1y ago

'Microsoft killed my online life,' Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza

www.windowscentral.com 'Microsoft killed my online life,' Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza

A BBC investigation reveals that Microsoft is permanently banning Palestinians in the U.S. and other countries who use Skype to call relatives in Gaza.

'Microsoft killed my online life,' Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza

A BBC investigation reveals that Microsoft is permanently banning Palestinians in the U.S. and other countries who use Skype to call relatives in Gaza.

A Boring Dystopia @lemmy.world

Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza

www.windowscentral.com /microsoft/microsoft-killed-my-online-life-microsoft-is-reportedly-banning-palestinians-in-the-us-for-life-for-calling-relatives-in-gaza

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Technology @lemmy.world

Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza

www.windowscentral.com /microsoft/microsoft-killed-my-online-life-microsoft-is-reportedly-banning-palestinians-in-the-us-for-life-for-calling-relatives-in-gaza

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78 comments

That's what you get for trusting Microsoft with anything...or Google...or Apple...or Facebook... stop tying your communication to these companies, they can pull the rug at any time.
- You have to trust someone with these communications, there is no free communication beyond face to face
  
  Matrix (federated) or Briar (multi-modal P2P) are both good options for getting rid of dependency on central organizations.
  
  Still need an ISP. ISPs are pretty centralized and monolithic for lots of people.
  
  I'll just build my own cell tower and become my own ISP, checkmate
  
  It won't be too useful unless you peer with the others.
  
  That sounds just meshtastic.
  
  You're assuming that people in Gaza have consistent access to the internet. The beauty of Skype is that you can call a landline through it.
  
  Unless you build your own, you have to trust your ISP to move packets, but you don't have to rely on any third party services or give them your personal info to use social media.
  Fully decentralized, open-source, and encrypted social networks exist. The only servers needed are your computer and the computers of the friends you communicate with. (See: Retroshare )
  They're just never going to get big because small, personal friend-to-friend networks can't compete with the network effects of centralized media and a never-ending torrent of dopamine on tap.
  
  From my comment above:
  You're assuming that people in Gaza have consistent access to the internet. The beauty of Skype is that you can call a landline through it.
  
  dead link?
  
  Whoops, somehow managed to typo it. Fixed now.
  
  trust yourself by hosting a matrix server
  
  How do you call a landline number in a war zone through a matrix server?
  
  I was simply responding to the comment:
  You have to trust someone with these communications, there is no free communication beyond face to face
  the oh-so-clever smart alecks saying "whaddabout ISPs????" forgot about 2-way radio and meshnets
  
  Signal is right there.
  
  Signal is centrally hosted thus it's proverbial rug can be pulled.
  
  Wait until you find out about internet service providers
  
  You can have more than one dumb pipe to push bits through, but if the ISP can read your network traffic then you have bigger problems than a single-point-of-failure.
  
  Do you have more than one ISP?
  
  I'm very lucky in that regard. Not only do we have a local ISP and mobile service from a national carrier, but the electric co-op that provides our power just ran 2.5Gb/s fiber through the neighborhood and lets members use 200Mb/s on it for free.
  
  Who doesn't?
  
  For the most part the ISP doesn't have a way to know you are using VoIP to contact people in a particular country (unless you are using a VoIP service owned by the ISP of course).
  
  True. Yet another linchpin.
  Edit: spelling.
  
  and Threema
  
  Threema is what signal should have been.
  But I ain't got in me to start forcing people again lol
  Signal it is until it is proven untrustworthy
  
  Yeah, they’re both good (still).
  features Threema Signal
  
  price $5 / 5€ Free
  account creation phone number optional phone number required
  
  https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/signal-downplays-encryption-key-flaw-fixes-it-after-x-drama/
  They fucked up so badly, Elon Musk was right for once.
  
  They didn't fuck up, they made a design choice about the scope of the app. Are they also fucking up by not blurring the messages on screen? After all someone could be looking over your shoulder without you realizing it. Maybe Signal should ship with spyglasses.
  
  You're absolutely right and it's insane I keep coming across these wild takes from people that clearly don't understand technology
  
  I'm not sure why you think anyone would want a messenger that touts itself for its encryption to not encrypt things.
  
  It does encrpyt messages: In transit, exactly as advertised. Holy fuck.
  
  Then it's weird they are fixing it now. Why aren't they insisting this doesn't need to be dealt with because it was a feature, not a bug?
  
  It's weird that apps sometimes change scope and add features that users want? Ones that contributers already did most of the work for?
  Why aren’t they insisting this doesn’t need to be dealt with because it was a feature, not a bug?
  That was literally what they have been saying this whole fucking time.
  "The database key was never intended to be a secret. At-rest encryption is not something that Signal Desktop is currently trying to provide or has ever claimed to provide," responded the Signal employee.
  
  Did they make an intentional design choice which users should have been okay with like you said the first time or is this a feature users wanted? It can't be both.
  
  It's really fucking annoying how relentlessly you pick fights with people these days. Wish you'd chill out dude.
  
  Or I'm just speaking my mind and you don't agree.
  And aren't you picking as fight with me right now?
  
  Not picking a fight; don't really care what you have to say in response. Just needed to share my observation that you are latching onto people in a really aggressive manner in multiple threads as of late. If that doesn't bother you then go ahead and disregard.
  
  You are right to bringing up this issue and it is pretty fucking big deal inho mistakes happen but signal "leadership" has made series of questionable choice which don't quite align with the user base.
  Other person is down playing it hard too. Hard to tell why as he is not really providing any good reason besides trying to "explain" it away
  
  Damn that's bad, and Signal's response was even worse. They knew about it in 2018, for 6 years.
  
  I always felt like signal is there more to satisfy a niche so people feel like their whatsapp is good enough.
  Leadership makes some odd chocies IMHO
  
  Wasn't Elon Musk trying to push Telegram?
  
  That wouldn't shock me, but he was right that Signal was not addressing a known vulnerability. In fact, denying that it even was a vulnerability.
  For what it's worth, I trust Telegram even less than Signal. And at least Signal seems to be finally doing something about the problem.
  
  Not true at all lol, have you heard of peer-to-peer?
  
  https://jitsi.org/
  
  This is what net neutrality and anti-trust laws are for.
  
  This is exactly what they want you to believe.
- Your average person doesn't know of any communication method other than mega corps.
- Yor right I will just use my billions of dollars to build a global internet infrastructure and make my posts on my own phone using the os I just built in my spare time for fun its not about trust its about necessity
- That's what you get
  You're right, they deserve this. You asshole.
- We had an issue a couple days ago where we couldn't move a VIP to a new phone because the vendor wanted us to perform multi-factor auth via a device from two years ago. We had to roll back the service. Our entire lives are built atop fragile digital infrastructure with broken and poorly thought-out policies.

features	Threema	Signal
price	$5 / 5€	Free
account creation	phone number optional	phone number required

78 comments