A BBC investigation reveals that Microsoft is permanently banning Palestinians in the U.S. and other countries who use Skype to call relatives in Gaza.

  • @kitnaht
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    801 month ago

    That’s what you get for trusting Microsoft with anything…or Google…or Apple…or Facebook… stop tying your communication to these companies, they can pull the rug at any time.

    • bbbbbbbbbbb
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      661 month ago

      You have to trust someone with these communications, there is no free communication beyond face to face

      • @[email protected]
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        321 month ago

        Matrix (federated) or Briar (multi-modal P2P) are both good options for getting rid of dependency on central organizations.

        • @Aux
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          51 month ago

          You’re assuming that people in Gaza have consistent access to the internet. The beauty of Skype is that you can call a landline through it.

      • knightly the Sneptaur
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        1 month ago

        Unless you build your own, you have to trust your ISP to move packets, but you don’t have to rely on any third party services or give them your personal info to use social media.

        Fully decentralized, open-source, and encrypted social networks exist. The only servers needed are your computer and the computers of the friends you communicate with. (See: Retroshare )

        They’re just never going to get big because small, personal friend-to-friend networks can’t compete with the network effects of centralized media and a never-ending torrent of dopamine on tap.

        • @Aux
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          31 month ago

          From my comment above:

          You’re assuming that people in Gaza have consistent access to the internet. The beauty of Skype is that you can call a landline through it.

        • @Aux
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          21 month ago

          How do you call a landline number in a war zone through a matrix server?

          • @theunknownmuncher
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            1 month ago

            I was simply responding to the comment:

            You have to trust someone with these communications, there is no free communication beyond face to face

            the oh-so-clever smart alecks saying “whaddabout ISPs???” forgot about 2-way radio and meshnets

          • @9tr6gyp3
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            191 month ago

            Wait until you find out about internet service providers

            • knightly the Sneptaur
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              141 month ago

              You can have more than one dumb pipe to push bits through, but if the ISP can read your network traffic then you have bigger problems than a single-point-of-failure.

              • @9tr6gyp3
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                21 month ago

                Do you have more than one ISP?

                • knightly the Sneptaur
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                  51 month ago

                  I’m very lucky in that regard. Not only do we have a local ISP and mobile service from a national carrier, but the electric co-op that provides our power just ran 2.5Gb/s fiber through the neighborhood and lets members use 200Mb/s on it for free.

                • @Aux
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                  31 month ago

                  Who doesn’t?

            • @[email protected]
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              21 month ago

              For the most part the ISP doesn’t have a way to know you are using VoIP to contact people in a particular country (unless you are using a VoIP service owned by the ISP of course).

          • sunzu
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            21 month ago

            Threema is what signal should have been.

            But I ain’t got in me to start forcing people again lol

            Signal it is until it is proven untrustworthy

            • @Zachariah
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              31 month ago

              Yeah, they’re both good (still).

              features Threema Signal
              price $5 / 5€ Free
              account creation phone number optional phone number required
          • @[email protected]
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            51 month ago

            They didn’t fuck up, they made a design choice about the scope of the app. Are they also fucking up by not blurring the messages on screen? After all someone could be looking over your shoulder without you realizing it. Maybe Signal should ship with spyglasses.

            • @[email protected]
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              71 month ago

              You’re absolutely right and it’s insane I keep coming across these wild takes from people that clearly don’t understand technology

            • Flying Squid
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              -11 month ago

              I’m not sure why you think anyone would want a messenger that touts itself for its encryption to not encrypt things.

                • Flying Squid
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                  -31 month ago

                  Then it’s weird they are fixing it now. Why aren’t they insisting this doesn’t need to be dealt with because it was a feature, not a bug?

                  • @[email protected]
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                    71 month ago

                    It’s weird that apps sometimes change scope and add features that users want? Ones that contributers already did most of the work for?

                    Why aren’t they insisting this doesn’t need to be dealt with because it was a feature, not a bug?

                    That was literally what they have been saying this whole fucking time.

                    “The database key was never intended to be a secret. At-rest encryption is not something that Signal Desktop is currently trying to provide or has ever claimed to provide,” responded the Signal employee.

                  • subignition
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                    11 month ago

                    It’s really fucking annoying how relentlessly you pick fights with people these days. Wish you’d chill out dude.

          • cum
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            31 month ago

            Damn that’s bad, and Signal’s response was even worse. They knew about it in 2018, for 6 years.

            • sunzu
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              -11 month ago

              I always felt like signal is there more to satisfy a niche so people feel like their whatsapp is good enough.

              Leadership makes some odd chocies IMHO

            • Flying Squid
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              01 month ago

              That wouldn’t shock me, but he was right that Signal was not addressing a known vulnerability. In fact, denying that it even was a vulnerability.

              For what it’s worth, I trust Telegram even less than Signal. And at least Signal seems to be finally doing something about the problem.

      • cum
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        71 month ago

        Not true at all lol, have you heard of peer-to-peer?

      • @grue
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        41 month ago

        This is what net neutrality and anti-trust laws are for.

      • Todd Bonzalez
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        21 month ago

        You can run your own infrastructure.

        Matrix has been recommended, but you can run your own Synapse server and federate with other servers.

      • themeatbridge
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        -21 month ago

        This is exactly what they want you to believe.

    • The dogspaw
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      81 month ago

      Yor right I will just use my billions of dollars to build a global internet infrastructure and make my posts on my own phone using the os I just built in my spare time for fun its not about trust its about necessity

    • @Gamoc
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      21 month ago

      That’s what you get

      You’re right, they deserve this. You asshole.

    • @[email protected]
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      01 month ago

      We had an issue a couple days ago where we couldn’t move a VIP to a new phone because the vendor wanted us to perform multi-factor auth via a device from two years ago. We had to roll back the service. Our entire lives are built atop fragile digital infrastructure with broken and poorly thought-out policies.