This is why I went from centrist monarchist, to hardcore conservative to right-wing traditionalist libertarian, all over the past decade. I'm at the point where I want to go back to the Gilded Age and it has been a journey getting to this point. 

 My understanding of Bitcoin is exactly why I'm unable to use it: KYC completely destroys the point, and until no-KYC options are more viable, I'm basically stuck with zaps and the ~$11/year I earn from converting Brave Rewards to BTC. 

 What IS the solution? I'm not diabetic myself but I have many family members that are. 

 What do I do for people who really like their pastas and breads? That includes me 😅 

 The problem with fasting is that some diabetics have hypoglycemia. I'm not hypoglycemic myself but I struggle to fast more than a single meal in a day, and even that is stretching it on some days. It's weird, some days I can go a long time without eating but then other days, I struggle even if my meals are delayed.

That's my issue with a lot of diets, I've tried a few but can't seem to stick with them (and not just because I disliked it). 

 As good a reason as any! 

 Exactly what I'm saying. I don't understand why people think that Nostr can fix every single problem with digital communication and media. It's just like how people assume that Bitcoin can fix literally every problem related to the economy and government when it definitely can't. 

That doesn't mean that they can't help and can't be a very important cornerstone in the movement. I just don't know why they insist on being such fanboys as to think that their favorite technology is somehow going to be the thing that fixes the world on its own. The truth is that we have more technology now than ever before to free ourselves from big tech, corporatocracy and government oligarchy, yet some folks would deliberately ignore that tech if it's not BTC or Nostr. It's bizarre. 

 My concern is that anyone can spin up a set of keys. Session had a massive DDoS attack on their open groups earlier in the year and that was because there was no limit to how many Session IDs can be spun up. We also saw Nostr get hit with the ReplyGuy spam recently as well, due to similar issues.

People love to criticize Signal for its phone number requirement but that requirement helps keep the spam and attacks on the network at a minimum. To me, the issue isn't the metadata, it's whether or not that metadata is properly encrypted and obfuscated. Signal does both thanks to features like sealed sender (which makes it virtually impossible to determine where a message came from, making it way harder to conduct any sort of MITM snooping).

I'm purple pilled but I think we have to recognize that Nostr isn't the solution to every problem, just as Bitcoin isn't the solution to every problem. Both are phenomenally powerful and important to our future, but they're not the only things we'll need to secure our digital freedom going forward, and there's no reason we need to stretch their capacity when other tech already offers the functionality we're looking for. I mean, Session itself offers all of the functionality we're talking about here, the only downside is the lack of zaps (but really, who needs zaps for private messaging?).

That being said, I DO agree that Signal having a centralized server infrastructure isn't ideal. It'd be cool if they'd open it up to volunteers hosting nodes similar to Session and SimpleX. Volunteers can already run Signal proxies so why not let them host nodes and gradually move things over to a decentralized framework? There's no reason Signal Foundation couldn't rent out cloud space during times that the network is overwhelmed, especially since being decentralized would cut down on a huge chunk of their operating costs.

Finally, I also do agree that it'd be nice if Nostr would at least set up E2EE for DMs, considering the fact that Nostr has a bit of a permanence effect on notes shared via the relays. 

 More like WhatsApp used Signal's protocol. The Signal Protocol was in existence before WhatsApp started using it. It uses that protocol because of the fact that it's the gold standard of end-to-end encryption protocols.

Telegram's protocol was criticized because it was vulnerable in various ways that Signal's protocol was not. Encryption experts cross the world pretty much universally agreed on that. The reason why governments don't go after Signal, but they went after Telegram, is because Telegram didn't encrypt all that much. In fact, it only encrypted things if you specifically told it to. There'd be no reason for governments to even try to go after Signal if everything's encrypted and that nothing can actually be taken from it. In fact, governments have tried to get data from Signal, but were unable to take anything because of how everything is encrypted except for basic data like when a person first started using the platform.

It's ironic that you're talking about all of this while supporting SimpleX, which is backed by a for-profit corporation and is relatively new to the field, thus meaning that they have not been proven quite like Signal has been. By all means, SimpleX is a very neat tool that I am very much looking forward to seeing the future of, but if you want security, you really can't get better than Signal. This isn't just my opinion either. This is the opinion of virtually every security expert, cypherpunk, etc. Edward Snowden himself recommended it, and if someone with such a high threat model is confident in using it, then average Joe on Nostr can use it. 

 Also, as an addendum, Signal does not leak metadata, that is blatantly false. The only metadata that anybody can get is stuff like the frequency of a message being sent, and you really can't cut down on that kind of metadata, even with SimpleX. 

