Q&A: Why Should People Use Signal?
Added 2024-10-02 20:08:51 +0000 UTCQ&A197: Our Top 3 arguments for switching to Signal, for getting companies to comply with deletion requests, and favorite aspects of GDPR, our thoughts on Diode and Threema, how linkable are alias emails really, and is regulation really effective?
Video Version: https://youtu.be/K2ya4Yz_NoI
00:00 Introduction
00:52 Top 3 Arguments for Switching to Signal
04:08 Top 3 Techniques to Ensure Data Deletion
07:29 Top 3 Favorite GDPR Rights
10:03 Thoughts on Diode
12:24 Thoughts on Threema
14:13 Email Alias Privacy
17:42 Regulation Efficacy
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🙋 Go ahead and leave some questions below for us to look at for SR198 this weekend! (Note: We record on Friday nights in the US, so it's highly recommended to leave all questions by noon on Friday in the US)
It can be about a specific story, a general question about privacy/security, a question about the world, a question you tried last week, or anything else. Due to time restraints we can't promise that we'll get to yours, but we appreciate all of them!
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Comments
If this is the right spot for skipped Q&A: What steps do you take and what criteria do you use for privacy when it comes to regular banking in the US: as in checking/savings accounts? While there are several options for "anonymising" payment info to merchants like privacy[.]com, mysudo, applepay, (in addition to mainstream options concerned primarily with card number theft risks and not so much user privacy for transactions: e.g. paypal, google-pay, and capitalone), but the landscape seems murkier when it comes to regular banking. Obviously, KYC and credit bureau reporting are a given, but beyond that, if you look at banks' privacy policies, they all have several vague categories of un-opt-out-able information sharing, and the descriptions seem phrased to shield the banks from legal liability rather than to communicate information. Also, Michael B. mentioned "Early Warning" that collects information about all of someone's accounts at all banks and details for every deposit, withdrawal, and payment, and that might be only the tip of the iceberg of the behind-the-scenes financial profiling ecosystem that is sitting waiting to be breached by hackers (like the recent telco backdoor intrusion). So, attempts at compartmentalisation across banks for the sake of privacy may be pitifully futile. Do you think there even are meaningful differences between privacy practices of mainstream American banks for checking and savings? A minor additional question: At one point, Henry made a video about setting up NextCloud ("Nextcloud made Easy") that was meant to be the first in a series, but it seems to have been "lost to follow-up". Is it that you found it too much work to make it work, having to tinker with it endlessly, compared to alternatives or not cost-effective compared to alternatives for your use cases?
David Johnson
2024-10-16 13:07:04 +0000 UTCWhat are your thoughts on the "Global Digital Compact" portion of the "Pact for the Future" which was adopted by the UN? https://www.un.org/en/unis-nairobi/press-releaseunited-nations-adopts-ground-breaking-pact-future-transform-global
Tom
2024-10-04 14:07:15 +0000 UTCWhat privacy-oriented settings management tools similar to but other than O&O-ShutUp do you rely on for various devices and platforms? It seems that there is a lot of room for improvement in settings management. In particular, companies often appear to deliberately scatter related privacy settings throughout the nested and branching labyrinth of their “settings” interface, often hidden behind misleadingly labeled “doors” instead of consolidating them in one place. The New Oil guides to various settings is a testament to that, and the famously hostile response of Facebook to the “Unfollow Everything” script shows this obfuscation is probably done deliberately more often than not. And even if it was not, being able to export settings from one machine / installation and then import them to another instead of recreating a configuration every time would be a major improvement (although that can probably often be done with a ducky script, it still requires first finding the relevant items in the settings forest).
David Johnson
2024-10-03 10:39:25 +0000 UTCThank you for your unsolicited opinion. However I would like to point out that I was asking Nate and Henry as people who make part of their livings researching and trying a lot of these services, as compared to someone random on the internet.
Rasta
2024-10-03 02:39:57 +0000 UTCPeople who care about their privacy don’t use beeper! If somebody is into privacy and wants all messages in one app, he would use matrix and the available bridges.
Bronco
2024-10-03 02:24:40 +0000 UTCYay, we have sound now. Also, I was wondering what y'all think of Beeper. I see people say they're using it but none of the groups, or individuals who are large in the privacy space seem to be recommending them.
Rasta
2024-10-02 21:59:56 +0000 UTC
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