Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Favourite summary of the current situation, from the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/07/twitter-is-burning-bluesky-is-smug-where-is-the-best-place-to-do-your-pathetic-doomscrolling?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I need to make a tricky design tradeoff in a social media system, and I need to know what people actually value.

Imagine you have something shaped like Livejournal or Reddit (posts and threaded comments) except where most of it is private—people can do journaling and have discussions with just friends or friends-of-friends. These posts might include political views, medical information, real names, relationship info... things better discussed in a living room than on a public stage. (Yes, this is #Cavern.)

But... I've run into a security issue that means I need to make some hard choices about what to optimize for in resolving the issue. (I can make some things better at the expense of making other things worse.) You can help by voting in the poll!

Here's what the options mean:

❓ Simple protocol: If the design is simple, it's easier for people to make compatible alternative apps, meeting different needs.

❓ Low bandwidth: With less data overhead (smaller files, fewer network requests), people with dodgy internet connections will have an easier time participating, or even providing hosting for other people.

❓ Social graph privacy: Some designs would make it hard for some rando to get a list of everyone you're connected to, or to build a social graph of how people are connected. (Your friends might still be able to see who you know, though.)

❓ Casual speech: By "casual" I mean there is no cryptographic signature on your words that allows someone to publicly share your private posts along with a *proof* that you wrote them; not everything you say needs to be self-notarized. (More technically: "Deniable encryption.")

❓ Resistance to long-term attacks: Cryptography is not perfect, and if an attacker can download your encrypted posts, they may eventually be able to crack them after some years, even if they're not targeting you in particular. There are designs that hide even the encrypted posts to make this harder.

❓ Hoster can't forge your posts: Most people will depend on someone else running a server to host their posts. This hoster won't be able to read anything you don't give them access to, but in some designs they might be able to edit your posts—or even worse, show fake versions to just some of your friends, without you knowing. Other designs prevent this attack.

You get to pick more than one, if you want to! And boosts are of course welcome. ​

People on Mastodon instances: Now is a *really good time* to get an export of your posts.

There's a serious vulnerability in Mastodon and a patch was just released today. If your admin hasn't said anything about having patched, there's a decent chance your server is going to get hacked, and... basically, *anything* could happen to your account.

Go to Preferences -> Import/Export and request your archive. Also download all of the offered CSV files, which include your follow lists.

Glad I have a Librem 5 phone with hardware kill switches - France Passes New Bill Allowing Police to Remotely Activate Cameras on Citizens' Phones
https://gizmodo.com/france-bill-allows-police-access-phones-camera-gps-1850609772 #purism #librem5 #privacy #security

@dynamic Yeah, the whole blog post was incomplete at best and sometimes misleading on data issues.
For instance the reply to "Will Meta get my data or be able to track me?" misses the point on actual federation, where people on instances that will choose to federate with Meta's "threads" will get all there posts, including followers only and potentially some DMs siphoned by Meta.
The EU is not a den of radical anarchists and they said "sorry, that's not gonna fly"... that's how bad it is...

Eugen: " Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon."

Me: The *real* question is how mastodon.social users who have been promiscuously following users of both Threads and non-corporate activity-pub instances will react when 99% of the people they follow are suddenly cut off from them.

Hey, Mastodon,

Is there a server-level configuration option to require authentication? That is, is there an instance operation mode of not serving the instance pages as browsable HTML, but only through ActivityPub?

Can an instance run dark to the general internet, only its landing/about page serving as unauthenticated webpages, and otherwise only accessible via direct authentication or ActivityPub?

License plate readers clock the time and location of your vehicle, which can reveal sensitive information about your life. EFF is tracking police use of this technology. To learn whether your city is using ALPR, visit https://atlasofsurveillance.org.

Check out books and resources by Labor Notes and all comrade publishers. Get 30% off with coupon code COMRADE until 8/1.

See the Labor Notes titles at https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_list&c=174

And other comrades at https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_list&c=165&sortby=num_sold:desc

Before you create a Threads account you should know that you can’t delete it without nuking your entire Instagram account.

The Zuck suck is in full swing. In the few short hours since I started using #Threads, #DuckDuckGo has already blocked over 200 data tracking attempts. These include things like "headphone status" and "screen density."

#DataPrivacy #Meta #ThreadsApp

13.000 cyclists demonstrated against #Berlin new conservative senator’s decision to stop (and potentially scrap) ongoing infrastructure changes that would have improved the safety of cyclists and pedestrians and contributed to reaching environmental targets.

13.000 people.
7km of streets continuously filled with cyclists.
And you barely hear about it in the news.

13.000 is a big number.
Imagine 13.000 SUVs with a flat tire: would we hear more about it in the news?

#BikeTooter #AutoKorrektur

We're hiring a WordPress Designer / Developer

Job is 100% remote. Location irrelevant.

See and apply at

https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~0111ca513560630387

hi, i'm new here. i just discovered that my previous mastodon instance shut down. i didn't use it all that much. trying again!

i will post mostly on Indigenous current events, science, and/or technology topics, also on topics of de/colonization and race. I work mostly in the US & Canada. i'm on social media to get/share news and events. i have a relatively large twitter following, but as you all know it's increasingly chaotic and decreasing in usefulness over there. #introduction

Fairphone is coming to America

Fairphone teams up with the developer of the /e/ Android fork to enable US sales.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/fairphone-is-coming-to-america/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

There’s been a lot of speculation around what Threads will be and what it means for Mastodon. We’ve put together some of the most common questions and our responses based on what was launched today:

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/07/what-to-know-about-threads/

#Philadelphia hits the streets to oppose gender fascist "Mom's for Liberty" conference.

Report Here: https://itsgoingdown.org/gender-fascist-moms-for-liberty-philly-resistance/

If anyone on Mastodon has been trying to use the eviscerati.org contact form to reach me, you should know that apparently the plugin I was using was marking everything as spam and dumping it, because I hadn't bought the pro license.

I'm using a different form now. Thank you for the beta testing. :-/

I can't comment on the author's hypothesis that increased food prices and concomitant decreases in food consumption are the root cause of the civil unrest going on right now, but the fact of the both those things is notable. I would like to see similar numbers for other Western nations. I would expect the numbers might be at least as bad in the US, given the recent reduction in EBT amounts.

https://unherd.com/thepost/blame-food-prices-for-frances-riots/