In fact, Signal has a feature called Sealed Sender that makes it so that, when you receive a message, anybody spying on the network can't see who that message came from. If you and all your contacts are using Sealed Sender, then there's really no way for them to truly figure out who you or your contacts are unless you doxx your contacts through other means, such as using, well, Telegram. 

 Maybe you could ask them to get in contact so I can actually have some money in my life. Heh, that's a joke. But the truth is you can talk to anybody, especially people who actually are professionals in the sphere, and they'll tell you the exact same thing as what I'm saying. You're free to use whatever platform you want, but don't pretend to have superior security just because you don't trust the "mainstream" platform as if Signal is somehow mainstream.

Again, if somebody with the literal full force of the U.S. government against him is okay with using Signal, then I think you can use Signal. 

 If you think that promoting very practical options such as Monero alongside Bitcoin makes me that, then yeah, I guess so. People like yourself are exactly why outsiders view Bitcoiners as a cult. 

 You're misreading what I'm saying. Edward Snowden is one of the most hunted men by the US government, and yet he uses Signal, so that's all you really need to know about that part. If the government had access to Signal, they wouldn't need to hunt him so hard. They'd just get access to his information. It's not backdoored and that's proof.

And no, the reason why they went after Telegram was because there was information that they could easily get from Telegram. They can't do that from Signal. They've tried and they failed. Again, if the government thought that they could get anything out of Signal, they would be doing the exact same thing they're doing to Telegram right now, but they realize they can't, so they don't waste their time. Instead, they redirect their efforts to compromising individuals opsec. That's the real threat to Signal: poor opsec. Detractors commonly point to the Tucker Carlson "hack" but that wasn't a hack or a flaw of Signal, that was a flaw in his own personal opsec. 

 That's a bit of a stretch. The only metadata that it actually "leaks" is the frequency of your messages and your IP if you're not using a VPN. The thing is, a VPN can hide the IP easily, the frequency of messages issue is going to happen with any messenger. With Sealed Sender, metadata isn't a concern unless you dox yourself. And if you do that, then that's on you, not on Signal. And even if you do that, sealed sender still makes it impossible for any snoop to actually see where messages are coming from. 

Thing is, even with other messengers like Session or SimpleX, if government authorities are paying attention to multiple contacts in the same circle, they're going to know who is actively sending messages, whether it's through Signal or one of those anonymous messengers. 

The only advantage to using an anonymous messenger is to speak anonymously with people you don't know in person. If you're talking to people over the internet and you want to stay completely anonymous, then it has a purpose. It's for the same reason that people say you shouldn't sign into accounts on Tor because it immediately de-anonymizes you unless that account is exclusively used on the Tor network. At the end of the day, using an anonymous messenger to keep in contact with people you actually know in person is not any more secure than using Signal.

And that's without diving into the whole subject of SimpleX being run by a for-profit corporation instead of a non-profit organization, which is concerning in and of itself. 

 Sure, but that's a flaw with all messengers, even decentralized ones. The reason I see Session as more secure is because of the onion routing. Thrice encrypted and bounced across the world. SimpleX decentralization isn't conducted that way. It's better than nothing but most of the servers are hosted by the company and seizing those servers would get you a lot more metadata.

Also, yes, them being for-profit is completely relevant and concerning. A for-profit corporation has to maximize profits, meaning they aren't quite as trustworthy to host a privacy service. Meanwhile, a non-profit doesn't have to go wild to maximize profits. They actually directly have a necessary reason to do what they claim they're doing or donations will dry up. 

 I will be replying to this in-depth later. 

 Okay, first off, yes: they can get loads of metadata from secret chats on Telegram. As far as I'm aware, nothing but the messages themselves are encrypted on Telegram secret chats; this is a similar flaw to Matrix. Sure, keeping the messages encrypted is supremely important, and yes, I think both Telegram and Matrix have plenty of valid use cases. However, metadata is very important as well, and Telegram doesn't encrypt much of it (if any). Signal encrypts pretty much everything they can possibly encrypt. Moreover, Telegram's encryption standard is widely panned by cryptographers and security experts due to various flaws; there's literally zero reason for an app to not use the Signal protocol or a fork of it. Durov just wanted to be different, as his recent slander of Signal proves.

