JoeBidet

speaking of "normies" is elitist, because the term is used usually people privileged/experienced with knowledge about technology to describe people who don't have this privilege/experience. It is implying that there would be a class of (sub-)humans who are not capable of taking the same path as the person who employs this term. I stand by the term "elitist". In a world of diverse people, life-paths and needs, in my own experience everybody is capable of understanding the political reasons to use a piece of software over another one (because one company sucks, because their model of centralization is detrimental to freedom, because they got shady funding, because they pretend to be something else but bar free software authors to modify their software, because they're from the USA, etc.). Everyone has their own way of understanding these things. Everyone has some arguments that will resonate better than others. Pretty much the same way you probably decided to not install Facebook messenger. Well the good news is: everybody is capable of understanding these things. It may take time and effort, it may make elitist people realize it is not as easy as they first thought it would be, and require to fail and try again. It requires efforts and a humble approach as to listen to these people and take them where they are and walk a bit along the way with them.

My personal experience is that most people are capable of understanding such things. It may take time, but everyone is capable.

I also saw tons of elitist tech-enthusiasts and other tech-savvies "bros" not even addressing who they call "normies" out of pure lazyness, to avoid to speak outside of their own comfort zone and question their own status, and to avoid sharing their elitist knowledge.

-> "'normies' won't do that" = "i am too lazy to engage meaningfully with people who do not know the same things as i know."

That's a major part of the problem. Elitist feedback loop...

Many people will tell you you have to sacrifice your principles because interface, because "normies" (which is an elitist way of telling you that non-elitist people are idiots....), etc. I say: stick to your dreams!

Well quite obvious: as the name "Debian" was coined to celebrate the union between Debra and Ian, makes it a de facto choice! ;)

There’s no law in existence that requires them to store metadata or hand anything over to the feds. They have been subpoenaed several times and it always comes out the same: the only data they have is what I detailed above. Even if they DO have it (which they don’t) they don’t provide it, which is effectively the same thing.

It is just enough that this metadata be handled within the computing environment of Amazon. Their refusal for anyone use their own server and federate with "their" (as in captive) users also prevents anyone for using it in any other way...

If you dont see that Signal requires that its users use a strong-selector phone# in order to use the service, there is nothing i can do for you.

Evidence is: Signal still requires a phone# that is your unique identifier. Thus when connecting two parties, it is bound to have identifying metadata about them. (and that Signal still operates within AWS cloud, and is bound by US law: FISA, Patriot Act, etc.) How much more than this do you need?

You make it sound like there are only these two possibilities, that's where it gets misleading...

Well does paying a CEO 1.000.000$ count as "big", or "not for-profit"?

You’re lying.

Thanks! :)

But no. Happened to several friends of mine, out of the blue: phone# verification to their signal account. Therefore when accusing people of lying... you are lying! :)

It's not just about "having your phone number", it is indeed relating it to the phone numbers of all the people you interact with, and (at least) processing these data in the RAM of amazon servers while promising they do not use or store it. It is strongly identifying "strong selector" metadata that is incompatible with the protection of users' privacy.

You can call me a lier, but you better check your sources.

How and why is Signal not "American big tech"? It even runs on Amazon' servers!

usernames is just for users. it is just a display thing. Signal still require that you use a phone# to sign up, and that you keep owning and paying for that SIM over the years in order to be able to verify it at random intervals...

despite being a very anti-privacy feature (esp. from a US company, funded initially bu US gov, who still forces its users to have their metadata stored on a US cloud...), it is also very much anti-user as in many cases around me, people who opened Signal accounts with some SIM card some day later traveled abroad, changed life, etc... and one day were asked to verify their account. (this is in some case what prompted their migration towards other communication networks...)

by "FOSS" you mean compatible with the core values of free/libre software?

This rules out Signal because: 1/ some of its server software is proprietary 2/ they dont allow you to communicate with "their" users if you want to run the server software yourself 3/ the prevented authors of free/libre software in the past to distribute their software (find a fdroid/signal thread) 4/ in practice they channel their users through their centralized servers hosted on AWS

(and that's without evoking their questionable funding, and long lasting commitment to make all their users identifiable through phone number, 10+y after US generals declared "we kill people based on metadata"....)

Simplex seems to me like the one really ticking all the boxes.

"we need a bigger boat!"