[HN Gopher] Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, ha... ___________________________________________________________________ Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform Author : yosoyubik Score : 260 points Date : 2021-01-10 14:18 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (cabal.chat) (TXT) w3m dump (cabal.chat) | londons_explore wrote: | Network connections are getting faster... Peoples typing/reading | speeds are not... | | One day it will be feasible for someone's phone to receive _all_ | messages sent by every other person on earth. They can then try | to decode every message till they find one that their private key | can decode. | | You've now made the perfect privacy messaging system - by sending | all messages to all users, no quantity of network packet | sniffing/timing analysis/evil nodes can figure out who is talking | to who. | PurpleFoxy wrote: | This is exactly how bitmessage worked. The problem was that | spammers would be able to flood the network with crap so to | counter that it was added that proof of work must be completed | to have your message forwarded on. The problem with this is it | means you could not send a message from a mobile device because | the PoW required was too high. | | Also a method to reduce the amount of traffic required was | called streams. Instead of reviving all messages, you would be | able to know what stream the receiver is on and then the | receiver would just listen to all messages on stream 5. This | scales up infinitely since you can just balance the network so | all streams have hundreds of thousands of users on them. | generalizations wrote: | > spammers would be able to flood the network with crap | | Would there be a legit motivation to do that? I get that it's | a threat, but would it be possible to gain anything from | DDOSing that network? | | Seems like either a) you come up with a system for banning | spam IPs, or b) the spammers _improve_ the anonymity of the | rest of the network by creating more noise for the messages | to hide in. | londons_explore wrote: | Thought experiment: There are 7e9 people on earth. Say they | send 10, 100 byte messages per day, but that compresses 10x | (modern text compression using big neural networks is _amazing_ | ). | | That works out to 7e11 bytes per day, or 8 Megabytes per | second. That is _nearly_ feasible today... | generalizations wrote: | However, that's also 21 Terabytes per month. It'll be a while | before that's feasible. Hopefully the population doesn't grow | with our bandwidth capabilities. | cmrx64 wrote: | the square kilometer array produces a terabyte a second. | 21tb/mo is peanuts. we'll get there :) | rhencke wrote: | You may find https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station | interesting. | snvzz wrote: | No full forward secrecy. | | >All traffic is encrypted using a symmetric key, meaning that | anybody who has the cabal://abcdef key can read cabal network | traffic. | | If you're even considering this, look at https://tox.chat/ | instead. That one's been around for a while (thus mature) and | actually has full forward secrecy. | Multicomp wrote: | (never tried cabal, it could be worse) | | tox was accused of having a poor crypto implementation / | playing silly buggers with libsodium. I've tried it on android, | works ok but most apps at the time seemed older. not sure where | tox stands re community liveliness but its certainly a good | start on p2p messaging, my claims notwitshtanding. | snvzz wrote: | >tox was accused of having a poor crypto implementation | | The actual flaw: If _your_ *private* key is stolen, your | friends can be impersonated to you. | | Hardly worth the infamy. | | There's a bug open on this, the solution is known, the | opportunity for a fix, and when it will be made live, will be | the next time a protocol break ("flag day") is necessary for | other reasons. | Multicomp wrote: | I will be trying tox again after that event then. | mempko wrote: | Problem with forward secrecy is that it doesn't really work | well for a use case like cabal. You want to be able to join a | cabal and read all the past conversations. | snvzz wrote: | That's desirable for _some_ rooms, not on every room and | definitely not on private conversations. | | Matrix handles that well, by having a setting per-room | regarding handling of room history. | yamrzou wrote: | Interesting project. How does it compare to Briar | https://briarproject.org/ ? | creamytaco wrote: | Briar only works on Android so it's inherently flawed. | | Of course, Cabal being written in javascript is also a major | minus. As an oldschool Unix hacker, I don't really get the | node.js fixation for command line tools. It's a certainty that | they'll never be used by a significant chunk of knowledgeable, | expert Unix users that want nothing to do with node. | | Finally, there is no protocol documentation anywhere that I can | see. This is yet another way that these modern tools fail | spectacularly. In the golden age of the Internet, published | protocol documentation that allowed for multiple clients to be | developed was the norm rather than the exception. Which led to | robust, long living protocols and services (e.g. IRC). | | Even though we're being drowned in apps, this isn't happening | today and we're worse off for it. | tachyonbeam wrote: | > I don't really get the node.js fixation for command line | tools. | | It's simply because most developers are web developers. They | use the programming language and tooling they're familiar | with. I do also wish that there wasn't so much of a move to | webify everything, particularly since web dev is so prone to | constantly changing fads and dependency sprawl. It tends to | lead to code/software that breaks all the time. | metadaemon wrote: | I'd say that JS desktop/web applications are becoming more | prevalent due to most alternative GUI frameworks not being | as simple and feature rich. I'd also say that this is most | likely a side effect of most UI resources being targeted | towards JS and therefore reducing the attention all other | GUI tooling receives. | efdee wrote: | No knowledgeable, expert Unix user I know brushes a Node | program aside just because it is Node. | swirepe wrote: | We've all taken some git precommit hook that a coworker has | helpfully provided, and rewritten it in bash so you don't | need the entire node runtime to append a ticket number to a | string. | wizzwizz4 wrote: | I don't brush aside Node programs _just_ because they 're | Node. I brush them aside because they usually drag in a few | MB of dependencies, and melt my (mid-level) computer with | compilation (often OOM-killing everything else I'm doing on | the machine, before dying to the OOM-killer itself) - but | for all that, I then need to keep the _entire thing_ on my | hard drive because the compilation was mere caching, and | hasn 't given me an executable; I've still got the runtime | overhead of Node, and everything that comes with it. | | There are a few Python programs I also brush aside for this | reason, though substantially fewer. Virtually every Node | project I've seen is a spidery mess of dependencies | bringing in dependencies bringing in yet more un-auditable | dependencies; the worst Python tends to get is Tensorflow, | and it's ready to run immediately (compiling C modules | aside - though pip does that at installation time, making | that a one-time annoyance for all but obscure C packages). | efdee wrote: | Melt your computer with compilation? A Node program? | | More to the point, did you audit Tensorflow? If no, then | what's your point to begin with? If yes, what made you | conclude that auditing Tensorflow is doable, but usually | simple NPM modules are "un-auditable"? | wizzwizz4 wrote: | I didn't audit Tensorflow. But I don't install Tensorflow | programs, anyway, because I don't have the resources. | | The point isn't auditing, though; it's auditability. If | it's auditable, then somebody's probably done it - but if | it's _not_ , you can't rely on just a spot check of a few | dice-picked dependencies. | Shared404 wrote: | > knowledgeable, expert Unix user | | I wouldn't describe myself as that, but I think I'm a | little bit past noob at this point. | | I don't "brush aside" a program because it's node, but it's | definitely a strike against it. I don't like dealing with | the massive amount of dependencies that always seems to | follow along with it. | vertis wrote: | <deleted> | filleduchaos wrote: | I can't speak for Perl or Python, but for Ruby I have | never seen a single Ruby tool that pulls in anything | close to the same order of magnitude of discrete | dependencies that some JS tools end up doing. I of course | stand to be corrected. | | I don't mind installing tools like Rollup and TypeScript. | I do very much mind installing tools like Webpack and | Babel. | Shared404 wrote: | On Pop!