Regarding SimpleX, I'm not discrediting it. I'm simply expressing valid concerns over it. I'm not against it, I use it too (though not much, because it's slow and janky at this point). I'm just not sold on this idea that it's somehow the perfect, maximum privacy encrypted messenger. Signal is almost universally accepted by security pros and cryptographers as the best, or at least one of the best options for secure messaging. Again, if the most wanted man by the three-letter agencies of the United States (Edward Snowden) feels comfortable using Signal for his messaging, then random, average joes on Nostr have no excuse for hating on it because none of you are even remotely as important to intelligence agencies as whistleblowers like him. Preference is fine, don't get me wrong: you're 100% free to use what messenger you like best and I think that's great! However pretending like Signal is some honeypot or heavily flawed because you think you know better than the people who study these topics as a career it really does make y'all look like you're talking out of your backsides. Now, on to the individual points.

1) Signal verifies with a phone number, usernames make it so you never even have to reveal that number to anyone. This is the same as Telegram except, unlike Telegram, Signal actually keeps all of that metadata encrypted. SimpleX does have unique IDs for each conversation, which is nice for privacy, but it can also easily lead to abuse on the network. Session, which has cryptographic IDs, proves this is more than a possibility; earlier this year, Session's open groups were unusable and the entire network slowed to a crawl, all because some dork in his mommy's basement ran a massive DDoS attack mass-spamming ads for a group that he claimed was a CSAM group. Signal having phone number verification means that you don't see quite that level of abuse on the network or its bandwidth. Decentralization is great and all, but if you're combining decentralization with unlimited user IDs, that's a recipe for disaster, and a messenger that is incredibly slow and non-responsive is not useful in any way.

2) I'll give you this much: I do wish Signal was decentralized or, at the very least, offered a hybrid decentralization (basically, running off of volunteer nodes unless the network is overwhelmed, during which it'd hop to cloud providers). However, I also can't blame them for not doing that since it'd likely require a total rewrite of the code and really, all the decentralization gives to an encrypted messenger is that you have less likelihood of downtime.

SimpleX decentralization is a thing, but it's only "decentralized" in the sense that it has various nodes, a majority of which are run by -- you guessed it -- the corporation developing SimpleX.

3) The only metadata Signal "leaks" is the same kind that other messengers leak. If a hostile force obtained the servers that SimpleX is routing messages through, they can still get that metadata. You can't stop this, the only way to get around it is to use a VPN or Tor. In fact, if you're using an "anonymous" messaging app without a VPN or Tor (one or the other; don't mix for a single user ID), you're essentially putting all your eggs in one basket.

4) I mean, disappearing messages are pretty important. The fact that the "ultimate privacy messenger" doesn't have a very basic feature of private messaging is questionable at best. That said, can't individual groups set a timeout for messages on SimpleX?

5) Self-hosting is a great concept but in practicality, very few people can or even want to self-host. Moreover, the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of SimpleX nodes are hosted by the company, not volunteers.

6) Security by obscurity is important. If only a handful of people use SimpleX, then you're not as private or anonymous as you would believe, because as I said, metadata like your IP is still present. If you're not using a VPN/Tor, anyone watching the network can see you're using Signal... OR SimpleX. The difference is that Signal is massively popular, meaning you blend in with millions of other users around the world, whereas SimpleX is newer and less populated meaning you have risk of being singled out by ISPs or government snoops.

Not sure why you felt the need to go with an AI-generated reply but I figured I'd address the things you're trying to present as alleged issues with Signal, regardless of the AI reply. 

 As I said, I'm not against SimpleX. I just have plenty of concerns (and it's painfully slow/sluggish and janky) that keep me from using it much. I'm also skeptical of how everyone seems to be rushing to sing its praises; that should raise eyebrows, especially with a community that tends to be skeptical of changing software when the previous option works. 

 I appreciate the suggestion, I'll check it out! 

 I try to ignore most maxis because of their cultish mentality. Bitcoin is amazing and should be the core of the wealth, but Monero is crucial as well, due to its privacy. A smart person will stand behind both. 

 These guys just can't catch a break lately. Even if this breach is just a random threat actor (not sure; seems almost too convenient in the timing), freedom of information really is under attack. 

 Thanks for recognizing this. We used to get the Gen Xers whining about us "not wanting to work" and, to be fair, some of the generation is like that, but many of us aren't like that. We just want to work in ways that don't contribute toward the destruction of civilization. We want to find ways to ensure our lives and the lives of our descendants are lived in meaningful and fulfilling ways. We're the ones who predominantly rejected the old, cold, corporate way of doing things.

I salute you for this note. 🫡 

 Why Gen Z is pretty much the direct opposite. They've gone hard on becoming lookalike slaves to the corporations, media and government. 

 You had me until you brought up that witch Taylor Swift 😂 

 I only use Brave's Leo chatbot. It's pro-privacy and Brave has been very thoughtful and cautious in the way they integrated AI, so I'm much more comfortable with their AI than anything big tech came up with. 

