #decentralization
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/tiktok-spied-on-me-why/
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
🤔 What are your favorite #OpenSource / #FreeSoftware projects on the #Fediverse that we should collectively try to convince to move away from mastodon.social and toward other instances, so more people can easily see and interact with them?
📋 Give them an @-mention in this thread!
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Guten Morgen meine Damen und Herren, wir begrüßen Sie zur tagesschau!
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
Last year we announced we would be joining Mastodon to explore an alternative to today's social media.
We’re excited to announce we’re expanding Mozilla.social to a private beta, with hopes to open to the public soon.
This is just the beginning. Read more about the launch of our instance, including how to join the public waitlist. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-social-mastodon-private-beta-announcement/
@mvgorcum the spreadsheet started with #VisiCalc, it was the "killer app" that made Apple computers take off at the beginning. Then Lotus 1-2-3 did the same for the IBM PC. Then there was Excel. Sometimes Microsoft makes good software. That is not what makes them so dominant. Their skill at deploying monopoly-building tactics is. Microsoft bought Lotus, for example, while continuing to make Excel.
@punklawyer@mastodon.sdf.org I wouldn't say that. I think his foundation has given money to some things that are actually good and useful, like the vaccination campaigns. But at the same time, he's using it as a way to promote things he's invested in. Lots of wealthy people operate this way. His foundation does still operate with monopoly mentality, e.g. their way to run vaccination is the "right way", and the only way which they will fund. Like they work against patent-free vaccines:
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/06/03/bill-gates-almost-single-handedly-derailed-plan-could-have-led-peoples-vaccine
Now given that this strategy was conceived and driven by #BillGates, I see no way he can be trusted to do anything but the same in any of his endeavors. That is his clear track record over decades. His "charity" work is also driven my #monopoly mentality, and often directly tied to his investments. Like he's investing in #nuclear and giving "charity" money to promote it as a solution to #ClimateChange .
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
"“We discovered that with very few amounts of prompting in Bengali, it can now translate all of Bengali,” James Manyika, a Google vice president also interviewed by 60 Minutes, said on the segment. “So now, all of a sudden, we have a research effort where we’re now trying to get to a thousand languages.”
This is how their hype undermines startups actually serving their communities, like @asme's lesan.ai.
Hans-Christoph Steiner
boosted
And section 6.2
“Thus the risk is that people disseminate text generated by LMs, meaning more text in the world that reinforces and propagates stereotypes and problematic associations,
both to humans who encounter the text and to future LMs trained
on training sets that ingested the previous generation LM’s output."
What is #Microsoft actually good at? Going thru their key products, it is clear they don't create new paradigms, they make often buggy implementations of ideas from other people: #BASIC #MSDOS #Windows #Word #Excel #browser #Bing #Cloud #dotnet. One thing they are clearly good is building a #monopoly. So it seems what they are good at is seeing good ideas, "embrace and extend" to control it, then building monopoly profiteering.
Joined Aug 2019