_OS, apt show python3-pip | | shows six dependencies, while apt show | npm | | shows: nodejs (>= 6.11~), ca- | certificates, node-abbrev (>= 1.1.1~), node-ajv, node- | ansi, node-ansi-regex (>= 3.0~), node-ansi-styles, node- | ansistyles, node-aproba, node-archy (>= 1.0~), node-are- | we-there-yet, node-asap, node-asn1, node-assert-plus, | node-asynckit, node-aws4, node-aws-sign2, node-balanced- | match, node-bcrypt-pbkdf, node-bl, node-bluebird, node- | boxen, node-brace-expansion, node-builtin-modules, node- | builtins, node-cacache, node-call-limit, node-camelcase, | node-caseless, node-chalk, node-chownr, node-ci-info, | node-cli-boxes, node-cliui, node-clone, node-co, node- | color-convert, node-color-name, node-colors, node- | columnify, node-combined-stream, node-concat-map, node- | concat-stream, node-config-chain, node-configstore, node- | console-control-strings, node-copy-concurrently, node- | core-util-is, node-crypto-random-string, node-cyclist, | node-dashdash, node-debbundle-es-to-primitive, node- | debug, node-decamelize, node-deep-extend, node-defaults, | node-define-properties, node-delayed-stream, node- | delegates, node-detect-indent, node-detect-newline, node- | dot-prop, node-duplexer3, node-duplexify, node-ecc-jsbn, | node-editor, node-encoding, node-end-of-stream, node-err- | code, node-errno, node-es6-promise, node-escape-string- | regexp, node-execa, node-extend, node-extsprintf, node- | fast-deep-equal, node-find-up, node-flush-write-stream, | node-forever-agent, node-form-data, node-from2, node- | fs.realpath, node-fs-vacuum, node-fs-write-stream-atomic, | node-function-bind, node-gauge, node-genfun, node-get- | caller-file, node-getpass, node-glob (>= 7.1.2~), node- | got, node-graceful-fs (>= 4.1.11~), node-gyp (>= 3.6.2~), | node-har-schema, node-har-validator, node-has-flag, node- | has-unicode, node-hosted-git-info (>= 2.6~), node-http- | signature, node-iconv-lite, node-iferr, node-import-lazy, | node-imurmurhash, node-inflight, node-inherits (>= | 2.0.3~), node-ini (>= 1.3.5~), node-invert-kv, node-ip, | node-ip-regex, node-isarray, node-isexe, node-is-npm, | node-is-obj, node-is-path-inside, node-is-retry-allowed, | node-is-stream, node-isstream, node-is-typedarray, node- | jsbn, node-jsonparse, node-json-parse-better-errors, | node-json-schema, node-json-schema-traverse, node- | jsonstream (>= 1.3.2~), node-json-stringify-safe, node- | jsprim, node-latest-version, node-lazy-property, node- | lcid, node-libnpx, node-locate-path, node-lodash, node- | lockfile (>= 1.0.3~), node-lowercase-keys, node-lru-cache | (>= 4.1.1~), node-make-dir, node-mem, node-mime, node- | mime-types, node-mimic-fn, node-minimatch, node-minimist, | node-mississippi, node-mkdirp (>= 0.5.1~), node-move- | concurrently, node-ms, node-mute-stream, node-nopt, node- | normalize-package-data (>= 2.4~), node-npm-bundled, node- | npm-package-arg (>= 6.1.1), node-npmlog (>= 4.1.2~), | node-number-is-nan, node-oauth-sign, node-object-assign, | node-once (>= 1.4~), node-opener, node-osenv (>= 0.1.5~), | node-os-locale, node-os-tmpdir, node-package-json, node- | parallel-transform, node-path-exists, node-path-is- | absolute, node-path-is-inside, node-promise-inflight, | node-promise-retry, node-promzard, node-performance-now, | node-p-finally, node-p-is-promise, node-pify, node-p- | limit, node-p-locate, node-prepend-http, node-process- | nextick-args, node-proto-list, node-prr, node-pseudomap, | node-psl, node-pump, node-pumpify, node-punycode, node- | qs, node-qw, node-rc, node-read (>= 1.0.7~), node- | readable-stream, node-read-package-json (>= 2.0.13~), | node-registry-auth-token, node-registry-url, node- | require-main-filename, node-require-directory, node- | resolve-from (>= 4.0~), node-retry (>= 0.10.1~), node- | rimraf (>= 2.6.2~), node-run-queue, node-safe-buffer, | node-semver (>= 5.5~), node-set-blocking, node-sha (>= | 2.0.1~), node-shebang-command, node-shebang-regex, node- | signal-exit, node-slide (>= 1.1.6~), node-sorted-object, | node-slash, node-semver-diff, node-spdx-correct, node- | spdx-exceptions, node-spdx-expression-parse, node-spdx- | license-ids, node-sshpk, node-ssri, node-stream-each, | node-stream-iterate, node-stream-shift, node-strict-uri- | encode, node-string-decoder, node-string-width, node- | strip-ansi (>= 4.0~), node-strip-json-comments, node- | strip-eof, node-supports-color, node-tar (>= 4.4~), node- | term-size, node-text-table, node-through, node-through2, | node-timed-out, node-tough-cookie, node-tunnel-agent, | node-tweetnacl, node-typedarray, node-uid-number, node- | unique-filename, node-unique-string, node-unpipe, node- | url-parse-lax, node-util-deprecate, node-uuid, node- | validate-npm-package-name, node-verror, node-which (>= | 1.3~), node-which-module, node-wide-align, node-widest- | line, node-wrap-ansi, node-wrappy, node-wcwidth.js, node- | write-file-atomic, node-xdg-basedir, node-xtend, node- | yargs, node-yargs-parser, node-yallist, node-y18n | efdee wrote: | What does that prove? The six dependencies are probably | an order of magnitude larger than the NPM ones. | | If anything, lots of small dependencies is more Unix-y | than one big dependency. | Shared404 wrote: | pip's download size is 47.6 kB, npm's is 579 kB. | | pip's installed size is 194 kB, npm's is 3,413 kB. | | All numbers are from Pop!_OS apt. | filleduchaos wrote: | > If anything, lots of small dependencies is more Unix-y | than one big dependency. | | Of course, as evidenced by much-used programs such as | curl and git having 400 dependencies each and OpenSSL | being shipped as separate libraries for every single | crypto function. | necrotic_comp wrote: | If all of those dependencies are maintained by different | teams, then it widens the surface area for unexpected | bugs. | | For something where you need security (i.e. a | decentralized chat platform), this could be problematic. | f430 wrote: | wow this space is really taking off after the moves by big tech. | this is the way of the future. | supermatt wrote: | How does peer discovery work? Im assuming there must be some | central server(s) to handle the bootstrap? I had a quick scan | through the github projects, but couldnt see any high level | documentation explaining the architecture. Would appreciate some | insight! | jakswa wrote: | "Currently searches across and advertises on the Bittorrent | DHT, centralized DNS servers and Multicast DNS simultaneously." | Sayrus wrote: | Implementations details can be found on discovery-channel | GitHub's [0] | | As far as I can tell Cabal uses discovery-swarm [1] for | connection management. | | [0] https://github.com/maxogden/discovery-channel | | [1] https://github.com/mafintosh/discovery-swarm | nanomonkey wrote: | It's built on the Hypercore Protocol [0](previously known as | DAT), so I would assume DHT (Distributed Hash Tables). | | [0]https://hypercore-protocol.org/ | frob wrote: | This site doesn't render properly on mobile. Many of the blocks | flow off the screen to the left and right. | | I was intrigued, but like many projects, the first impression I | got was of sloppy development unable to even test one of the most | common ways to view their site and it drove me away. | oftheoaks wrote: | Thanks for letting us know, I filed a bug: | https://github.com/cabal-club/cabal-club.github.io/issues/11 | dgellow wrote: | Which browser? Looks fine for me using latest Edge. | frob wrote: | Chrome on Android | gpanders wrote: | Not OP but I had the same experience in Safari on iPhone | kevdev wrote: | Same for me when viewing vertically. Rotating my phone to | view horizontally worked better. | lukevp wrote: | Do you use edge on mobile? I haven't heard of anyone using | that before, so was curious if you missed the mobile part of | the post or if you do use it mobile. | dgellow wrote: | You're correct, I did miss the mobile part. | jv22222 wrote: | For clarification: | | The 1st amendment ensures that the _government_ may not stop you | from saying what you want. | | This is a separate issue from private companies removing/banning | you. Each company has their own right and freedom to be as | dickish as they want with regard to deleting your account etc - | but that is not related to the 1st. | bluesign wrote: | Yeah but if they have this freedom (being dickish etc) then | they should also be responsible for what they are publishing on | their platforms. | | They want to have their cake and eat it. | oh_sigh wrote: | Does anyone need this clarification? I feel like this is like | trying to stop a discussion on self driving cars and bringing | up the trolley problem. Everyone knows it. No one (serious) is | saying that private companies have a legal responsibility to | host everyone's speech lest they be guilty of violating the | first amendment. | ravenstine wrote: | No, it isn't. There's already precedents for what businesses | can and cannot prevent you from doing. If, for instance, you | think a business should be compelled to bake a cake with a | certain message on it, then you can't make the argument that | there should be no regulation on how much a business can censor | its users. | | That's not the only example. There's extensive case law that | establishes how both governments and businesses have to either | allow or curtail speech under certain conditions. A business | can't legally compel you to do say something or wear a piece of | clothing in a way that discriminates against you. A sex shop | can't just open anywhere because, while it's been argued that | they should be allowed as a form of free expression, they tend | not to be considered as such under the spirit of the law. A | person can be held responsible for the aftermath of shouting | "fire" in a crowded room, even though this speech is | superficially supported by the first amendment. Point being, we | make decisions about freedom of speech that don't necessarily | follow the letter of the constitution or stay within the bounds | of the government. | | Freedom of speech isn't just a law. It's a social principle | upon which America was founded. If all meaningful communication | is dominated by too-big-to-fail businesses with AI that can | scour all correspondence, a reality we are rapidly approaching, | then freedom of speech becomes meaningless. The situation | becomes worse when these companies are all politically aligned | with the regime. This is why we can't ignore how private | companies regulate communication through their systems. | fabianhjr wrote: | > a business should be compelled to bake a cake with a | certain message on it | | That is a misrepresentation of the case: | | > Craig and Mullins filed a complaint to the Colorado Civil | Rights Commission under the state's public accommodations | law, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which prohibits | businesses open to the public from discriminating against | their customers on the basis of race, religion, gender, or | sexual orientation. | | The complain was under a _state law_ specifically to address | sexual orientation discrimination and it has been | acknowledged that such law doesn't force a business to make | cakes with arbitrary messages. | | https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado. | .. | | That said: | | > If all meaningful communication is dominated by too-big-to- | fail businesses with AI that can scour all correspondence, a | reality we are rapidly approaching, then freedom of speech | becomes meaningless. | | I agree that monopolies and centralization are a threat to | freedom. Though would argue that it should be addressed both | via decentralization (and specifically through counter-anti- | desintermediation as discussed in the P2P Foundation: | https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Counter-Anti- | Disintermediatio...) and anti-trust enforcement. | dragonwriter wrote: | > Freedom of speech isn't just a law. It's a social principle | upon which America was founded. | | Yes, and that principal is specifically that the proper way | to advance in ideas is for them to have to compete for the | favor of private actors without public authorities | intervening, and that the freedom of private actors to choose | on their own to promote or relay messages, most critically | political messages, including the free choice _to decline to | do so_ is essential for free society. | chiefalchemist wrote: | There's a difference between you saying what you want on the | cake (if they had self-service), and the biz having to write | what you want written. | | That said, agreed. Big Tech and Fed Govs working in concert | is not a positive. Anyone cheering on FAANG's recent | decisions is naive. | dragonwriter wrote: | > Big Tech and Fed Govs working in concert is not a | positive. Anyone cheering on FAANG's recent decisions is | naive. | | FAANG's recent decisions are directly against the _head_ of | the Federal Government, not taken in concert with "Fed | Govs". | tetrometal wrote: | I agree completely. This is why I fully support Twitter's right | to ban Trump, Amazon's right to dump Parler, etc. | | The left and the right both get freedom of association wrong. | The right gets it wrong on Parler, the left gets it wrong on | gay wedding cakes. Everyone needs to stop advocating for the | use of the government gun against peaceful people, no matter | how much of an asshole they consider their political | adversaries to be. | tonymet wrote: | I'd like to address this, since it's a common retort meant to | shutdown discussion on censorship. It's disingenuous , because | "First amendment" is so essential to American culture, that it | means both the literal First Amendment to the constitution AND | more importantly, the American principle of free expression. | | Ether you are aware that people are appealing to free | expression as a principle, or you are unaware that free | expression is more American than apple pie. That's why I say | this retort is disingenuous. | | So the legal scope of the literal first amendment doesn't help | the discussion on what people and companies should be doing. | | The discussion is about American values and if people, | companies and the government should be living up to them. And | that's what people are trying to debate when they say "first | amendment". | revnode wrote: | This. The companies are behaving in an un-American manner. | What they are doing is deeply selfish and cynical. They | should be criticized for their behavior and shamed for it. We | should not excommunicate members of our society even if the | things they say are reprehensible. And yes, the companies | have a right to do it, but there are plenty of things you can | do, but should nevertheless be shamed for doing. | jonathankoren wrote: | > We should not excommunicate members of our society even | if the things they say are reprehensible. | | We do all the time. That's how cultural norms are enforced. | steve76 wrote: | Who would win in a deplatforming food fight? Google or | Apple? | | Google's union now, right? And Apple fires people in | elevators and vowed on their deathbed "I'm going to destroy | Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go | thermonuclear war on this. | | So. Not saying you two should fight. If a fight did break | out, who would win? | | And now that I think about it, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, | Twitter, all have their strengths and flaws. Amazon is hell | for suppliers. Why should Apple get paid so much for | something they can buy out of China? And does the AWS UI | "just work"? Does it really? | | Facebook keeps files on people like some secret police | intelligence unit. And Twitter's long term vision just | won't work unless you have no mouth and must scream. Tweet | for a subway door to open. How stupid do you have to be. | fabianhjr wrote: | > The companies are behaving in an un-American manner. | | Those are transnational private companies. What is stopping | others from claiming they have been behaving in an un- | Chinese manner or an un-European manner or an un-Russian | manner so far? How is a naive notion of nationalism of | capital an argument of how such entities should behave when | they operate in most recognized nations with different | ideological and regulatory frameworks? | revnode wrote: | > Those are transnational private companies. | | If you're going to sell your services and goods here, you | need to comport to the cultural norms HERE. | | > What is stopping others from claiming they have been | behaving in an un-Chinese manner or an un-European manner | or an un-Russian manner so far? | | Nothing. | | > How is a naive notion of nationalism of capital an | argument of how such entities should behave when they | operate