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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • I think it’s complex and the problem have been many things. When Apple pitched an open version of iMessage to the carriers long ago they refused because the didn’t like the E2EE. They were surprised when Apple later introduced a proprietary version (and subsequently discovered it was a competitive advantage).

    Now there’s a Client-server encrypted version of RCS in GSMA but the E2EE version is Google’s and running on Google’s service. It was only recently that two carriers in the US agreed to use Google’s messaging app for interoperability but is E2EE in GSMA?

    Interoperability have been a problem as at one point carriers weren’t even interoperable while using Universal Profile (I think they are now). Apple surely wont use it unless forced (it makes business sense not to) but between GSMA Universal Profile (which Apple would have to use) and Google’s much better version based on the Signal protocol the current situation is also a mess.





  • I’ve been back and forth between Android and iOS several times, I’m happy with either these days.

    I use services that work on both platforms like GMail/Cal/Contacts, Dropbox free (10GB)/oneDrive + Cryptomator, Bitwarden, 2FAS, Signal/WhatsApp, etc. There’s no lock-in on either platform as far as I’m concerned and I can switch over in half an hour and keep going.

    I charge my phones with an ancient 7W Qi pad, batteries usually last 3-4 years before any degradation is mildly noticeable, at which time getting a store to replace it is trivial or I sell the old phone and buy a new one - Apple/Samsung/Google, whatever takes my fancy.





  • Indeed and people often say “if an ad is annoying I’ll never buy that product, so ads don’t work on me, also they’ve never made me click on or run out and buy something” !

    However advertising is accompanied with thorough independent market research and sales numbers and companies can directly see the impact of their ad campaigns. It’s indisputable.

    In the long term it’s also about brand recognition, we see a “stupid ad” today and in a year when we’re looking for that kind of thing we are more likely to choose that brand over another and we don’t know why but “this jams seems better”. The effect is proven, scary and it’s something we’re relatively helpless against. It doesn’t help that our brains sometimes register things running in the background on the TV while we’re petting the dog. Product placement in movies works like that too, if we notice it we think it’s obvious and stupid, but we still notice it and even when we don’t notice it our helpful subconscious is right there helping us remember.

    Moving into even worse territory, on social media like Facebook they can profile us enough to know where we’re leaning politically and if we’re not entirely confident in our political stance they can show us ads that looks like product ads but are designed to nudge our political stance a bit to the side in the desired direction.

    The effect of ads on the subconscious is scary. It’s not complete mind control but it can influence us without us noticing.

    Not on social media ? No problem, they still build up shadow profiles. A Google executive once bragged at a conference that they know everything we’ve done since the first day we got on the Internet. Hyperbolic maybe but that confidence comes from somewhere.



  • And like with dogs different breeds often have particular behavior. For example the Norwegian Forrest Cat tends to bond with one particular human.

    In addition, unlike dogs, cats have not evolved their body language to be easily understandable by humans, so we have problems interpreting them. Does my cat turn her back to me because she doesn’t care or because she trusts me, etc.

    Their independence can also be off-putting to some humans, but like with humans independence doesn’t have to mean they’re don’t care about us. And then there’s the lessons in consent they try to teach us, which some of us don’t want to understand.