Re: Schneier, Data and Goliath: no hope for privacy

D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Wed, 19 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
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D <nospam@example.net> writes:
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[...]
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Quite mysteriously, all sorts of otherwise respectable open-source
software developers are happy to use GitHub even though it's owned
by M$. So even having ditched their software long ago, M$ are now
very hard to avoid online if, ironically, you want to use, and
especially work on, open-source software. I find that truely
unfathomable, but others barely seem to see my problem with it.

>
This is a great mystery to me! I have no clue how so many open source
users can be so clueless! =( They also loooooove slck and
discord. That's revolting! IRC works percectly fine, and if you need
blinken lights, you can just add some of the numerous web IRC programs
out there, or at least use matrix or xmpp.

>
Lol---well said.  (I call Discord a Christmas Tree.  And Slack is no
different.)  Quite right.  And USENET, which is way more appropriate for
technical discussion than IRC.

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It is strange that usenet has disappeared from the common mind. I find it
excellent! Especially since google disconnected it got even better!

That's right!  Thanks, Google Inc., for leaving us alone. :)

There is a challenge though. In todays reincarnation, I find the nr of posts
more than manageable. But if I think of a scenario where the nr of posts would
increase tenfold, there would be no chance of catching up, except using the
narrowest of the narrow sorting based on author and subject line.
>
Today, I can casually browse and glance at most posts, but with 10x the nr of
posts, that would not be feasible.

I already find it unwieldy.  But I don't think we have to follow every
thread.  You can follow that subthread you got yourself involved.  Using
Gnus, there are two things that I do.  Articles that I'd like to
follow-up are ticket---so appear in red for me.  Articles that were
replies to my own posted articles get the highest score and so they
appear in bold.

  https://0x0.st/8Tsq.png

I ticked your article just to show you something red.  It wasn't red
before.  Yes, I also only show three letters for each author because I
usually don't care to know who I'm talking to, but since identity does
help to understand what the person is saying, three letters is enough.

I think there is a limit where the usenet model breaks down for most users who
are not into cli clients.

Yeah.  It's not going to work for regular people.  However, there's
something that I think it should work for regular people---low volume
NNTP servers.

But it turns out that even mailing lists don't work for regular people
because e-mail doesn't work for regular people.  Even Discord or Slack
doesn't quite work for regular people.  Perhaps nothing works for
regular people.  They do not find ways to tame information on their
computer screens.  Regular people don't want to use desktops anymore;
they want to use their phones.

NNTP, the USENET, e-mail, these are systems that only the people thristy
for knowledge really use---that 17% of your class of 35.

I think the reason must be that many open source users are young and
naive and do not remembre how M$ tried to close down linux decades
ago.

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That's very likely part of the reason.
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When I teach, I make it a point to bring up these things. Sadly the
students then go on to work, and get stuck in github and various
proprietary tools. But such is life! We must continue to fight the
good fight. =)

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Teaching can only go so far.

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In every class of about 35, there's always 4-9 or so that "get it" and become
completely obsessed with the terminal, self-hosting, they buy numerous raspberry
pis, they stay awake until 5 in the morning tinkering.
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Those guys go on the become rock stars!
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The rest go to the office at 09 and leave at 17, and that's about it.

And I think that's fine for us because these about 6 people of every
class of 35 is enough to pack the USENET.  But most of them are not
here.  That's what's sad.  They should be here.  They would enjoy being
here.  But I think somehow they're not.  This suggests a certain
inertia.  But what I find more likely is that you're overestimating.
Perhaps it's more like 0.35 rock stars in every class of about 35.

I take it seriously that they could be right---that somehow we should
all be on Discord.  But, no, intelligence always wins and the fact is
that the tools we're using here (for communication) is absolutely
better[1] than the more recent commercial alternatives.

[1] Better for fact, knowledge seekers.