in most recognized nations with different | ideological and regulatory frameworks? | | They can and do change business practices to fit the | region. | fabianhjr wrote: | > If you're going to sell your services and goods here, | you need to comport to the cultural norms HERE. | | They are also selling their services and goods there so: | | > They can and do change business practices to fit the | region. | | They have and do change their practices to fit the global | region they operate in so the "un-american" critique | would be moot. | revnode wrote: | > They have and do change their practices to fit the | global region they operate in so the "un-american" | critique would be moot. | | I'm not sure what this means. They are behaving poorly | HERE. I am not criticizing them for the crazy stuff they | do elsewhere. That's an entirely different conversation. | fabianhjr wrote: | > They are behaving poorly HERE | | That a critique of their behavior should not depend on | the locality (an ideological statement) much less a | locality that represents about 1.9% of the world area and | 4.2% of the population. | jonathankoren wrote: | > So the legal scope of the literal first amendment doesn't | help the discussion on what people and companies should be | doing. | | If you're going to go down this road, then you must address | government compelled speech, and the limits on the control of | private property. I've found that the "private corporations | are censoring me" crowd, don't want to engage with this | obvious outcome, or pay lip service by saying, "Make [insert | big tech company here] is a utility!", again without thinking | through the implications. | | The compelled speech problem is obvious. Give me your car, I | want to put a bumper sticker on it. If you don't let me, or | you take it off, you're censoring me. | | This is an absurd request, it's your car, you can control | what goes on it. Same if I demand to have a book club meet in | your living room. It's your living room. Just because you | invite some people over, doesn't mean that everyone has a | right to come in. It's private property, and you can express | yourself by who you let in, and who you don't. Twitter, | Facebook, etc are no different. They're private property. No | one has a right to have an account and demand an audience. | | Now let's take the utility argument, since a utility would | mean that everyone needs to be allowed right? Well, a utility | is a highly regulated government monopoly. These regulations | increase the barrier to entry into these spaces, and | effectively eliminate all competition. In fact, protected | monopoly status is often the trade for utility status. | | These concerns of expression versus private property rights | are new, they've existed from very beginning. While the | prohibitions on government, but not private actions, may | sometimes be frustrating, it's a workable, and consistent, | solution. | chippy wrote: | Are you replying to a comment? This appears to me, right now, | as the top one in the thread and is unconnected to any others | and seems to me to be orphaned. | | If it's in direct response to the submission, I cannot find | anything in the submission that might give rise to a | clarification | erichocean wrote: | Try duck typing "the government" sometime. I think you'll find | the paperwork doesn't match the power centers, and that the | most powerful parts of "the government" are completely | unaccountable to voters, and in fact, aren't even listed on the | founding documents... | | It's a nice way to be in power if you can manage it. | s17n wrote: | "Freedom of press" can and should be interpreted to proscribe | deplatforming by the big tech companies. | nostromo wrote: | Freedom of speech is a guiding principle that predates the | United States, and the first amendment, by a few millennia. | | And yet every discussion about free speech online contains a | few comments about the first amendment's narrow legal scope. | Sure, that's right, but freedom of speech does not have a | narrow legal scope; it's a much broader concept, and it is | global in nature. | | In almost every case online, the discussion is about the global | ideal of freedom of speech, not about US law. | jv22222 wrote: | My clarification was just to try to bring clarity to the | discussion because a lot of times (as seen in the thread) | there is some confusion. | | I'm curious how what you just said translates into real world | application? | | Not trying to argue I am genuinely interested to hear more! | alexeldeib wrote: | > In almost every case online, the discussion is about the | global ideal of freedom of speech, not about US law. | | In the recent events in the US, a lot of people have | (mistakenly, IMO) cited the first amendment for protection of | speech many others don't like. But those protections afford | no help against private actors. In that context GP makes a | lot of sense bringing up this point. | | Example: a US senator cites the first amendment when | discussing free speech after a publisher refuses to run his | book: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/08/josh- | hawley-... | kova12 wrote: | Freedom of speech specifically applies to offensive speech. | You don't need any legal protections to talk about flowers | and butterflies | alexeldeib wrote: | Bringing it back to the context of the original reply: it | applies to protection from the government, not protection | from private individuals when you make speech which | offends those individuals. | | That's why I linked the book case. Hawley cites the first | amendment, but he's in a contract with a private entity | to publish the book. Barring contract disputes, there is | no first amendment case that the publisher must | distribute his book. | blast wrote: | Free speech and censorship are issues that go far beyond just | the First Amendment. This has always been the case, and recent | efforts to narrow the scope of the term are actually part of | the battle to reduce free speech (and increase censorship) | that's going on right in the culture now. | aidenn0 wrote: | It used to be true that companies could be dickish to you, but | now thanks to the 13th amendment (and the courts interpretation | thereof), there are specific ways that they cannot be dickish | to you. Either way you are right that it's not related to the | 1st amendment though. | EGreg wrote: | Why are there so many threads today about alternative platforms? | jhardy54 wrote: | MAGA folks looking for platforms for their "free speech". | oehtXRwMkIs wrote: | I was thinking WhatsApp but maybe you're right | EGreg wrote: | Okay I'll bite | | Just posted our free open source platform we were working | on for 10 years: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25717417 | oehtXRwMkIs wrote: | Sorry man not interested in non-federated solutions. | EGreg wrote: | Not sure what you mean by non-federated... Qbix can | support many protocols including foaf, matrix, | scuttlebutt, DID and so on. You can make it as federated | as you wish. | jhardy54 wrote: | > MAGA folks looking for platforms for their "free | speech". | | This is not a target demographic you should strive for. | EGreg wrote: | I am not really a big fan of end-to-end encryption for | solving society's main communication problems, I think | people (pseudonymous or not) should be accountable for | their speech. But I do believe in empowering people and | uniting communities. If you want to run your own social | network out of your own servers, you should be able to. | The fact that the software to power user friendly | communication platforms is scarce is a big problem. They | extract rents. They cut you off if they don't like what | you have to say. And worst of all, they concentrate power | in the hands of a few people regarding what decisions are | to be made. That is actually the source of all this | arguing. | | If you're arguing whether we should have Title I or Title | II, or whether we should use Facebook or Google, | Microsoft or Amazon, Democrat and Republican, you've | already lost. Open source collaboration beats closed | source competition every time in the end. Everyone can | host their own network and label the map however they | want, and so on. No fighting over flags or one size fits | all policies! | | In the 19th century there was a word for this: | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism | drdec wrote: | >I am not really a big fan of end-to-end encryption for | solving society's main communication