Completely agree! The ephemerality of Signal is a feature, not a bug.

I didn’t always see it this way, but then a thought occurred to me. None of the conversations we have in person are recorded. Those communications are just as meaningful if not more so than text conversations, and yet somehow we get by just fine without them being stored indefinitely on some personal device, let alone in someone else’s datacenter.

This is a case of technology controlling us when we should be controlling it.

Grey Cat
link
fedilink
13M

I agree that we are fine even without it. But that does not mean it’s better than not having that history.

An easy example that comes to mind are all arguments wherr someone remembers one thing while someone else remembers another thing.

Decent counter-example. In turn I’d say that’s an edge case where we could still survive just fine without knowing the relevant fact for sure. And certainly not worth the cost in privacy terms of recording and storing everything.

Grey Cat
link
fedilink
13M

There are a lot of things you can survive without :)) They are still nice to have though.

But I understand the privacy concerns, I struggle with the tradeoffs myself. But to me it’s worth it it this case since the database is supposed to be encrypted with a passphrase and stored locally, not sent over a network.

Other examples would include searching through history to check if you’ve talked to someone about something. Or check their answer. Unless you are someone with perfect memory I would think these are common situations.

Create a post

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

  • Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
  • Don’t promote proprietary software
  • Try to keep things on topic
  • If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
  • Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
  • Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

  • 0 users online
  • 57 users / day
  • 383 users / week
  • 1.5K users / month
  • 5.7K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 3.12K Posts
  • 78K Comments
  • Modlog