Hey @simplex is this really your founder?
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@rysiek @simplex I'm conflicted here, I like Simplex Chat as a software and what it provides - a unique hybrid approach that takes good elements from both peer to peer and server client models to come up with a usable private messaging system. But I don't want to be part of a community that promotes these politics. I think Simplex Chat as a project should come up with its own political values what standards its community members can expect.
@praveen the way I think about that is that there are other tools, like @cwtch, that are in a similar space and provide similar functionality – or are working towards it.
Instead of supporting SimpleX, whose founder seems to be a far-right libertarian conspiracy wingnut, I choose to spend my attention and time on tools that do not come with that kind of baggage.
Because we both know SimpleX will never get any functionality that would in any way impede the far-right libertarian wingnuts.
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@praveen the way I think about that is that there are other tools, like @cwtch, that are in a similar space and provide similar functionality – or are working towards it.
Instead of supporting SimpleX, whose founder seems to be a far-right libertarian conspiracy wingnut, I choose to spend my attention and time on tools that do not come with that kind of baggage.
Because we both know SimpleX will never get any functionality that would in any way impede the far-right libertarian wingnuts.
@rysiek @cwtch I think the thought of identifying and stopping users we don't like is a slippery slope. The same thing could be used by governments to stop dissidents. So I think as a technology unable to distinguish and stop users of any political belief or philosophy is important for privacy of people who need it the most. It'd be a shame if we have to give on such a great technology because of the politics of its founder. I think a fork or adopting the protocol in other products is better.
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@rysiek @cwtch I think the thought of identifying and stopping users we don't like is a slippery slope. The same thing could be used by governments to stop dissidents. So I think as a technology unable to distinguish and stop users of any political belief or philosophy is important for privacy of people who need it the most. It'd be a shame if we have to give on such a great technology because of the politics of its founder. I think a fork or adopting the protocol in other products is better.
@praveen nobody said anything about identifying them. Stopping them – that depends on the specifics of what's going on.
If a tool is algorithmically promoting content, for example, and happens to reliably promote Nazi content, that's a problem that needs to be solved – or a tool that needs to be ditched.
All technology is political. One might think they're building a "truly neutral" tool, but no such tool exists. Choices made by it will define how it fits into the broader struggle.
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@praveen nobody said anything about identifying them. Stopping them – that depends on the specifics of what's going on.
If a tool is algorithmically promoting content, for example, and happens to reliably promote Nazi content, that's a problem that needs to be solved – or a tool that needs to be ditched.
All technology is political. One might think they're building a "truly neutral" tool, but no such tool exists. Choices made by it will define how it fits into the broader struggle.
@praveen so instead of wasting time on trying to save "such great technology", I choose to promote others building similar tools that happen to not be conspiracy wingnuts and transphobes.
This way not only we get the amazing technology, but we also promote people who can build it in ethical, thoughtful, considerate way.
"Great technology" built by shitty people is sucking the air out of the room. I will not be helping with that.
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@praveen so instead of wasting time on trying to save "such great technology", I choose to promote others building similar tools that happen to not be conspiracy wingnuts and transphobes.
This way not only we get the amazing technology, but we also promote people who can build it in ethical, thoughtful, considerate way.
"Great technology" built by shitty people is sucking the air out of the room. I will not be helping with that.
@rysiek @cwtch I will also evaluate other options, but I don't think giving up on Simplex Chat protocol is not the only options we have as Simplex Chat is still Free Software. All other peer to peer options I have evaluated so far move far away from traditional server client model and it will take time to mature. But I feel the balance Simplex Chat strikes makes it possible to use it today without all the drawbacks of both traditional server client and peer to peer options.
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@rysiek @cwtch I will also evaluate other options, but I don't think giving up on Simplex Chat protocol is not the only options we have as Simplex Chat is still Free Software. All other peer to peer options I have evaluated so far move far away from traditional server client model and it will take time to mature. But I feel the balance Simplex Chat strikes makes it possible to use it today without all the drawbacks of both traditional server client and peer to peer options.
> I would understand that concern for something like mastodon where algorithm pushing ideas are important factor. But how is that relevant for something like Simplex Chat?
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> I would understand that concern for something like mastodon where algorithm pushing ideas are important factor. But how is that relevant for something like Simplex Chat?
@rysiek @cwtch thanks for sharing that. I agree that is bad. But being Free Software, we don't have to accept that. This is not the first time such a thing happened to Free Software. Malicious or privacy invasive features do get into Free Software sometimes. Some examples are Ubuntu once shared search data with Amazon by default. Mozilla made some shitty ToS changes etc. We responded by removing such features in derivatives / forks etc.
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@rysiek @cwtch thanks for sharing that. I agree that is bad. But being Free Software, we don't have to accept that. This is not the first time such a thing happened to Free Software. Malicious or privacy invasive features do get into Free Software sometimes. Some examples are Ubuntu once shared search data with Amazon by default. Mozilla made some shitty ToS changes etc. We responded by removing such features in derivatives / forks etc.
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For strict peer-to-peer connections both parties need to be online.
The legacy group protocol allows offline-delivery using an explicitly untrusted (but cryptographically inefficient) service: https://docs.cwtch.im/security/components/cwtch/groups
The newer managed groups are currently in beta, and allow the setup of trusted-groups i.e. allowing a member to run a server-bot which acts as a peer (so only the bot needs to be online for offline delivery to work): https://docs.cwtch.im/security/components/cwtch/hybrid-groups
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M monkee@other.li shared this topic
