If you think that promoting very practical options such as Monero alongside Bitcoin makes me that, then yeah, I guess so. People like yourself are exactly why outsiders view Bitcoiners as a cult.

Maybe you could ask them to get in contact so I can actually have some money in my life. Heh, that's a joke. But the truth is you can talk to anybody, especially people who actually are professionals in the sphere, and they'll tell you the exact same thing as what I'm saying. You're free to use whatever platform you want, but don't pretend to have superior security just because you don't trust the "mainstream" platform as if Signal is somehow mainstream.

Again, if somebody with the literal full force of the U.S. government against him is okay with using Signal, then I think you can use Signal.

Also, as an addendum, Signal does not leak metadata, that is blatantly false. The only metadata that anybody can get is stuff like the frequency of a message being sent, and you really can't cut down on that kind of metadata, even with SimpleX.

In fact, Signal has a feature called Sealed Sender that makes it so that, when you receive a message, anybody spying on the network can't see who that message came from. If you and all your contacts are using Sealed Sender, then there's really no way for them to truly figure out who you or your contacts are unless you doxx your contacts through other means, such as using, well, Telegram.

More like WhatsApp used Signal's protocol. The Signal Protocol was in existence before WhatsApp started using it. It uses that protocol because of the fact that it's the gold standard of end-to-end encryption protocols.

Telegram's protocol was criticized because it was vulnerable in various ways that Signal's protocol was not. Encryption experts cross the world pretty much universally agreed on that. The reason why governments don't go after Signal, but they went after Telegram, is because Telegram didn't encrypt all that much. In fact, it only encrypted things if you specifically told it to. There'd be no reason for governments to even try to go after Signal if everything's encrypted and that nothing can actually be taken from it. In fact, governments have tried to get data from Signal, but were unable to take anything because of how everything is encrypted except for basic data like when a person first started using the platform.

It's ironic that you're talking about all of this while supporting SimpleX, which is backed by a for-profit corporation and is relatively new to the field, thus meaning that they have not been proven quite like Signal has been. By all means, SimpleX is a very neat tool that I am very much looking forward to seeing the future of, but if you want security, you really can't get better than Signal. This isn't just my opinion either. This is the opinion of virtually every security expert, cypherpunk, etc. Edward Snowden himself recommended it, and if someone with such a high threat model is confident in using it, then average Joe on Nostr can use it.

My concern is that anyone can spin up a set of keys. Session had a massive DDoS attack on their open groups earlier in the year and that was because there was no limit to how many Session IDs can be spun up. We also saw Nostr get hit with the ReplyGuy spam recently as well, due to similar issues.

People love to criticize Signal for its phone number requirement but that requirement helps keep the spam and attacks on the network at a minimum. To me, the issue isn't the metadata, it's whether or not that metadata is properly encrypted and obfuscated. Signal does both thanks to features like sealed sender (which makes it virtually impossible to determine where a message came from, making it way harder to conduct any sort of MITM snooping).

I'm purple pilled but I think we have to recognize that Nostr isn't the solution to every problem, just as Bitcoin isn't the solution to every problem. Both are phenomenally powerful and important to our future, but they're not the only things we'll need to secure our digital freedom going forward, and there's no reason we need to stretch their capacity when other tech already offers the functionality we're looking for. I mean, Session itself offers all of the functionality we're talking about here, the only downside is the lack of zaps (but really, who needs zaps for private messaging?).

That being said, I DO agree that Signal having a centralized server infrastructure isn't ideal. It'd be cool if they'd open it up to volunteers hosting nodes similar to Session and SimpleX. Volunteers can already run Signal proxies so why not let them host nodes and gradually move things over to a decentralized framework? There's no reason Signal Foundation couldn't rent out cloud space during times that the network is overwhelmed, especially since being decentralized would cut down on a huge chunk of their operating costs.

Finally, I also do agree that it'd be nice if Nostr would at least set up E2EE for DMs, considering the fact that Nostr has a bit of a permanence effect on notes shared via the relays.

Okay, yeah, I think I get why Honey Orchid Dancong oolong is so acclaimed among the tea drinkers I know of. I'm trying a sample of this today and I'm loving it! I'm usually more of a green oolong fan but this is fantastic!

https://www.teavivre.com/mi-lan-xiang-phoenix-dan-cong-oolong-tea.html

#tea #teachain

I appreciate the suggestion, I'll check it out!

Nothing gets me in the writing mood quite like listening to Teramaze. That chorus still gives me chills!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A-ugU-rfgc

#writing #music #metal #progrock

True! Even since I started, I've learned a lot more than I expected. I never imagined I'd actually enjoy using a CLI but Linux changed my mind on that. I knew how to use one, I just didn't enjoy it until I started playing around with Linux. I mean, I still want my GUI when possible but now I don't mind doing things through the CLI if I need to!

Man, Obsidian is a phenomenal way to create a personal, offline wiki. I'm currently migrating all of the wiki notes for my book into this, since I've never been comfortable having my work on an online wiki I don't control (even if it's not visible to the public).

I'm really enjoying the way this software works. It makes the process almost painless, it has a brilliant GUI and I can easily sync the database via any cloud provider.

If you're a writer who has a large collection of lore or backstories, definitely consider looking into it!

#writing #books #lore #worldbuilding

I enjoy Brave, so this isn't a dig at them, but I *really* hate this art style. I have no idea what it's called but I see it all over the place these days and it makes my eyes bleed.

#aesthetic #art

Yep, it's integrated in Brave and their search engine, but it's 100% optional. For me, it works just fine, though it can't generate images (yet). Still quite useful for what I use it for, though!

I definitely get the appeal but I don't think it's for me at this point in time haha. I'm still reasonably new to Linux, my main PC still uses Windows, so building an Arch system is probably not the best idea for me at this point in time 😅

I only use Brave's Leo chatbot. It's pro-privacy and Brave has been very thoughtful and cautious in the way they integrated AI, so I'm much more comfortable with their AI than anything big tech came up with.

You had me until you brought up that witch Taylor Swift 😂

Why Gen Z is pretty much the direct opposite. They've gone hard on becoming lookalike slaves to the corporations, media and government.

Thanks for recognizing this. We used to get the Gen Xers whining about us "not wanting to work" and, to be fair, some of the generation is like that, but many of us aren't like that. We just want to work in ways that don't contribute toward the destruction of civilization. We want to find ways to ensure our lives and the lives of our descendants are lived in meaningful and fulfilling ways. We're the ones who predominantly rejected the old, cold, corporate way of doing things.

I salute you for this note. 🫡

This is why I try to only post notes if I feel like I have something of substance to say. I'm not against being friendly and whatnot but it doesn't exactly promote good discussion when everyone is just saying those to each other all day haha

These guys just can't catch a break lately. Even if this breach is just a random threat actor (not sure; seems almost too convenient in the timing), freedom of information really is under attack.

I try to ignore most maxis because of their cultish mentality. Bitcoin is amazing and should be the core of the wealth, but Monero is crucial as well, due to its privacy. A smart person will stand behind both.