Nostr Web Client

Would you welcome any police officer or government official to come into your home anytime, unannounced, to see the receipts of things you’ve purchased? Maybe to search through your old shoebox of letters and pictures you received from your wife or your parents? Or perhaps to go through your calendar, your to-do lists, or communications to and from your church or political party?

If not, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO HIDE?

But if you do value that kind of #privacy, why do you not…

* use encrypted messengers, like Signal, SimpleX, Session, or XMPP-based messengers?

* ditch Gmail and replace it with an encrypted email provider (if you must use email), such as the easy-to-use Protonmail?

* store your digital photos on local drives, or on encrypted cloud services like Proton Drive, PCloud, or other cloud solutions like using Cryptomator?

* ditch popular social media like Facebook, and replace it (if you must) with privacy respecting social media, such as Mastodon, Nostr, Bastyon, or even Gab, Bluesky, or MeWe?

* stop using Office 365 and use the free LibreOffice suite?

* get rid of Instagram and share pics on Pixelfed?

* try using free and open-source Linux on the desktop instead of the ad-infested spyware called Microsoft Windows?

There are so many better choices you can make for your digital activities.

Start taking baby steps toward discovering freedom. Small changes are painless, and you’ll never miss out or look back.

The very best things you can do is go have fun with your friends in person, and go read a book.

Touch some grass and pray.

Terry Frazier 1y ago

The struggle is real. The challenge with any communication method is that if few or none of those with whom you communicate will use it, it has no value Being by yourself on the most secure, censorship-resistant island in the world is useless.

This is not a generational problem. It is pervasive. I am a #Boomer, yet I have been a #privacy advocate for more than 20 years. I have used PGP, XMPP, Signal, the original WhatsApp, etc over the years. I never succeeded in getting even 10% of my family, friends and close associates to adopt any of these tools, much less more than one. It has taken a decade to just get all the members of my immediate family onto an encrypted platform for messaging. And the holdouts were not the old folks.

This seems like a serious problem to me, and I have no idea how to solve it.

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Discussion

TheDarrenator 1y ago

I feel your pain, man. I think all privacy nuts go through this.

Fortunately, I have my wife and brother on XMPP, and my mom on Signal. And about three friends on Signal. That's it. Most ignore my suggestions and requests to use something else.

It's frustrating when there is a choice, and people deliberately choose non-privacy. That's so weird -- but they think I'm the weird one.

I don't see why they can't just SMS text everyone else, but still also have Signal or the like available. Who doesn't have more apps than they absolutely need? My phone (and computer) has Signal, SimpleX, Session, XMPP, and Element (Matrix). It's not a problem, so why can't someone else have one extra app?

My wife really doesn't care. She texts and posts on Facebook, but she accommodates my wishes when communicating with me while I'm away at work. (Besides, you can't beat XMPP for lightweight speed. That's helpful in my case because I get very poor data reception where I work.)

Maybe other people think using tools that feature privacy is a way to be "sneaky," or something only bad-guy creepos would use. And I've heard many say "I have nothing to hide" or "I'm afraid my conversation aren't that interesting to anyone else."

Yet none of them let me have the passwords for their phone, computer, or email account! Go figure.