Folks, I have finally figured it out.
Have a baby.
Since having a baby a week ago, all of a sudden everyone is willing to install a decent messaging app in order to receive pics of the baby.
We explained that we weren’t ready for images of our child to end up in the wrong hands via non-private apps. Another thing was telling them that the one single friend who had already got on board with this had already been recieving pics…
It’s been a conversation starter for many and I think seeing privacy from the point of view of a newborn has helped our family and friends understand it a bit more easily. Plus they’ve had to put up with it if they want any photos, so they will see it working firsthand.
So, if you want to have a baby, know that it can be a wonderful opportunity to help loved ones communicate more privately.
It also increases the sum total of love, community and compassion in the world and in your own life but that’s a conversation for another community :)
Edit: If anyone has good tips on how to share a little one’s journey more privately with those that care about them, please post them in the discussion.
Yes, but Signal and Matrix-something aren’t good “messaging” apps. Just a bunch of poorly written desktop and mobile clients tied to questionable backends and metadata disasters.
Maybe not Signal: https://dessalines.github.io/essays/why_not_signal.html
CIA Funding CIA → RFA → OTF → Signal. While this article by Yasha Levine gets into the details, it is no secret that the original funder of Open Whisper Systems (the previous name for signal’s development team), was the Open Technology Fund: itself publicly listed as a subsidiary of Radio Free Asia, a US state-run organization whose main goal (along with the other “Radio Free” incarnations such as Radio Free Europe, or Free Cuba Radio) is regime change for those Asian governments who don’t align with the US’s foreign policy interests.
You can’t recommend Signal over anything when it comes to features and service quality it just can’t handle large group chats (hundreds of people) and the cross device sync fails often with a “signal can’t display this message”. Signal’s desktop and mobile clients are simply a pile of react and javascript garbage that can never be as fast as the native applications from other apps.
Maybe not Matrix: metadata disaster
Matrix’s E2EE does not, however, encrypt everything. The following information is not encrypted: Message senders, Session/device IDs, Message timestamps, Room members (join/leave/invite events), Message edit events, Message reactions, Read receipts, Nicknames, Profile pictures
Matrix is developed by a for profit entity, a group of venture capitalists and having a spec doesn’t mean everything. The way Matrix is designed is to force into jumping through hoops and kind of draw all attention to Matrix itself instead of the end result.
Decentralized communication protocol Matrix shifts to less-permissive AGPL open source license Element, the company and core developer behind the decentralized communication protocol known as Matrix, has announced a notable license change that will make the open source project just that little bit less appealing for companies looking to build on top of it.
Stop recommending questionable open-source like Matrix. XMPP is the true and the OG federated and truly open solution that is very extensible. XMPP is tested, reliable, secure and above all a truly open standard and decentralized it just lacks some investment in better mobile clients.
What people fail to see is that XMPP is the only solution that treats messaging and video like email: just provide an address and the servers and clients will cooperate with each other in order to maintain a conversation and it can be configured to be secure and private. Everything else is just an attempt at yet another vendor lock-in. Here a quick overview of the architecture.
Stop recommending questionable open-source like Matrix.
Synapse and Element are fully open source, there is nothing questionable about it. Having a company backing your project as main developer does not mean it suddenly becomes closed source or said company owns the project now.
None of the issues you mentioned are a big deal or make Matrix inherently worse than XMPP. The biggest flaw you can pin on Matrix is its performance but they’re working on it.
I do prefer xmpp, but fuck I have never gotten a single person to use it.
Yes, I get the pain, XMPP is good but it just lacks some investment in better mobile clients. And that most likely happens because there’s no easy way to monetize and sustain a mobile XMPP client.
Man, we need Paris to get off their ass do another commune, and fill it with software devs.
Could I simply purchase a baby?
Just be careful with the return policy, if your past the 60 day window it locks in a multi year contract.
Ugh, everything is a subscription service now. Even babies!
You Can!
Stores are called Adoption Agencies.
Congrats!You might want to start with a lease, with the option to buy out, or trade-in, after the original terms are up.
Not sure, but I’m sure you could hire one on a barter basis. Offer to cook a few meals and change a few nappies.
