head-table-head-table

Thu, 07 May 2020 13:08:51 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

An acquaintance has just asked me to join their WhatsApp group on wait for it... Combatting the Rise of the Surveillance State (the rebels also have a Facebook page, of course).

And no I didn't, but offered them an account on my Matrix and Hubzilla servers. They have not availed themselves as yet.

tech

show all 15 comments

Thu, 07 May 2020 14:29:27 -0400

Sophie

sophie@hub.somaton.com

Thu, 07 May 2020 15:19:02 -0400

el veciet

elveciet@elsmussols.net

I bet also instagram...

Thu, 07 May 2020 15:27:25 -0400

Michael

mike@narrow.world

:facepalm

How are you liking Matrix?

Thu, 07 May 2020 16:25:45 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

@Michael I am liking it.

Thu, 07 May 2020 17:21:53 -0400

Bob Mottram

bashrc@zap.freedombone.net

Matrix is quite good. Now has E2EE by default.

Thu, 07 May 2020 17:27:05 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

I'm liking the self-hosting. I'm liking the Telegram and IRC bridging. I hope, if I find time in the chaos that seems to be my life at the moment, to have Jitsi attached to it very soon.

Thu, 07 May 2020 18:21:37 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

Oh and for reference, I am @elmussol:elsmussols.net if anyone is inclined to contact me there.

Thu, 07 May 2020 19:21:10 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

And Jitsi is up.

Sat, 09 May 2020 08:58:02 -0400

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

parlehaakon@elsmussols.net

The first part of the problem is the lack of a functional and testable definition commonly agreed on, so several years ago I made one:

Privacy and information security is when the right data and services are available to the right person.

By functional and testable definition, my definition frames privacy and information security as a state or situation limited to the right data and services being available to the right person.

This defintion is short, a single sentence, and quite subtle, first because it allows the different parts to be on or off, in other words testable, second because it uses normal words, third because the important words are legally defined.

Who is the right person? In many countries, a person is legally defined by law as either a physical person like yourself or a legal entity, like the government, an organisation or a business. The right person is then the person with the law on their side saying they are the right person. You can then test if the law says that is only you, only you and your doctor, or only you and the police if they have a warrant. Either way, that part of my definition is still rock solid under a rule of law, and if you lack that you can forget about any definition. A thief, spy or cracker with a cryptovirus is obviously not the right person, except when that is you. Also, we avoid the technical word confidentiality, or similar, which normal people do not know and thus cannot understand.

Given we know who the right person is, if the wanted state is unavailable to the right person, which is testable, then something is wrong, so it makes sense to define the wanted state as a positive, and ask if the wanted state is available, because then the state is okay. This also prevents the wanted state to be described along the confidentiality axis, which crazy and paranoid people are prone to do - their needs are taken care of by the definition, but they cannot be allowed to have the only say, making the world unworkable for normal people. We need a balanced definition.

Having the wrong data and services available to the right person is obviously not the wanted state, so we should ask and test if our current state is to have the right data and services available to the right person. We also avoid using the technical word integrity in our definition, so that normal people can understand what we are saying.

Taken all together, the definition allows normal people, legal and technical people to talk sensibly together about the current state of our privacy and information security.

This was the first part. ;-)

Sat, 09 May 2020 12:24:15 -0400

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

parlehaakon@elsmussols.net

The second part of the problem is the lack of any real world consequence to most people if they lost privacy or information security, either partially or fully.

As Andrew writes, this is similar to understanding environmental issues. It is hard to understand all the air around our planet is as thin as apple peel. It is even harder to understand how less than 1% of this peel, CO2, if increased, can increase the green house effect and warm our planet too much.

Sat, 09 May 2020 14:51:42 -0400

el veciet

elveciet@elsmussols.net

I think that this is the 1st part :-D

Sat, 09 May 2020 21:38:34 -0400

el veciet

elveciet@elsmussols.net

do you know
#^https://github.com/havfo/multiparty-meeting
?

Sat, 09 May 2020 21:39:14 -0400

el veciet

elveciet@elsmussols.net

#^https://iorestoacasa.work/server.html

Sun, 10 May 2020 05:06:02 -0400 last edited: Sun, 10 May 2020 05:06:40 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

@Andrew It means that I've installed Jitsi on the server next to the Matrix stuff, so if a Matrix user uses the call function in a suitable client it goes through jitsi.elsmussols not matrix.org (or wherever the default is).

Sun, 10 May 2020 12:38:13 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

I was using this blog post: #^Running your own secure communication service with Matrix and Jitsi as the basis for my installation (and referenced other bits of the documentation on github). I've actually wiki'ed the whole process and once I've neatened it up, I will make that public.