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

On Thu, 20 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

D <nospam@example.net> writes:
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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.

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

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I need to look into leafnode again.  Now I don't think leafnode can peer
with a USENET server, right?  I think we should have a server that does.
I'm willing to write it.

I think you are right. It doesn't peer, but it does pull selected groups and latest posts from a "real" nntp server.
However!
It saves all messages in a local spool folder, and since nntp is a nice and simple retro-protocols, it is trivial to understand the format. So what you could do, between 2 leafnode servers, is to just reverse engineer the format and "copy" the spool directory between the two leafnode installations and all the messages will pop up on the other leafnode as well.

My desire is to have an NNTP server that can host your local groups
there, easily.  And your friends who will connect to see your local
groups should also see some USENET groups along with them.  So the NNTP
server should also be able to peer with a USENET server.  Doesn't need
to be a powerful server like INN2 does.  All in one.

I think this should be doable.

I would be surprised if INN2 doesn't do all of this, but I think we
should have other alternatives with newer ideas too.  For instance, I

The reason I did not go the INN2 route was that I wanted some small and simple, for pulling messages one way only. Leafnode at first had some restrictions such as needing a valid DNS name which was a pain, so I simply deleted its checks, and now the server can be named anything I want, which is fine, since I'm not peering. This can of course be added back if you want it.

think these smaller servers should be mostly closed (with passwords or
cryptographic keys or certificates) because they're meant for a group of
friends who know each other.  Each user should be able to create local
groups and new accounts, forming a small community.  (A good community
is one in which every member has roughly the same powers as every other
member.)  This small community should have access to the USENET (by
using their very community server).  That's roughly the idea.  The
server should be hackable; perhaps hackable in real time; so a dynamic
language seems the right fit for it.

A "hack" around it is to just run it with stunnel or over a vpn. That way it is "private" and you don't need to add something to the software itself in terms of passwords.

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.

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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.
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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. =(

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It's sad indeed.  On the bright side, we seem to be immune to that.  At
least *we* are not in such a pit. :)  Better than nothing. :)

True! =)

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.

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Yeah---young people don't quite get e-mail.  They never read about
e-mail.  Perhaps one thing that's against them (and it was not against
us) is that they have a lot of options today.  We didn't have this many
options.  We started out on a simpler world.  So we were able to stay at
the top of the game over the years.  And so we mastered it.  Now we're
experienced and we handle the complexities of the world with the help of
our experience.  They don't have these tools available.  They could get
here quickly, but they're lost.  Instructions we give them don't
suffice: perhaps because people must discover things for themselves.
That's perhaps why education only works for those who actually don't
need one.

I think is perhaps somewhat of a downward trend. I feel awe when talking to the
older generations who had to learn the hardware, program in assembler and so on.
In my generation, hardware and assembler were solved problems, so the
programming was done in higher level languages.
Todays generation don't even see the hardware, they all use cloud servers and
python.
So the original foundation gets further and further away. Only a small set of hw
wizards still care and know about that layer of the stack.