Physical CDs whenever possible, Bandcamp after that. Streaming, for me, is merely a discovery tool. I want to own the things I pay for.

Definitely fascinating but you couldn't pay me enough to go out on that thing, especially with the water rushing like that. One missed flaw in the supports and every one of those people is gone without a chance of survival.

China. They've been doing it off and on throughout the Biden presidency. My guess is that they're probing for possible military and government points of interest in case of anything escalating, especially considering the tensions between the US and Russia.

I'm a bit of a poser since I don't know how to do it myself. I do know generally how it works, just haven't had a use case for it for myself. One of these days, I'm just going to sit down and give it a try.

I can ALMOST bring myself to agree. The thing is that Signal isn't hiding its flaws, it's just not spreading self-defeating FUD. Its flaws aren't going to be an issue for 99% of its userbase.

Regarding criminality, I don't disagree with what you're saying but using Signal isn't making you stand out. Using other messengers can. Way more people use Signal, thus making you blend in more. Further, as I mentioned prior, virtually all anyone can know (even with a warrant) is that you were online and sent/received messages. A snoop can't determine who you're receiving from, making it very difficult to correlate any communication. You could be talking with granny about her brownie recipe or you could be organizing a peaceful protest, the government can't really know either way.

The only real use case where a totally anonymous messenger could be necessary is if your personal safety depends on it. If you're a whistleblower, particularly within a hostile regime, it'd just be smart to use something like Session or, I guess SimpleX could work (but again, I have my concerns about it). But if one of the most wanted men on the planet, Snowden, is comfortable with Signal, then I say that all of us average folk are 100% capable of using Signal only. Any interests in the other options is purely down to personal preferences and interests.

I certainly don't mean to imply SimpleX is bad. It's not, I just don't personally feel it's a good experience on a surface level, and I also think Signal is more than sufficient for 99% of the populace.

I'm all for being aware of threats and building your threat model to be stronger than you're likely to ever need, but the problem is that a lot of people take that way too far, effectively LARPing as hackers on the run or whatever.

My ultimate point here is that Signal is fine. It's alright if people like to experiment with other apps but we shouldn't discourage Signal usage without significant evidence that these contrarian claims are factual.

How come Obsidian doesn't do what you want? I haven't tried the others but for me, Obsidian is absolutely stellar and helps me keep my thoughts organized as I write.

No problem! I'm down with people using what they enjoy; as long as they're not using unencrypted messengers or big tech ones (Telegram basically falls under both categories), they're doing good for their privacy. It just irks me when people buy the Signal FUD and rush to act like SimpleX is the ultimate, end-all option haha

How so?

If a nation makes Bitcoin illegal, KYCed, regulated payment apps will not be useful in purchasing Bitcoin, just as it won't work with exchanges either. You could still trade between each other but you wouldn't be able to buy anymore without leaving the country which most people can't and don't want to do.

It really doesn't. As I said, they can't know who sent messages to you, which means they'd have to be actively surveilling both you and your contact to be able to corellate anything.

Also, SimpleX CAN be decentralized but an overwhelming majority of relays are run by the company which means it is, in effect, centralized. Not to mention the fact that, because virtually anyone can create relays, the possibility of compromised relays is very realm. Maybe this will change in the future hut the point I'm making is that I'd caution people against thinking SimpleX is somehow the ultimate messenger just because they believe the Signal FUD.

Said that game was shady from day one and got all sorts of weird looks. The CONCEPT is great but it was obviously more than just a game.

The biggest is definitely the fact that a vast majority of its relays are run by the company, which is a for profit company that kinda just showed up out of nowhere. The tech itself seems solid but it's concening to me that the relays are overwhelmingly run by the company.

Also, unlike Session, itd be incredibly easy for governments to set up honeypot relays. If I'm not mistaken, there isn't any onion routing in SimpleX, meaning they wouldn't even need to do a sybil attack to know metadata like your IP.

Sealed Sender makes it impossible to know who sent what messages. Sure, if all of your group is actively targeted by the government, they can correlate traffic patterns but this could happen with any messaging app, thus it's not at all an issue with Signal itself.

Aside from in-person P2P, I feel a DEX has major censorship avenues as well, since most fiat payments go through KYCed payment processors that could be forced to censor

The concern is that most methods of trading fiat to Bitcoin on P2P DEXes are KYCed and could easily be forced to restrict transactions in that manner. Aside from cash by mail (which is immensely risky), it'd be difficult to implement a truly uncensorable means of buying Bitcoin through a DEX.

Hmm yeah, that's what I was assuming. So, in other words, if someone can't/doesn't want to pack up everything and leave their home for Bitcoin if it becomes actively targeted, they shouldnt bother unless the law protects Bitcoin use, yes?

I believe frequency is unavoidable with any messaging app, though, right?

Nah, don't worry about it. There's a lot of FUD around Signal (and almost none of it is valid) but it's completely fine unless your life depends on total anonymity.

If people enjoy SimpleX, more power to them, but I just don't find it to be a good experience at this point in time. There are also some valid concerns over its security that I'm also questioning myself.

That said, nothing about it is inherently bad, just not for me haha

Also, I don't feel like that Ben Franklin quote is particularly applicable here. If Bitcoin were outlawed, people who choose family over code aren't choosing safety above freedom, they're choosing to live for their loved ones rather than gamble on buying something that is easily trackable, oj the off chance that hodling will fix the issue in their lifetime.

Honestly, I'm not sure what the argument would be for using Bitcoin over privacy coins in a situation like that. I guess that's one of the main arguments I'm making here, if you boil things down.