I got into computers when I destroyed a Windows 3.11 install on a PC we’d been given.

Nobody wanted to use it without graphics. So I started playing with it and typing words into the MS DOS prompt and reading the output.

I found qbasic and the gorilla and snake games. Then a text editor and so I learned how to make batch files. Learned how to edit basic by trial and error so I could make the gorilla’s bananas blow up the whole screen

Found some DOS games, like scorched earth and a copy of wing commander which led to me learning to hate DRM and also how to operate an unguarded photocopier at my school.

Fast forward 30 years and I’ve picked up a few more tricks

I understand why it exists in online spaces, at the same time it’s on every person to speak up against bad behavior.

I didn’t magically become transphobic because someone was an asshole to me and I can empathize with what caused the behavior.

These kinds of reactions are still wrong and is harmful on both the individual level and to the community writ large. Because of that, people should not feel pressured to accept bad behavior or blamed for not walking on egg shells.

We all have the right to be treated with respect and dignity.

Did you wake up dead?

I understand that transphobic people exist online.

We also need to recognize that being trans doesn’t mean that you’re incapable of being an asshole, engaging in cyberharassment or any other negative social behaviors that all people are capable of.

Much like OP, I’ve been attacked by these people for supporting trans people in a way that wasn’t popular (I.e. not brigading Twitch streamers and harassing children playing Legacy of Hogwarts). I saw a user banned for saying to donate to the Trevor Project instead of brigading and I spoke up in support of them.

I was banned for “transphobia”.

There are absolutely mods/admins using their power in trans social spaces to attack and purge people for no reason other than that they’re not fully aligned with whatever dogma the mod feels is correct.

I just don’t even try to interact anymore. There will always be some chronically online commenter or mod who wants to try to deconstruct your every word choice looking for an angle to accuse you of saying something outrageous.

Alienating allies and bullying people out of the community is toxic and wrong, regardless of your being a member of a minority group.

.

Ah, a stab wound… my only weakness

Windows users are still living in the wild west where every application can just download and install files arbitrarily.

You’re asking if someone can give you the names of any telemetry endpoints that may exist in the future?

If you’re that worried about it and suspect Mozilla will act maliciously then you should probably use a different browser/fork. Since pihole blocking depends on the browser respecting your system DNS.

If they were trying to be malicious they could resolve DNS through a custom module over an encrypted connection. Pihole doesn’t block DNS, it simply filters the DNS queries issued by your system. Malicious apps can still resolve DNS queries without using your system’s DNS which will completely bypass pihole.

I am pretty sure that if asked, the serverside protections can be circumvented

No, they literally cannot. The entire protocol is open sourced and has been audited many times over.

One of the fundamental things you assume when designing a cryptosystem is that the communication link between two parties is monitored. The server mostly exists as a tool to frustrate efforts by attackers that have network dominance (i.e. secret police in oppressive regimes) by not allowing signals intelligence to extract a social graph. All this hypothetical attacker can see is that everyone talks to a server so they can’t know which two people are communicating.

The previous iteration, TextSecure, used SMS. Your cellular provider could easily know WHO you were talking to and WHEN each message was sent. So SMS was replaced with a server and the protocol was amended so that even the server has no way of gaining access to that information.

The sealed sender feature is something that the client does. It was best effort because, at the time, they still supported older clients and needed backwards compatibility. This is no longer the case.

Sure, so let me export my data from another PC or phone. If they wanted you to have message history, they would. So I’ll respectfully disagree.

https://signal.miraheze.org/wiki/How_to_move_Signal_Desktop_message_history_to_another_computer_(or_during_an_OS_reinstall)

at role does the signal server play?

If this is a question that you need answered then I’m not sure you’re qualified to declare that Signal is insecure.

Being able to be blocked is a completely different thing than being centralized service.

[…] there’s nothing end users can do about it if they don’t know how to circumvent it…

I mean, if users don’t know how to circumvent something, by definition there is nothing that they can do about it.

However, unless this hypothetical censoring country is blocking all encrypted network traffic it is trivial to access TOR via a VPN or an SSH tunnel

easily extract metadata

That’s a pretty big claim to make with zero additional information.

Since 2018, Signal has been encrypting the sender data with a key that isn’t known to the server. Messages do not contain unencrypted metadata. I’m not sure how you expect the FBI to do this with the information available to the Signal servers.

History isn’t stored on the server so it can’t be automatically populated on a new device. That is a feature. The alternative, storing the messages on the server or having the means for one device to clone all of its messages to another device, would be insecure.

A 30 character long password is required in order to have enough bits of entropy so that the backed up messages are actually secure.

Grandma isn’t moving her data to a new PC without assistance, the person that is assisting her should be competent enough to operate Signal.

TOR isn’t a centralized service, it’s a distributed network.

He should have offered the motor coach to Trump instead

cat is the tool of distinguished gentlemen

There once was a Whateley so brash,
Who thought all critique was just trash,

But your tongue's been too sharp,
You ignite a dull harp—
Your abrasiveness is nothing but ash.

Your retorts may be quick and they fly,
But they’re empty like clouds in the sky.
If you fail to relent,
Keep on being so bent,
You’ll continue receiving an AI reply.

!Arch - The Archlinux wiki, btw

I use it in this configuration.

It works well except, if you lose connection temporarily the cloudflared stops responding until some, long (60s or so) timeout period.

A minor annoyance, I usually just manuirestart the service… but I cannot find the setting that is causing this.