problems, I think | people (pseudonymous or not) should be accountable for | their speech. | | I think there ought to be an on-line analogue to two | consenting adults talking in a private room in one of | their homes. Unless I misunderstand you, it doesn't sound | like that on-line capability is compatible with your | statement. | dane-pgp wrote: | > I think people ... should be accountable for their | speech. | | There is certainly some speech which is and should be | illegal, but if you optimize communication systems for | "accountability" you might end up in a situation which is | worse than what we have now. | | "There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee | freedom after speech." -- Idi Amin | jhardy54 wrote: | I agree, and that's why I work on Scuttlebutt. | | But I also think we should do everything in our power to | dissuade dangerous folks (example: violent extremists) | from using these tools. | readflaggedcomm wrote: | Which is incompatible with cabal's values, so they'd be in | trouble. https://github.com/cabal- | club/commons/blob/master/values.md#... | the_other wrote: | WhatsApp making explicit their data sharing with FaceBook. | benbristow wrote: | Looks nice. Sorely lacking image uploads though, just seems like | a decentralized IRC that looks like Slack at the minute. | OkGoDoIt wrote: | According to the FAQ there is a prototype implementation of it | in one of the clients, and apparently once that stabilizes they | will standardize it on other clients. Looks like it's a work in | progress, not an oversight | lemonspat wrote: | Image uploads are nice, but can be overcome through other | channels until the feature is added. The page says that the | project is "super young" | camdenlock wrote: | It's incredibly disheartening to see how quickly people are | warming to the practice of coordinated top-down gagging of | certain individuals and groups. | | You won't be so happy to cheer on such behavior and policies when | in the future the one silenced turns out to be you. | | The power to censor should be given solely to the individual to | curate their own information diet; it should never belong to the | medium itself (whether government, private company, autonomous | network, etc). | deegles wrote: | I used to think that way until I learned about the illusory | truth effect, which basically states that being exposed to | information multiple times makes you more likely to believe it | to be true. The consequence of this is that attempting to | curate information might "infect" you with ideas that you never | wanted in your brain in the first place. | nx20593 wrote: | If you started in the wrong way," I said in answer to the | investigator's questions, "everything that happened would be | a proof of the conspiracy against you. It would all be self- | validating. You couldn't draw a breath without knowing it was | part of the plot." "So you think you know where madness | lies?" My answer was a convinced and heartfelt, "Yes." "And | you couldn't control it?" "No I couldn't control it. If one | began with fear and hate as the major premise, one would have | to go on the conclusion." "Would you be able," my wife asked, | " to fix your attention on what The Tibetan Book of the Dead | calls the Clear Light?" I was doubtful. "Would it keep the | evil away, if you could hold it? Or would you not be able to | hold it?" I considered the question for some time. "Perhaps," | I answered at last, "perhaps I could - but only if there were | somebody there to tell me about the Clear Light. One couldn't | do it by oneself. That's the point, I suppose, of the Tibetan | ritual - somebody sitting there all the time and telling you | what's what." [Doors of Perception, 57-58] | ve55 wrote: | I like the idea but I think there's probably a few too many chat | apps going around already as well. | tomcam wrote: | Which ones should be eliminated? | cpach wrote: | Evolution will take care of that. A lot of them will simply | fizzle out. | wizzwizz4 wrote: | Beware evolution's pruning. It optimises for survival (and | as a consequence, reproduction and ruthlessness), which is | often at odds with what people value. | didericis wrote: | I get your point, but a product is only bought or used if | people value it in some way (whether for good reasons or | bad reasons), so product evolution has people's values | built into the process. | wizzwizz4 wrote: | Product evolution has people's _actions_ built into the | process. Who, before playing Farmville, would value | spending $1000 on digital sheep? | didericis wrote: | People's actions reflect their true values. The sad truth | is that people paying $1000 for digital sheep value the | immediate gratification of the game more than other uses | of that money at the moment of purchase. | | Addictive products designed to exploit our baser | instincts are dangerous, so again, I get and agree with | your point, but I think it's important to remember that | voluntarily purchased products are by definition valued | by the people who purchase them. The values of the people | purchasing products are an intrinsic part of product | evolution. | orblivion wrote: | I picked up The Selfish Gene because I was hoping to | figure out how JavaScript got so popular. | tachyonbeam wrote: | It got so popular because it was the only available | language to do web scripting. It's not that complicated. | It's easy to "win" when no competition is allowed. You | can argue that there's CoffeeScript, etc, but every other | language is still a second-class citizen in the web | ecosystem. WebAssembly may change that once it's stable | and mature enough, though again, you have the problem | that the DOM APIs were designed for JavaScript, which | will create an impedance mismatch with other languages. | swirepe wrote: | Any insights? | Turing_Machine wrote: | IMO, JavaScript became the most popular language in the | world because: | | 1) Everyone with a modern, full-featured browser already | has it. There's nothing to install. It's the modern | equivalent of the built-in BASIC in the early | microcomputers. | | 2) "View Source" lets you see exactly how something was | done at the click of a mouse. This is _invaluable_ for | learning. | | 3) Writing it and debugging it just requires a text | editor and the browser mentioned before, not some baroque | toolchain. You can even modify it and rerun it from | directly within the browser, most of which have fairly | sophisticated JS debuggers built in nowadays. | | 4) Rich text, GUI widgets, networking...all that stuff is | already baked into the browser cake. You don't need to | fool around with a separate libraries. | | 5) Interpreted, so iterative development is fast. | | 6) Forgiving (some would say "sloppy"), so beginners | don't get overwhelmed with type systems and similar | shizzle ("Why _can 't_ I just add 1 and 0.5? WTF?") Of | course, this also brings problems along with it. No free | lunches. | | Some other languages, on some platforms, have some of | these features, but none to my knowledge has all of them. | | For example, Linux systems do come with C, and do have | the source code available, but looking up the line of | source that produced exactly what you're seeing on the | screen in, say, an X program, is a far more involved | process than just right-clicking it and choosing "View | Source". | | Node, in turn, became popular because JavaScript is | popular. | | That's my take, FWIW. | orblivion wrote: | Only about a third of the way through, but I've picked up | some great insights in general. Nothing about JavaScript | (yet). | wizzwizz4 wrote: | Probably not. JavaScript's so popular because the web is | the universal cross-platform target, and Node.JS has a | _slightly_ lower barrier-to-entry to Hello World than | learning a new language. You 'll want to study energetics | to understand that. | jlkuester7 wrote: | On the other hand, the chat system that "survives" is | probably the best one to use in the long-term. | | Features, integrations, and a slick UI are great, but | without a stable community of maintainers the project if | probably not a good candidate for long-term use. | | An open, federate-able messaging protocol is also a good | thing to have! (email, XMPP, Matrix) | amelius wrote: | Sadly, evolution seems to not converge to a single chat | standard. | cpach wrote: | Indeed. | WClayFerguson wrote: | I've developed a great social media system that's basically a | centralized system, although I added Fediverse capability to it | recently. It's