 Yep, it's integrated in Brave and their search engine, but it's 100% optional. For me, it works just fine, though it can't generate images (yet). Still quite useful for what I use it for, though! 

 True, but a lot of password managers now have capabilities to create and sign in with passkeys so I imagine it could be done?

Flamingo has the npub as the only thing visible by default, but the nsec is only hidden behind two clicks rather than a password. 

 I almost never get spam calls because I'm somewhat protective of where I put my phone number, but I do occasionally get a wrong number that could also just be a scam attempt.

In general, if a number isn't in my contacts, I don't answer. If it's important, they can text me. 

 Fortunately, there are entire swaths of women overseas who aren't that shallow. 

 I don't disagree, but there are also plenty of wholesome hobbies men have that many western women are shallow toward. 

 I have my doubts that this will happen, especially over the next decade, but it's something to dream about/wish for. 

 My home state! I still believe it's the most beautiful place on earth, as is the entirety of Appalachia! 

 Nah, I'm definitely aware of how they manipulate, that's a big part of why I want to leave. Unfortunately, most of my friends/family don't care. I tell them, they don't care, usually because of ye olde "nothing to hide" argument. It's frustrating, because their apathy toward privacy and dystopian algorithms is directly impacting me, whether they think so or not.

It's why I try to use other platforms like the ones I mentioned to get them on board with alternative options. I'd only recommend Nostr to them if they're tech-savvy and show interest; otherwise, they'll go right back to the big tech slop they're comfortable with. 

 Yeah, I've tried that angle as well, but unfortunately, they either don't care or they're not interested in really doing anything about it. Unfortunate, but that's just the way people are these days, sadly.

I did just deactivate my Facebook about an hour ago. I figure that Messenger is still available if they need to get in touch but otherwise, it will keep me offline, save me some time, and hopefully send a message that I'm not really interested in keeping Facebook in the long run. Doubt it will do much of anything, but I guess we'll see. 

 I agree entirely. I've been saying that since way back when; I was a late arrival to social media, only joining Facebook in 2011 after friends at school insisted I should get it since the private school I was attending was going to shut down after that year, and at the time, better options didn't really exist. 

I used to hang out on forums before that (and I still prefer forums to just about everything else), and even after I did get Facebook, I only friended people I knew in person. The whole "hundreds of friends" thing, which inexorably led to the influencer/follower thing, was always something I hated. 

 I'd say we should downsize and limit the federal government as the constitution originally depicts. There is a purpose for the federal government, but it has drastically overstepped its boundaries, especially in the last 120 years. 

 This is why SimpleX makes me nervous. They're run by a for-profit company and whether or not they are currently morally on the right side or not is irrelevant. It's why I personally trust Session more. It's a lot more traditional cypherpunk in development ethos. 

While SimpleX definitely has a LOT of really cool features, it has a way to go before I think it'll be useful for most people. It's sluggish if you're in popular groups, the notifications and message catch-up is a massive pain, etc. And like I said, it's kind of hard to trust a for-profit corporation in this case, even if the developer might be on the cypherpunk side of things. 

 They only really work in practicality. If you have big rooms with a lot of people sending messages constantly and you're away for more than a day, your app will be catching up for 30 minutes before it is fully caught up and that is absolutely not a good experience. 

 Well, that's the problem, everyone should be using the onion services if you're using it for privacy/anonymity. Session does it by default, and yet it doesn't ever get *quite* that slow. In fairness, Session did get bogged down pretty hard because of massive DDoS attacks a few months back, but when that's not happening, it's a lot quicker.

My biggest issue with SimpleX really is how it seems that messages take half an hour to catch up. Otherwise, the other flaws are either subjective or minor. 

 I don't know. Possibly, but I have no idea.

Also, I don't know how we can hate on Oxen/Session Token when it's pretty much touted as primarily being used as a means of securing the network. Having the network 100% open is one of Tor's main weaknesses due to sybil attacks, something far less likely on Session. Plus, the onion routing aspect means your packets are fully decentralized and anonymized.

That said, I do agree that Session should have kept PFS but due to how the network works, it'd be difficult to decrypt enough messages to deanonymize. 

 Not tryingto change minds but ASUS is a hostile company. Valve supports open standards, open source software and the right to repair. Those facts alone would make me lean toward a Steam Deck. 

 What a legend 😂 

 I've played around with Zorin and REALLY like it, it's one of my major considerations for a main distro when I switch from Windows 10 next October. The reason I'm considering an Arch distro is just because almost all of my experience with Linux so far has been in Debian-based distros, and I think it'd be good to branch out a bit. Given the fact that I'm aiming to get myself a Steam Deck in the near future, and SteamOS is based off of Arch, it also wouldn't hurt to get comfortable with Arch-based distros at just a surface level.

