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Comment by Ansil849 | Hacker News Reader

I have stopped communicating with friends and family who try communicating via insecure apps. I send a response saying I will only read Signal or similar messages from them.

Some think this is a hardline, but my security is important to me, and true friends and family need to respect that.

It's kind of like how my sister is vegan, so when she comes over for dinner, I cook vegan dishes for her. I respect and accommodate her lifestyle choices, and she does likewise by communicating with me via my preferred medium. Conversely, for example, I no longer talk to one cousin because he ignored requests to use a safe messaging app, and that is OK too.

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This works fine until a point in life at which communicating with others and answering to others, meaning you are available for them, whatever the app, is more important than anything else.

Not meaning to not boycott such apps with those you can, just giving another pov from elsewhere in life. Most of my phones are rooted and without google for years, but sometimes...

Life is short, human communication is deep and fragile. Tools do change, renew and improve, while as living humans we get older ;)

> meaning you are available for them

I agree. That's why I'm available on 3 platforms that cover everyone I'm in contact with (phone, sms and email) and I can be choosy about any others I'm on.

Does your family's threat model actually include targeted surveillance by US intelligence agencies? There are many reasons to switch off whatsapp, but I don't believe it should be considered insecure unless you are a journalist, activist, or citizen of a country with severe oppressive regimes: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, etc.

If your threat model DOES include US intelligence agencies, you shouldn't use almost any mainstream browser, most protocols (including https://), social media (including HN), etc...

Add India to that list of regimes.

I don’t think so.

Comparing India to Saudi Arabia and Iran? Lol.

> but I don't believe it should be considered insecure unless you are a journalist, activist, or citizen of a country with severe oppressive regimes: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, etc.

If only those people will try to have privacy, it will be much easier to target them. Everyone should have privacy to protect them. It’s sort of like freedom of speech is necessary not just for journalists, but for everyone, even if you have nothing to say.

This is just a more convoluted "nothing to hide" argument.

> If your threat model DOES include US intelligence agencies, you shouldn't use almost any mainstream browser, most protocols (including https://), social media (including HN), etc...

No, you can simply use Qubes OS and use whatever software you want in disposable VMs and perhaps have several identities. It works for me (or so I hope).

>surveillance by US intelligence agencies? There are many reasons to switch off whatsapp, but I don't believe it should be considered insecure

Well, I consider getting targetted facebook ads based on the content of my whatsapp messages to be insecure.

Being secure also means secure against the company that created/provides the software also.

How secure something is doesn't change based on the threat model.

I did the same, I think I just stopped receiving messages!

My parents are not too tech savvy to install and use another messenger app. I installed watsapp on their phones when i was in India last time. Even if i can go there and install signal for them, I wont to do that.

This is ok tradeoff for me. Its fine. Being able to video chat with my parents trumps everything else.

I do this as well. I never used WhatsApp and I'm not inclined to use it.

Most people who really want to communicate with me via an IM service acquiesce and install Signal.

I think people overstate how difficult it is to get somebody to install Signal. I've got a 100% conversion rate amongst my extended family.

In the old days people used to write letters and send them in the post. Imagine that. Anyone could hack into a letter, and they were rarely even ever encrypted. Scary.

But then again things were better back then. Actually I’d like to go back there now.

Yeah but no one kept tabs on who all you were sending letters to and who all were sending letters to you, and what you were writing in those letters and so on so that they could show ads to you...

You’d think.

Don't think I woulda thought about it this way, pretty interesting perspective

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