Negative thoughts flooded my mind. The EU is constantly trying to push Chat Control. They’re blocking bootloaders on phones, introducing ID and face scanning everywhere, in the US they’re trying to push system-level verification, corporations are spitting in our faces and don’t even hide it. I know we have to fight. My personal rebellion was joining Fediverse and Lemmy and quitting Reddit. But seriously, boss—I’m tired. Are our attempts to preserve internet freedom futile? Can we win against corporations and politicians who we pay but don’t listen to us?

  • pineapple@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    4 hours ago

    We will always be able to keep our own provacy. Linux phones are getting better, motorola is working with grapheneos. Even if all new phones suddenly become locked down we will still have our own phones. They cant stop us from building and using our own private services. The main issue I see is friends and damily not willing to use private messages.

  • JamesBoeing737MAX@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1·
    6 hours ago

    They aren’t blocking bootloaders, they’re blocking the firmware. It is an issue, but it isn’t as problematic. The only ones blocking the bootloader unlocks are capitalists, who want to profit from your data and break your phone when they need more money.

  • sobchak@programming.dev
    3·
    9 hours ago

    Had similar thoughts this morning. I think it’s clear that many countries are going to head down the Great Firewall route; which is now very effective. It’s so hard to bypass and risky that most people don’t attempt to. As more countries implement these measures, and the list of countries/datacenters where people can set up XRay proxies (for example) shrinks, it will be easier to detect and block. I imagine if ad-hoc meshes became popular, then they’d be shutdown too. The problem is more political than technological.

  • myszka@lemmy.ml
    6·
    12 hours ago

    I think moving away to decentealised means of connecting is the way. We already have things like Reticulum. If we invent a powerful and robust decentralised way of physical connection (like LoRa or HaLow but better) then we won’t need any corps - neither ISPe nor those that create web services for the ISP based network

    • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
      3·
      9 hours ago

      You are definitely right, but I will caution that people are going to have to get used to a lot slower connectivity speeds and higher latency than we’ve been used to.

      Max reticulum link is 40mbps, tor to onion services is like 5mbps, wifi halo is like 1-16mbps and MeshCore and Meshtastic are like ~20kbps max.

      Centralized internet has gotten us used to speeds of hundreds of megabits per second and latency of 10s of ms, and that’s just not possible when decentralizing systems, at least not right now.

  • quick_snail@feddit.nl
    2·
    11 hours ago

    Nope. They have no power over decentralized services outside their jurisdiction.

    We will always have the option of privacy, even if we loose every court battle in 99% of countries

  • Coleslaw4145@lemmy.world
    14·
    16 hours ago

    The EU isnt trying to push chat control. If it was then the EU wouldn’t have shot it down multiple times like it has been.

    Lobbyists are the ones trying to push chat control on the EU.

  • Zerush@lemmy.ml
    3·
    14 hours ago

    It’s a mess when the right wing control freaks are in the gov. The only thing a user can currently do is avoiding as much as possible these platforms, using instead eg. P2P for communications (https://otr.to/, https://github.com/michal-wrzosek/p2p-chat, https://mesh.im/, etc.). Because of this and big corps the internet is dying, I see the future only in decentralized networks, I2P or something like this for an communication without a big brother in the middle.

  • utopiah@lemmy.ml
    12·
    20 hours ago

    Yes and honestly we better learn to enjoy the struggle because it’s never going away. We will always have to push back.

    • Zerush@lemmy.ml
      1·
      12 hours ago

      Agree, it will get harder to show those the middle finger, but until now there are always nice people which release alternatives to do it.

  • onlinepersona@programming.dev
    66·
    1 day ago

    Just do your part and don’t get discouraged. You don’t have to do everything. Walk the walk, talk the talk. If things don’t work out, at least you tried; that’s more than the majority did.

    Do what you do no because of some expected local or global outcome, but because it’s right.

    • eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      8 hours ago

      i wish i had spent more time on the “pessimism of the spirit; optimism of the will” part before i started to learn about leftism; i’m in a funk rn because there’s a seemingly impenetrable gulf between where we are as a society and where we think we are and it’s making me want to give up.

  • despaircode@lemmy.ml
    37·
    1 day ago

    All things that go up must come down. Icarus’ wings will melt from the sun’s heat. The web will crumble under the weight of llm bots. Markets will crash due to llm’s not living up to their hype. Big tech will be broken up. Billionaires and the trillionaire will be taxed to death. Regulators will lose interest. Let’s have hope.

    • cottonbk@szmer.infoOP
      9·
      1 day ago

      I have experience in programming and building computer systems. 12 years of experience and self-education. The project you linked looks promising. I’m always the first to support and contribute to such projects but we lack infrastructure for this to become a thing

      • moon_crush@lemmy.world
        9·
        1 day ago

        Great! Here’s the thing: power will not build this network, people must. Node by node. You alone can service an decent area with $100 LoRa node and (for bootstrap) an I2P backhaul. I fundamentally believe something like this is essential for a free future — be the change you want to see.

        • relic4322@lemmy.ml
          3·
          14 hours ago

          Agreed. And we can easily bridge existing net to alternative transmission mediums while the existing net allows. Providing an easier time for others to adopt. I run a reticulum node as well.

  • it_depends_man@lemmy.world
    10·
    1 day ago

    But seriously, boss—I’m tired. Are our attempts to preserve internet freedom futile?

    Nah, we’re fine. It’s just that serious secrecy is a lot more effort and I’d rather not need that. But we do have all the tools.

    That’s 80% of the frustration for me. They have already lost that fight for control when they legalized encryption. Now the cat is out of the bag.

    For example, encrypting things and hiding them in normal pictures and posts. Using code words in normal online interactions, woven into sentences where there is nothing to decrypt and the message only makes sense to people looking for a message.

    Properly executed encryption isn’t just indistinguishable from regular white noise, if it’s mixed into a channel already carrying a message, an observer not looking for something will never see the difference.