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Why The Left Should Care About Privacy
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this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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Privacy
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If you didn't realize the importance of privacy after the patriot act and seeing the continuation of right wing authoritarianism, it's definitely time to get on board asap. Get yourself and your community on signal instead of texts and tuta or proton instead of regular email, use a vpn (mullvad or proton are solid), and depending on what kinds of actions you may or may not be interested in, learn how to use tails os and tor (try to find a copy of the darknetmarket bible for a good intro)
Edit: simplex is a good alternative to signal too, and if you have a google pixel, grapheneos is solid. Next time you're getting a new phone, get a used pixel and install it. On your computer, there's a lot of telemetry and sketchy stuff windows does, either research and disable that or switch to linux if you can
I've gotten nearly my entire circle on Signal and it's incredibly satisfying. No more worrying about seeing ads based on my text conversations.
@iiGxC@slrpnk.net don't forget the CL:OUD Act either - that has serious privacy implications for countries outside the USA
I think people outside the US are fair game
If you don't like it then don't send your data to the US
The Patriot Act was an overwhelmingly bipartisan bill.
The two were separate signs of the increased need for privacy
I don't want Authoritarianism period I don't care if it is left or right. Specific political beliefs are a distraction
Fair, but at least in the US right wing auth is a much more direct and realistic threat to people and their privacy, although left auth is bad too
I call BS
Both major political parties in the US are different degrees of right wing auth.
Then you must be extreme left
Please don't use Signal, the US government has all the keys. Self host XMPP, Matrix and SimpleX servers and make sure encryption is properly configured. If you're not generating your encryption keys, why should you use them?
I'd really like to see the source for the first claim
Agreed. That's a really bold claim to make without citing (credible) sources
What do you mean you don't see the trustmebro.com link? /s
Source? And fyi, if you use Signal you are generating your own encryption keys. Your private keys are generated on your phone and stay on it. So what gives you the idea that
?? Sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory
Plus, the signal client is open source. You can literally be 100% sure that your keys are being securely generated.
I don't think Signal is unsafe, but agree that it is a weird middle ground. Depends on threat model, of course, but overall I would prefer something selfhostable - for the sake of independence, easier anonymity and censorship resistance. Plus, Signal by default doesn't allow desktop registration (and desktops are much easier to make private than phones), so you'd need either a VM or a command-line application for it, which is a big pet peeve of mine.
I think the best option is to communicate about alternatives. Maybe get a few close friends on each and then decide
Source that confirms the US government has all the keys to decrypt all Signal chats?