machiavellian

Although I’m generally opposed to AI in general and LLMs in particular, this project seems really cool. Might actually change my stance on LLM usage. Kudos and hope this gets more attention and development!

Because Google doesn’t spread false claims about their security and privacy and about GOS as do volla, /e/ and others. Yeah, GOS could learn a few marketing tricks such as not engaging every bad faith argument, but that doesn’t make them pathetic. Defending yourself is not pathetic, having others shit on you without any recourse is.

Looks like you’re worried about highly motivated hackers targeting you specifically.

Not really, no.

Not patching security vulnerabilities leaves you open to not just targeted attacks but also wide spread attacks, which also use the same exploits that nation states use. Just look at the recent Coruna debacle.

Let me bring another analogy. You live in a town where theft and burglary is rampant. You have a lock on your front door but the lock is based on a legacy design which is not hard to pick. Sure, no one has broken into your home yet but if you keep using an antiquated lock, it’s a matter of when not if. And it’s not like only rich and important people’s houses are broken into. Everybody who’s vulnerable can and eventually will get attacked. If I had to choose between risking burglary and paying a little extra for a better lock, I’d choose the latter.

Maybe you’re a political activist or just very rich.

I don’t have to be a political activist to take measures to protect myself online nor rich to afford a used Pixel.

Sacrificing all this just to be protected from very unlikely attacks is simply not worth it.

To each their own, I guess.

You can permit some connections temporarily or permanently for specific apps only.

So you mean like OpenSnitch? If so, Rethink also has that.

EDIT: grammar

So you’re excusing lazy patching with improbability? Personally, I wouldn’t bet my privacy and security on a criminal’s lack of motivation.

It’s like eating candy from a bowl in which 5 are poisoned and 5000 are harmless. It’s improbable for you to pick a poisoned candy but because the consequences of choosing wrong are so perilous, I wouldn’t choose at all or choose a bowl with less poisoned candy.

GrapheneOS doesn’t have good tools to monitor and block trackers.

Yes it does. Rethink has (in addition to other awesome features) a local DNS blocklist option which you can configure to automatically block almost all telemetry apps send.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes!

I don’t see how spreading FUD and being misinformed are exclusive. I didn’t say he was doing so in bad faith, just stating that the comment created fear, uncertainty and doubt without any factual basis.

To be fair Wikipedia does say it is a manipulative propaganda tactic but I’ve usually meant it in the abovementioned context.

I don’t doubt that in the future Google will kill off the AOSP and disable installing custom ROMs like Apple does. But it just isn’t accurate to say that in 200 days sideloading on GOS won’t work or that Google disabling sideloading on their ROM even affects GOS in any way.

TL;DR The above commenter is spreading FUD. GOS will work fine and allow sideloading.

Stop spreading FUD. Google kills sideloading on Google certified ROMs. Being Google certified doesn’t mean you have more features than ROMs which aren’t certified. Only Google certified ROMs lose the ability to sideload and have to adhere to all Google Play policies. Meaning GOS loses its certified status but doesn’t lose the ability to sideload. The only way in which GOS might be coerced to disable sideloading is if Google pushes these changes upstream to the AOSP and even then forking is always an option. Also when has Google ever hinted at disabling flashing custom ROMs? It might be right down their alley but I wouldn’t make such claims without citing sources.

Just as a side note: Android ≠ AOSP. This is relevant as many people misunderstand the news they read. When Google changes Android (Google’s proprietary AOSP “distro”) it doesn’t necessarily mean that changes are coming to the AOSP or GOS which is also an AOSP “distro”.

Reading through this forum thread is recommended.

I’d really love to see some Blink based browser comparisons, especially Trivalent (which is supposed to be compareble to Vanadium).

Made me chuckle. Truly a comment-of-the-month material.

html.duckduckgo.com is even better imho

Maybe Peergos?

True, but you can configure addy/forwardemail/simplelogin to proxy your posteo mails through your own domain.

Unlike most other messengers, Delta Chat apps do not store any metadata about contacts or groups on servers, also not in encrypted form. Instead, all group metadata is end-to-end encrypted and stored on end-user devices, only. Servers can therefore only see:

• the sender and receiver addresses and
• the message size.

By default, the addresses are randomly generated. All other message, contact and group metadata resides in the end-to-end encrypted part of messages.

https://delta.chat/en/help#message-metadata

> Doesn’t store any metadata on servers

> Servers still see the sender and reciever and the message size

Explain how this is not contradictory.

Furthermore my original argument on protocol blocking still stands (if almost all communication platforms rely on a widely used protocol, the blocking of which is infeasble, then how is this a feature noone else besides deltachat has).

And as the FAQ brilliantly illustrates, you don’t have to block the mail protocol to inhibit deltachat users from communicating. All you have to do, is just shut down the relays which are crucial to masking your metadata.

Speaking of relays, all they do is transfer the trust. Without using relays you have to trust that normal mail servers wont’t log your activity (they do). With relays you have to trust that the relay operators won’t log your activity.

Perhaps they’ve changed, but last I checked they didn’t allow IMAP/POP3 due to “security concerns”.

Deltachat can’t be considered as private as Signal, SimpleX, Briar, Threema or Cwtch due to the fact that it’s based on the mail protocol. The mail protocol will always leak metadata (who, to whom, where and when) because it could’t function otherwise. And because we live in a world of surveillence, metadata can be oftentimes more valuable than the message itself.

Also saying that deltachat is unblockable because it is based on the mail protocol would be the same as saying that every app utilizing VOIP is unblockable because it uses the TCP/IP stack and blocking it would render the internet unusuable.

Posteo

An email provider who doesn’t lock you into their ecosystem and doesn’t collaborate with law enforcement without putting up a fight.

I would advise against deleting your account. When you delete your account you also forfeit your username which can then be used to impersonate you. While I’m not sure on the exact math, it would seem logical that having a stagnant account keeps up their costs but doesn’t bring in almost anything resulting in a net loss on an account basis.