here: https://quanta.wiki. | | I'm looking for a way to leverage Quanta's power on top of some | kind of true peer-to-peer architecture to make it censorship | resistant, because BigTech has just now gone nuclear in their | censorship efforts. | | So I'm currently trying to find the right peer-to-peer (won't be | ActivityPub) infrastructure, to let Quanta instances network | better. | antris wrote: | >BigTech has just now gone nuclear in their censorship efforts | | Who's being censored? Twitter, Facebook etc. are private | platforms and they've been banning users who break their TOS | throughout their histories. | mandelbrotwurst wrote: | Private entities can and do engage in censorship. | WClayFerguson wrote: | The best analogy to help low-information people understand | this is to just remind them that AT&T owns the hardware and | can shut down people too. Do we want powerful companies to | be allowed to censor Americans at their whim is the | question. I say no. | deanstag wrote: | Does that mean an alternative solution would allow | inciting violence? | jazzyjackson wrote: | So lobby the government to break up AT&T so they don't | have monopoly power... (oh wait) | antris wrote: | Sure, but the parent poster seems to imply that banning | people who incite violence on social media is somehow a new | thing or "going nuclear" with censorship. | | Trump got clapped not because of censorship, but because | social media platforms decided to no longer exempt him from | their TOS because of his position. Any normal person | posting similar content would have been banned ages ago. | Besides, he is the POTUS who can go on TV any time he | wants. Thinking that he cannot get his message out there is | ridiculous. | WClayFerguson wrote: | Trump never called for any violence. However there are | lots of left wing people on Twitter calling for violence | and the left-wing operated BigTech think that's just | fine, while they will ban any right wing person at the | drop of a hat for completely made-up reasons like saying | something wrong about gender pronouns. Look the Joe Rogan | podcast with Tim Pool and Jack Dorsey, and try to educate | yourself. | antris wrote: | >Trump never called for any violence | | Alright, so finally after a few seemingly innocuous | arguments you took your mask off. A person who believes | storming the Capitol was not organized by Trump at this | point would be able to find a justification to anything | he says or does. | WClayFerguson wrote: | This is an example of black-and-white logic, tribalism, | and an inability to comprehend nuance. I can state any | number of the 100s of lies and hoaxes told about Trump | and the only thing Democrats can hear is a "praise" of | Trump, rather than a statement of fact. | blindgeek wrote: | Trump was also great advertising for Twitter, just like | he was great for the news media. I'd argue that Big | Media, Inc. is deeply complicit in the rise of Donald | Trump. He was the goose that laid the golden egg. | Additionally, the media mergers of the 80s and 90s gave | us right-wing talk radio on the AM band, sewing the | spores of hate from which the vile toadstool of Trumpism | bloomed. | | Big Tech, Inc., with its algorithms that promote radical | right-wing content, also seems suspect. | | To me the solution to all of these problems is to break | up conglomerates and monopolies. Let's have more | decentralization and more "small is beautiful" tech, like | the chat system presented here. Let a million flowers | blossom, smothering the aforementioned toadstool. | (Wandering off to look at installing Cabal). | dang wrote: | This has been and is being discussed in so many HN threads | right now that this is not a great place to re-rehearse the | same flamewars. Let's not let the generic drown out the | specific--that's the main thing that reduces intellectual | curiosity on the site. | | https://hn.algolia.com/?query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang. | .. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | | (Yes, the GP comment started it by including flamebait, but | it's not necessary to take the bait, and the guidelines ask | everyone to resist that.) | antris wrote: | Yeah, fair enough. I'm just worried about these kinds of | statements going unchallenged. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect | WClayFerguson wrote: | I started using the term "nuclear" once Amazon Cloud Services | decided to terminate the Parler web server hosting. | | If internet service providers can shut down speech they | disagree with, by going after the servers, then we're no | longer living in a democracy. | dmerks wrote: | As far as I know, AWS is not an ISP-- it's a business, a | bit like the one not selling cakes to homosexual | individuals. | antris wrote: | It's more akin to "no shirt no service". Parler can | continue using Amazon if they moderate their platform, | you can put on a shirt to get a cake. You cannot change | your sexuality or skin color. | aquadrop wrote: | You can change your religion. Should amazon be able to | tell to scram fx to some scientology church website | hosting? | WClayFerguson wrote: | You can't moderate a platform if there's millions of | people posting and only a handful of moderators. | | Remember, AT&T is also incapable of stopping criminals | from conspiring using text/telephone messages...and based | on your logic the Feds could just shut down AT&T and | blame AT&T for being "complicit". No obviously that's | moronic. Wake up and stop giving our rights away. | Eventually you're going to loose your own. | jv22222 wrote: | I "think" that's a false equivalency because democracy is | the government and private companies are something | different. | antris wrote: | >If internet service providers can shut down speech they | disagree with, by going after the servers, then we're no | longer living in a democracy. | | You present this as if Parler is being shut down because | people there have the wrong opinion on tax rates. | | People on Parler are planning violent fascist overthrow of | government, which is illegal. Why would Amazon be obligated | to host sites that cater to terrorists? | WClayFerguson wrote: | The social media purge began long before Parler even | existed. Yes people _are_ getting banned from Twitter for | life for having the wrong political opinions. It you deny | that everyone knows you 're either dishonest or | uninformed. | | People on the left are allowed to call for violence and | say all kinds of racist things hate filled things, but if | someone on the right even says something like "There are | only two sexes" that's enough to get banned for life. The | only reason the democrats all deny the existence of any | double-standard is because MSM and BigTech happen to be | in their tribe, so they all dare not call out one of | their own. | antris wrote: | "BigTech has gone nuclear with censorship" immediately | after a coup attempt is a wildly different statement than | "there is a long-running political double standard that | exists in tech companies when it comes to enforcing their | TOS". Should I take take it that you have conceded your | previous statement? | | I would like to complete the discussion on the previous | point before moving on to another topic of discussion. | WClayFerguson wrote: | Trump organized a demonstration. That's the American way | of voicing political dissent. | | If a politician organizes a peaceful rally and violent | people show up and do violent things, and you blame the | politician for the violence, then I'm curious about | something.... Do you hold the Democrats responsible for | all the violence of 2020 when we had cities burning down, | and the MSM saying things like "Who ever said protests | had to be peaceful" | | The Democrats calling the capitol mob a "coup de tat | attempt" is absolutely hilarious and just shows their | complete lunacy in their attempt to vilify the other | side, even when they're clearly just being absurd. It was | a mob who were let into a building. Hell they didn't even | damage any of the priceless paintings. If anyone's to | blame is was the security who let the doors get breached | when their job was to guard the building with machine | guns. | djtriptych wrote: | when the "speech" consists of active planning of mass | violence it's obviously no longer protected. | | The whole point of Parler is to be a safe haven for speech | that has already been banned elsewhere, for the same | reason. It was doomed from the start. | WClayFerguson wrote: | If you really believe the social media purge is about | stopping violence then you've been hoodwinked. People who | haven been watching this censorship battle for years know | this is purely about taking down political adversaries. | jb775 wrote: | If you broke the TOS of your water company, would it be | acceptable for them to cut the water connection to your | house? | | I mean if you don't like it, you could always just go pick up | your own water...or install underground pipes to a local | water source. | antris wrote: | Having your message broadcasted through Twitter is not a | human right or essential to your survival. Also, what kind | of TOS would a water company have that you can break? This | example is ridiculous. | jb775 wrote: | Sorry, but since the water company is privately owned | they can do whatever they please. If you don't like it, | you can build your own water company. Thanks! | | ...now you know how it feels for anyone on the opposite | side of your argument. | fishtacos wrote: | Please post a link to the terms of service of your water | company. | | I'm doubtful there is no clause in your | city's/county's/municipality's/state's, etc. that allows | them to interrupt service without cause. That's why terms | of service exist. | | Now I'm genuinely curious to find out what terms of | service you agreed to with the private water company. | What type of settlement do you live in? | antris wrote: | Nah. The water infrastructure at my home isn't owned by a | private company. I live in a state that has this radical | policy that water is a human right and should not be | commoditized. | WClayFerguson wrote: | On a related note: The Governor of California was cutting | off electricity and water to homes for the crime of | "peaceful assembly", recently... so it's not just free | speech that's under assault, but probably you could say | _most_ rights, at this point. | | The good ol' democrat mantra: "Never let a good crisis go | to waste." | astura wrote: | What? I have municipal water. | WClayFerguson wrote: | The obvious point is that both internet and water are | public services, and the minute we let companies start | cutting off services for political reasons we no longer | have a democracy. | orf wrote: | I'm sure you can see how patently absurd comparing a | provider of liquid essential to human life to... Twitter | is. | fishtacos wrote: | What kind of analogy is that? Tweets vs. water? | | Also, yes, you would not be provided | water/electricity/cable/internet/pudding if you broke their | terms of service. Apart from not paying your bill and | perhaps willful destruction of their equipment, I'm having | a hard time trying to come up with how else one breaks the | terms of service for utility services. That sounds | completely normal to me. | | Additionally, people do go without certain utilities in | times of economic hardship - this is nothing new. We're not | guaranteed access any such services. | WClayFerguson wrote: | Well if big companies get to just set arbitrary rules | that discriminate against one set of political beliefs, | what does that say about "Civil Rights" then? I guess | you're not a big fan of civil rights... | | Or, more likely, is it only when companies are doing | things you agree with that you'll claim they have | absolute power and authority? If you understand history, | you might see the flaw in this logic. | flal_ wrote: | The name clash with Haskell's build tool is unfortunate... | rtkwe wrote: | The namespace is pretty cluttered at this point. Most posts on | HN about a new app/project/library/etc have at least one "name | is already taken by ...." post under them. | amelius wrote: | Yes, but is that name really fitting? | orblivion wrote: | Yes because it's always conspiring against you. | | (credit goes to someone else for this one) | marcod wrote: | Yeah, I installed the wrong package initially ;) | allenleein wrote: | Should change it to stack | olah_1 wrote: | Have there been any breakthroughs recently? Or just sharing to | share? | runawaybottle wrote: | Think of it this way, if 4chan wasn't a website, no one would | allow it to exist. | | Web technology has a certain responsibility, so I think all the | alternative communication tech is in response to the theme of | this week. | cutehax wrote: | Agreed, context here is timely for sure. Large groups perhaps | trying to secretly coordinate online to stage an '' event''? | Web technologies for this are abundant; and yet so very | easily infiltrated. End to end encryption is redundant if | you've no idea who to trust. | yamrzou wrote: | There has been a number of HN submissions about | decentralization and Internet freedom today, probably as a | reaction to the deplatforming of Parler: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25706993 | whoknew1122 wrote: | Probably not a coincidence that this gets posted with no | context the day that Parler gets kicked off AWS. | | I presume it's someone trying to offer Cabal as a Parler | alternative. | bastard_op wrote: | My thoughts exactly, the Donald Chumps will take this up. | Good news: Massive influx of users. Bad news: It's all | American Fascists looking to hold hands. Saving grace is most | are probably too stupid to read hacker news. | deeviant wrote: | Don't be so sure. Trump-Qanon supporters seem to be pretty | common around here. They were very active in the "Trump | banned from twitter" post. | | Doesn't surprise me as (Trump|QAnon)'ism seems to be very | inviting to the tech bro culture. | h2odragon wrote: | Does "Free speech applies to Qanaon supporters as much as | it does to me and thee." make me a Qanon supporter? | dangus wrote: | > Saving grace is most are probably too stupid to read | hacker news. | | I wouldn't make this assumption. I have seen plenty of | modern conservative opinion around here, and some of it | really does align with ideas of white male supremacy and | support for fascist authoritarian leadership. It's easier | to find on "new" on posts that aren't strictly technology | related. They are definitely here. | | Of course, people are entitled to their opinions. 99.9% of | normal liberal or conservative Americans aren't going to | get violent or take part in an insurrection. Nothing wrong | with a having and expressing opinions. | | But to me, the concern here isn't even what happened a few | days ago at the Capitol. My concern is the mass | radicalization of the right wing of politics, and therefore | _people_ , in America. This radicalization is mainstream | because the media outlets pushing the ideas are themselves | mainstream, more mainstream than you think. | | E.g. my family members, who are not deep down anything | truly radical like the Q rabbit hole, but still believe | it's okay for Trump to be "joking" about 12 more years, | running contrary to elementary school civics lessons that | were supposed to be universal common ground. They got these | ideas from America's number one cable news channel, not | some obscure Internet forum. | throwaway80332 wrote: | The thing that I find most terrifying about Trump is that | he persued every legal option to win, and when that | didn't work out he conceded and said he's going to help | make sure there's a smooth transition of power. | | He is truly the most vile authoritarian anywhere outside | of the 1930s Germany, and that's not just because he | makes jokes. | greatgirl wrote: | I doubt that https://github.com/cabal- | club/commons/blob/master/values.md#... | gojomo wrote: | But if architected for openness without central censorship | chokepoints, such affinity declarations can't alone prevent | participation. Mastodon's tech is used by Gab, for example. | | At best this can: | | * influence the observable qualities of the closely- | collaborating dev community - who'll have to outwardly | project these values. | | * lead to the prioritization of decentralized user-driven | moderation features, which still allow the disfavored | groups to communicate with other willing audiences, with | minimized impact on unwilling audiences. | g8oz wrote: | Just the place to plan a second attack on the Capitol. | ehayes wrote: | Cool, we've jumped right into "if you want to be independent | from FaceAppAmaGooMicroTwitBookTube, it's just because you're a | right-wing fascist plotting an attack." Way to go everyone. | api wrote: | It kind of is, even if it is not intended to be. Here's how | it works. | | Deplatforming by the major social platforms is actually a way | for them to create a moat. The field is now