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

On Thu, 20 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

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.

For the moment all works for me with a flat layout based on time of arrival. But
should the nr of posts increase, I think I shall have to switch back to thread
layout and actually explore scoring like you do to get some nice automation into
my reading.
For the longest time inertia kept me from using colors in alpine, and finally,
when I had a slow day in the office I did take some time to customize it, and lo
and behold, it did save me a couple of minutes daily by making some things
easier to spot, so count that up in a year, and it was a very nice time saving
initiative!

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.

Leafnode I think would be quite a nice piece of software for small, local nntp
servers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leafnode
I use part of its functionality to pull in usenet into my mail client.

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.

This is the truth! I am worried that people are turning more into digital
consumers than digital producers. used in such a way, digital technology can
become a drain on the soul.
Computers were supposed to be creative tools! I get the feeling that for many,
they have instead become devices of slavery. It is a very sad development. I
love text only interfaces, I love reading. I don't own a smart phone and I feel
very sad when I'm on a bus or in a subway car and see 99% of people staring in
silence into their phones. It seems like quite a dystopia for me. =(

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 wonder if they will discover it? I was happy when I offered a 1 hour free and
voluntary session with the topic of learning the basics of vim, and 11 out of 35
said it was interesting! =D
This makes me feel hope!

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.
>
Those guys go on the become rock stars!
>
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

This is the truth! Hmm, maybe I should add an hour or two next semester on the
topic of retro-computing? ;)

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.

Well, I do sometimes chat on my business partners mattermost, but only if live
audio/video and email is not an option. Fortunately for me, that turns out to be
about once or twice a year. ;)
But the young whipper snappers do chat happily away from time to time, and I am
happy that they are just not dragging me into it.
Only today was one of my younger partners telling the class that my emails are
quite something to behold. Long and packed with all the information the person
needs to perform the task. At first he found it draining and stressful, but then
he learned that I do not demand instant replies when I email (then I call or
write in the email that it is urgent) and after a while he learned to appreciate
that all information he might need is in the email.

[1] Better for fact, knowledge seekers.
>