Notices by Râu Cao ⚡ (raucao@kosmos.social)

@Haydar "Don't encrypt email, because there's always metadata! But do use Signal (with metadata on one central server, tied to KYCd phone numbers), because some XMPP clients let you turn off OMEMO!!"

Logic, how does it work? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Haydar Looks like the whole article boils down to an ad for their private key directory thing. And the first half is basically just "listen to me, I'm an expert, all these other people are dumb".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

@silverpill @feld My point is that architectural basics *that* important should be on the roadmap of e.g. the Mastodon company, and prominent AP authors and proponents should be calling for them.

@feld I thought it would be obvious to everyone how important client-side signing and portable objects are. But I hear mostly crickets when it comes to those FEPs and the problem in general.

It would seem that a lot of people actually like control over other people's stuff. As an admin, I absolutely hate that our users have to depend on us to even enable follower migration in the first place, while content migration is not even a thing.

Why would I care if *any* ActivityPub implementation pulls my public posts? If they're not addressed to specific people only, then they are just that: public. They're already scattered across hundreds of instances, and that is the intention of the fediverse to begin with.

If you don't want your posts to be imported by other instances, then you need to not make them public.

@laurenshof.online I see your point, but I just call that the Web, or even the Internet. Things being loosely connected is already the case for almost everything on it.

@silverpill Fair enough. However, the nature of VC doesn't change the nature of the protocol in this case. If they would compromise privacy, they would lose most of their users, since that's the USP of the product.

The biggest drawback of #simplex seems to be that it doesn't really have multi-device support, or am I missing something? Can't speak to how solid the rest of it is, especially in real use. But it does seem to solve a lot of issues of existing chat protocols, especially regarding privacy and account portability.

@lain Anzeigenhauptmeister vorbei schicken.

@newstik Bitcoin, like a physical commodity, and unlike any other financial asset, is 100% *non*-derivative. The mentioned ETFs are backed by actual BTC and audited for it.

The U.S. gold reserves on the other hand, one of those nasty conspiracy theories I'm sure the author would state, have not been properly audited in half a century now. The last available report is from 1974.

But hey, gold was a bad idea anyway, according to that author. Let's just print more dollars!

@newstik By the way, it also seems like the author either doesn't know about the Bretton Woods system, or is choosing to misinform the reader intentionally, since the U.S. Dollar, and thus also the other 44 currencies pegged to it, were convertible to gold at a fixed price, until Nixon unilaterally (and allegedly "temporarily") bailed on that in 1971.

These are not simple mistakes when someone chooses to construct arguments based on them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

@MichalBryxi The answer is it depends, but it's missing from your choices.

@MichalBryxi Completely possible still. You can install a bitcoin or #LightningNetwork wallet, create your keys, and start earning BTC by selling your labor or things you produce, with no legal requirement to register anything in the process. You can then spend those coins without KYC as well.

@MichalBryxi Privacy issues mostly arise from connecting your identity to addresses used with centralized fiat exchanges (as you seem to know). But even then, coinalysis is mostly a compliance scam. Simply top up a non-KYC #LightningNetwork wallet from your de-anonymized BTC address, and you're basically anonymous again (for most intents and purposes at least).

@MichalBryxi You're probably aware that privacy is a spectrum, and the more resources your opponent has, the more you have to care about the details if you want to be 100% safe. But for most people there is a ton of anonymity possible without having deep technical knowledge, esp. when compared with the absurd level of complete surveillance when using debit/credit cards for everything, of course.

@feld IT'S A MONOPOLY!!1!

@lain @cjd Just as an example, with bitcoin, I could send 100K USD within 20 minutes from any place on Earth to any other place on Earth for less than 1 USD in fees right this minute. With nobody being able to stop it, and zero counterparty risk.

What a failure that is!

@lain @cjd Not even speaking of having your transfers blocked or even returned (minus all fees and conversation losses), because of the ineffective hell of KYC/AML regulations, and banks rather not doing their job than being fined for doing it.

@lain @cjd LOLOLOL. Have they even tried sending an international bank transfer? Most inter-currency-zone transfers take multiple days and cost many multiples of a BTC tx.

This is pure pandering to people in currency-zone bubbles, i.e. precisely not the ones who need *global* currency.

@silverpill https://github.com/w3c/activitypub/issues/421