That said, I don't know if I'll ever go fully with an Arch-based distro as my main distro. I'm considering Garuda as my main, but that's the only Arch-based distro I could ever see myself using... and even then, I'm far from 100% on that, given the rolling release breakage that can happen. 

 I could have sworn I read somewhere that it was based on Arch, but I could be completely wrong. Unless we're talking about a difference between the OS on Steam Machines versus the Steam Deck, I did hear that there is a significant difference between SteamOS versions on both of those. 

 Nice! Mint and Zorin are both great for reviving old hardware like that! It's hard to pick my preference between those two haha 

 I'm still not sure what I want to use on my PC but Mint is a strong consideration. I've heard Manjaro is great despite the developers being lazy on some stuff outside of the distro.

In general, I hope I can settle on a distro for my main PC by next year; I can't afford to be down and out for a week every time I distro hop haha 

 I've been using VMs and Ventoy to test distros but it hasn't helped because there are many distros that I really like, and none of them fit 100% to my use case haha 

 No doubt, it'd be a nightmare to try distros on bare metal without it haha 

 I definitely get the appeal but I don't think it's for me at this point in time haha. I'm still reasonably new to Linux, my main PC still uses Windows, so building an Arch system is probably not the best idea for me at this point in time 😅 

 True! Even since I started, I've learned a lot more than I expected. I never imagined I'd actually enjoy using a CLI but Linux changed my mind on that. I knew how to use one, I just didn't enjoy it until I started playing around with Linux. I mean, I still want my GUI when possible but now I don't mind doing things through the CLI if I need to! 

 I support ANYBODY who tries to rid themselves of skunk smoke or liver rot (alcohol). Keep at it! 

 Coffee isn't bad in moderation but I always prefer to see people drinking tea (particularly loose leaf). 

 That would work but my issue with that is that every other messaging app I have is synchronized between phone and mobile. I like the portability of having it on my phone, but I always prefer to type everything out on my desktop, as I absolutely hate phone keyboards. Plus, it's not exactly viable to pack up your desktop and go somewhere in the event of a disaster or something else that causes you to flee where you have your PC set up. 

 Were you living here from 2016-2019? It was blatantly obvious. 

 It's blatantly obvious, as I said. I'm not going to waste my time pulling hard data (which you can find on your time), since I know you're inevitably going to argue either way.

If Kamala wins, enjoy your communistic, dystopian nightmare because you'll be partly responsible for it. 

 My town has a ban on chickens and livestock within the town borders (though surrounding farms are, of course, free to keep them). Before this post, I agreed with that ban, but now that I think about it, maybe I don't agree with it anymore 🤔 

 We all know the inflation is just an excuse, because it's literally a creation of fractional reserve banking and fiat currency. Corporations do it all the time. They get around price gouging because they can hide behind "inflation", which is a load of BS. Yes, inflation exists in our current system but conniving companies and individuals take advantage of that to screw everyone else over. It's the most un-American thing I can possibly think of.

Yes, we have a right to call them on their selfishness. They, like leaders and anyone in infrastructure, have a responsibility to the entire country. They have a responsibility and a direct impact. If they don't want people to call them out for being selfish, greedy individuals, then they have two choices: stop trying to extort the entire country for a freaking 77% wage increase (from their already sizable current wage), or find another job.

They are not the victims. Not even remotely close. They "postponed" the strike until next January because they realized the sheer amount of people that would despise their guts for their actions. 

 I would agree with you on about 85% of jobs, but there are jobs that have a heavy impact on other people. If these individuals want to take a job in that field, they should likewise have to take up the responsibility that position has.

Their jobs aren't just important to ME, they're important to everyone in the country. Not only would their strike have decimated our already tattered economy, it would have prevented much-needed aid from arriving to the hurricane victims, and it'd sink so many families who are struggling to pay for groceries... all for them to receive a 77% pay increase from, as I said, their already considerable wages.

Combining the lack of need for that high of a wage increase, and the fact that their job directly and severely impacts everyone else in the country, I cannot and will not be sympathetic to them in this case. Period. 

 The best part is that if we had more robust domestic production and shipping, we wouldn't have to worry too much about these kind of things, but unfortunately we are way too reliant on external countries for virtually everything. 

 This is why I try to only post notes if I feel like I have something of substance to say. I'm not against being friendly and whatnot but it doesn't exactly promote good discussion when everyone is just saying those to each other all day haha