salted with toxic | lunatics looking for a platform. Anyone who tries to stand up | another social will instantly be inundated by them, and their | presence will drive everyone else away and back into the arms | of the incumbents. | | Social is now like a zombie flick. There are walled gardens | where it is safe, but outside stalk the walking dead. Trying | to build another shelter is an exercise in repelling the | undead long enough to get some walls up. | deeviant wrote: | To be fair, at this moment in time, the vast majority of | likely users for a project like this, *are* the Trump/Qanon | crowd that feel dejected that they will be held to any sort | of accountability for their inflammatory rhetoric, lies and | conspiracy theories. | colesantiago wrote: | open source software at this point is just a pawn for being | misused by extremists. | | someone once said 'the road to hell is paved with good | intentions' or something like that. | | anyway, i'll get some friends on there and organise a attack | party. | SV_BubbleTime wrote: | > open source software at this point is just a pawn for being | misused by extremists. | | This comment makes me question if you know what open source | software is. | scrps wrote: | I wonder if this (baffling) line of reasoning will become | the new "Open Source/FOSS is Communism" of the late '90s | early '00s... | colesantiago wrote: | 1. get banned from platform. | | 2. move to another platform. | | 3. spew shit. | | 4. go to step 1. | | If the above happens for a certain amount of time, think | about what the extremists are going to use when they | finally realise they need to "build their own" stuff? | | The next one after Mastodon will probably be Matrix and by | then it's already too late. | WC3w6pXxgGd wrote: | You think Mastodon / the Fediverse is on the way, and | Matrix is a replacement? | qorrect wrote: | I still don't know what's wrong with IRC. | based2 wrote: | https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/113532/how-is-i... | anthk wrote: | Meh. IRC now can use TLS/SSL (Freenode), among SASL. | | On X11 vulns, I use a tty, so I don't care, and even on X, | xterm has a secure mode. | hu3 wrote: | Different goals. IRC needs a central server. This is peer-to- | peer. | agentdrtran wrote: | some people want more than plain text | rcxdude wrote: | Multimedia, end-to-end encryption, offline chat history, and | having all those features actually available and usable by the | average user (just having a persistent identity is something | IRC makes trickier than it needs to). You may decide those are | misfeatures, but most people don't. | WClayFerguson wrote: | Does IRC have "conversation threads?" To me a conversation | thread necessarily entails a hierarchical chain of posts and | the replies to those posts as "child nodes". All conversations | are inherently "tree structures" if done right, imo. | greatgirl wrote: | Not user friendly. Not everyone is an internet nerd like us. | oftheoaks wrote: | Us cabal devs really like irc. Cabal was inspired in part by | it. You might enjoy this explanatory zine: | | https://substack.net/zine/cabal.html | rex_lupi wrote: | why would I want yet another chat platform when there's already | Matrix/IRC/XMPP/telegram/signal, and oh yes, Whatsapp etc? | WClayFerguson wrote: | Part of what the world needs is not just the "app", but an app | that's Open Source MIT License, so everyone has complete | freedom, rather than the original authors being able to dictate | certain terms going forward, and maintain control. | | I've done 90% of the difficult coding in https://quanta.wiki, | which is MIT License. I just need to add the P2P part. Maybe | I'm sounding like Ali G. when he invented the "flying | skateboard" and had everything solved except for the "physics". | :) | Yoric wrote: | I should add that Matrix p2p has been demonstrated. My | understanding is that it's not ready for prime time just yet, | but it works. | jlkuester7 wrote: | Wait, what? Matrix is working on p2p protocols? | amelius wrote: | Couldn't the entire P2P part be abstracted away from it, so | a chat client could work with _any_ P2P technology in | principle? | Arathorn wrote: | https://matrix.org/blog/2020/06/02/introducing-p-2-p-matrix | / | jlkuester7 wrote: | Oh wow! I must have missed that somehow! Very | interesting! | | I have been a fan of Matrix for a long time and have been | very excited by all of the progress made recently! | Particularly, the new UI experience for E2E encrypted | channels is amazing! You managed to get solid security | without sacrificing usability. | | Thank you for your dedication to Matrix and its | community! | Arathorn wrote: | thanks :) There's still a way to go on E2EE UX and sadly, | but we're working on it. | Multicomp wrote: | this is why i resist new chat apps....signal is tiding me | over until p2p capable, e2e by default matrix is ready to | go on desktop, android and ios...then i will be ready to | use, donate, buy vector hosting, and evangelize oodles. | Ericson2314 wrote: | I think it's basically hit all of those but p2p? | Multicomp wrote: | Correct AFAIK. I was speaking more broadly about it to | explain my effusive plans | jlkuester7 wrote: | That seems fair. Though, personally, as long as it can | federate, I am less concerned about p2p. Some very nice | features are a lot harder (impossible?) to make work in a | pure p2p setup whereas federation seems to give you the | best of both worlds. (AKA the benefits of an always- | available server without the vender lock.) | | That is actually the big thing I don't like about Signal. | If Open Wisper Systems decides tomorrow to turn off their | server, everyones' Signal client are broke... | lemonspat wrote: | This looks promising. Is there a web client, or only a desktop | client? | oftheoaks wrote: | Right now it's desktop and terminal only, but there is a lot of | interest in web and mobile clients. | WClayFerguson wrote: | If you want the best Web App in the world take my codebase | (quanta.wiki) and built on top of it. The whole thing is a | simple tree structure, on MongoDB, using a 'path-based' tree | so you don't even have to learn a specific relational | database structuring, and you can put something else on the | back end to replace MongoDB. If you like | Java+TypeScript+React then I've given you a 250,000 loc head | start. | ReactiveJelly wrote: | Checked the FAQ. | | Downside: It doesn't support Tor and they don't seem to have any | plan for that. So it's trusted-friends-only, IPs are always | visible. Which is pointless for me, as a person trying to build | healthy online friendships from behind Tor. | | Upside: I was afraid it's a reaction to Parler being | deplatformed. And then I thought maybe it was a side-project of | Urbit. But looking at the Values page: "No nazis, no TERFs, no | alt-right--or anyone friendly with them" | | So that's cool. | dr_kiszonka wrote: | I wish they excluded extremes on both sides of the spectrum. | Otherwise, it makes Cabal seem like a Parler for the extreme | left. | | (Maybe it is not; I know nothing about people behind Cabal.) | m1sta_ wrote: | Obvious conclusion since everything that isn't far-right is | far-left. /s | snowflake_ptr wrote: | More like anyone who's willing to condemn one extreme but | not the other is almost certainly supporting the latter. | williamtwild wrote: | Oh shut up. What a crybaby. | eznzt wrote: | > as a person trying to build healthy online friendships from | behind Tor. | | As someone who's spent a lot of time on Tor-related IRC | channels and other communities, gl lol | snowflake_ptr wrote: | > or anyone friendly with them | | This is disgusting - it implies that you should pick and choose | your friends based on political affiliation, which not only is | extremely (and intentionally) divisive, but also provides no | room for guiding these individuals back to a more moderate | political stance. | | Without being friends (or at least interacting with) with those | who have been ostracized by society, how, exactly, do you | propose to try to get them to change their minds? | | I'm also curious as to how they plan to enforce this constraint | - Cabal appears to be completely decentralized, correct? | fortran77 wrote: | The word Cabal comes from Hebrew. It probably grew about because | outsiders perceived the people who studied Jewish mysticism as | being part of some secret society. | | See Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabal ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-10 23:00 UTC)