Interesting story. t y for sharing. And what did you push this crowd of people into ? :) Signal, Matrix, XMPP, Briar, Session ?
Signal is the only thing I advocate. Everything else has a really high bar for nontechnical people.
Jami and Session are as simple as copying and pasting an ID; no more complex than email in reality. But it is a sign of how deeply set in our ways we are that even that can seem arcane when you first use it. Signal does make it extremely easy/familiar.
I really like both Session and Jami’s ability to add contacts by scanning each others qr codes too.
I think as more people start using these apps they will feel more familiar and less daunting. I think that really it’s a familiarity thing.
We got them using Session. My girlfriend and I currently use Jami for text/calls/files but I found that Session worked more reliably with my friend who uses an iphone, so we went with that. So far so good!
In case you don’t already know, to make voice calls with Session you have to enable it in the settings. I also recommend changing the theme from the stock ‘bio-hazard’ one!
I thought signal is better than session, they’re basically the same but signal has a larger userbase.
Yes I think Session is in fact based on Signal but it has implemented some other technologies like a distributed network, as opposed to Signal’s, which I believe is centralised. There’s also some blockchain stuff involved, which I normally find a turnoff but I’m not an expert. Rob Braxman has a good review of it on YouTube and Odysee.
Only the texting side of Session is decentralized. Everything else goes through Oxen’s servers.
Signal feels like you’re still using a texting app. Session feels like a modern (post-2000) messenger.
Doesn’t seem like a big deal, but people react to it.
I found this approach to be highly effective. Not being preachy, just this is what I use. If you want to contact me great. And then be a interesting and dynamic person that they want to talk to.
I’ve got email, or you can talk to me on signal… So I’m not being unreachable, but I’m not installing WhatsApp. I’m not being preachy, and most people, more or less, will install it to talk to you if you’re interesting, and they have things to talk to you about
Wait, who other than the grandparents actually wants to see the baby pictures? In my experience it is insufferable new parents that want to show their baby pictures to everyone and you have to pretend to like it to be polite. Maybe others just agreed to using another messenger just so they could ignore it better?
Haha. Yes, grandparents but also aunties and uncles and close friends. I’ve noticed that especially friends who have their own kids have been really keen. It’s mostly been my girlfriend’s female friends but my own two best friends (male) have been keen because they’ve been by my side in the journey and have been excited and wishing us well. For us it’s not about spamming all of our contacts, just sharing with people who are close.
I know it’s a hard concept… But people can be nice and genuinely happy for them?
Your basement is likely insufferable too.
I am genuinely happy for them, but that still doesn’t mean I need or want to see random baby pictures twice a day.
P.S.: my basement is fine, thanks 😅
Chicks like baby pictures and they are 50% of society.
Yes but the person you are replying to lives terminally online, and we all know women don’t exist on the internet.
Untrue.
Signed, a chick who gives negative shits about other people’s babies.
To be fair, let’s say 90%+ chicks like baby pics. There are some who are indifferent.
Still, even that number plus the number of men who are gracious, kind and actually care, we’re still looking at an overwhelming majority.
I think if we socialized men to not deny their biology and actually be around babies the numbers would be a lot closer to 60 or 70 percent of both genders love being around a little squish baby. Plenty of people don’t like it in both genders, but in my experience most men like a lot of domestic stuff if they’re not specifically trained not to.
Have ever held a baby. They are little happy squish balls. It’s intoxicating physiologically.
Yeah they’re amazing! They definitely come with some intense needs but I think the world would be a better place if we all spent more time around babies.
How could you drop a baby? You ever held a baby? How could you not?
Depends on the baby, I liked seeing my nieces and nephews growing up. Random coworker baby pics though, they get one pic to announce them, then unsubscribe.
I discovered that it doesn’t work if the baby’s other parent is an avid Facebook user.
Oh dear. I’m sensing a deep backstory here…
You know what you need to do
Join them on the darkside!
Not quite
I was thinking divorce or murder
ReiserFS moment
A cat is fine too
Personally this would be the exact reason that would stop me from signing up for a new messaging service.
Yes, your baby is special and amazing. To you.
There’s no signup involved for the apps we’re using - you just download them and share IDs with people (you can even choose to add only people who don’t have kids). Worth checking out:
I have two kids. I asked people to use signal to send and receive the photos. Asking people to follow your requirements only works for the direct immediate communication. The photos of my kids were sent by the recipients I sent them to (over signal) to other members of the family, over gmail (unencrypted), WhatsApp, Instagram, etc. I learned that years after.
This was in direct violation of my express requests. When I confronted them, they played dumb.
So, not to be a buzzkill here OP, but if you did this to get more people to use your messenger of choice, good job, it worked. If you did this so the pics of your kids stayed on safe apps, don’t fool yourself. They didn’t.
That’s OK, I understand that unfortunately it’s only a matter of time until images of them end up somewhere I don’t want want them, either through ignorance or a difference in values. That’s the world we live in right now sadly. But hopefully I can delay and minimise it a bit, open a better channel of communication with a few friends and relatives and perhaps raise some awareness in the process.
I’m genuinely sorry to hear about your experience, especially with the pictures of them ending up on instagram. At least you were responsible as a parent and tried to do your best.
Its important to share and celebrate the birth of a child with your community. Yet another part of our lives that has been compromised by the degradation of our privacy unfortunately.
But hopefully I can delay and minimise it a bit, open a better channel of communication with a few friends and relatives and perhaps raise some awareness in the process.
Absolutely.
Yeah, my strategy is to not share pictures of my kids at all. I can hold my phone up in front of people’s face so they can look if they want, but that’s it.
My relatives hated this strategy, and I wasn’t the only one who suffered from it. They guilted me for it, but also guilted my parents and siblings. As if they are entitled to the details of my daughter.
People could handle (though they were vocally unhappy about it) is keeping the baby off Facebook. They could not handle me not sending pics on (Facebook) messenger, and they couldn’t handle me not telling me the birth weight.
Multiple boomers got very upset that I wanted to keep that information private.
Man that sounds really horrible. I’m sorry to hear your relatives were so unsupportive. I hope everyone gets along now.
We explained that we weren’t ready for images of our child to end up in the wrong hands via non-private apps. Another thing was telling them that the one single friend who had already got on board with this had already been recieving pics…
This really is the best way. Once there’s a REASON for extra security, people understand and want to learn more. Once it’s installed, other day or day conversations can take place there
If you start off with low priority / day to day conversations, they aren’t as willing to put in the energy
Yes, this exactly what has happened with one of my friends - after installing Session for the pics he is now messaging me on the app about unrelated stuff instead of using SMS in whatever his preinstalled iOS app is. Win!
This really is the best way. Once there’s a REASON for extra security, people understand and want to learn more.
No one cares. Nobody around you understands the security, the need for it, and the requirements. They will pretend, to see your kid. And then immediately and completely stop caring. It works for making people adopt your favourite messenger, yes. But nothing else.
No one cares. Nobody around you understands the security, the need for it, and the requirements.
Well, I disagree based on personal experiences. It doesn’t work for everyone, but I’m not trying to help everyone through this method
I too, like OP, thought I found the grail when I got my kids. People suddenly accepted using my communication preferences. Only to find years later that they didn’t. They didn’t care, understand, or respected my wishes. Don’t fool yourself: some people do care, but that is 10% tops.
Who’s down to make babies?
Time to have a baby then.
i hope signal becomes the “go-to” app in near future in europe because i’m sick of using whatsapp
I would be furious if a different app that required Android or iOS to use became the norm. Have a Linux phone, a KaiOS phone, or no phone? Too bad.
They should make the default settings on for keeping a username for connecting to each other and number hidden
yup but normies don’t care about safety and privacy
We created a WordPress (installed on our server) blog which requires logins we have to approve. We share this with family members, with an email notification to them when something new is posted. They can post comments to the site.
We really actually did this for ourselves, as a kind of family photo album/blog, and so would have it even if no one else was invited :-)
Awesome, I was thinking about doing this on my VPS!
I’m imagine your granpa with f-droid and simpleXchat, fuckyeah you are a genious
Lol Grandpa is even more of a technogrouch than I am and won’t even have a phone! Grandma OTOH is already using jami on her gentoo installation.
That is very cool. If I may ask, does she tinker with her Gentoo system?
