Spyke

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Apple says it will remove services such as FaceTime and iMessage from the UK rather than weaken security if new proposals are made law and acted upon.

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Bluetooth provides another vector of attack for the convenience. There is already quite a list of known vulnerabilities. Yes, many of these get patched but as the open standard evolves, so do the hackers. You could turn it off entirely, plug in a cable & forget all that if all you wanted to do was use audio/video.

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Elon Musk Offers to Also Ruin Wikipedia

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According to their FAQ: https://wiremin.org/#/FAQ

"We will release the design and/or reference code to the public when the initial version is stabilized."

EDIT: After having fully read the FAQ, I must admit, their DHT (distributed hash table) protocol sounds very neat. Being something of a protocol geek, I'll be the 1st to admit that I may be biased, so if a 2nd pair of knowledgeable eyes could try burst my bubble, just in case I'm missing something. I'd appreciate it. Thanks.
According to them, albeit with no documentation, source plus a firstname.lastname@gmail address as a contact. The lead developer seems to be an O’Reilly publisher of MySQL books but I can’t confirm that until I hear back from the developer.
Basically, these are some features:

  • "Wiremin is a protocol, not a service" - so no Terms Of Service
  • No registration - the app cryptographically adds users by device, so no email, phone numbers or contact reading to recommend contacts.
  • No data privacy concerns as the app is incapable of storing or collecting data,
  • No ads by default; therefore none of all the related drag that comes with that.
  • No central storage or processing servers - all done 'on device', E2EE,
  • Community driven, (I've asked for elaboration of how this is achieved)
  • No metadata tracking or leakage,
  • PoW (Proof Of Work) to stop DDoS,
  • Mnemonic backup of account info,
  • opt-out diagnostics after crashes
  • Unsend within 5 minutes...
  • "Information we share" ... We don't have user information of any sort, so nothing will be shared." They go on to disclose needing to share with law enforcement info about third-party services you interact with though, like Google, Firebase or Apple push notification ids - which you can turn off

It really is quite impressive, technically & they seem to have coded themselves out of the equation as they can't even see your password or recovery passphrase.

Be that as it may - as you rightly point out, all we need now is the source, without which, I doubt I could back it.
I've reached out requesting info on whether it will be full or partial source, roadmaps, transparency, funding for devs etc before downloading & trying this but it sounds fantastic - too much so, when compared to, say Discord or X.

PS: My interest in this mostly academic intrigue, I don't work for them or know them, I just found out about this a few hours ago. Most of the wording here is copypasta. I once wrote commercial protocols in the IoT space that were loosely based around early XMPP - until Google killed it. Which is why I'm so happy about the fedi existing despite the best efforts of Google.
Anyway, this protocol seems to resemble the functionality of the FOSS app Syncthing, at least on the surface. Of course with the addition of other tech. I'd love to see one or two features like this in Lemmy or Mastodon, even if I had no interest in the code. The cost of infrastructure & the need to administer it, for example, would disappear overnight.

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Standing my ground on going back to the office

Good for you! Children are only children once, jobs will always be jobs. I definitely am not going back to the office & will freelance if I have to. (software)

EDIT: Context. I'm not sure how the drag-back is unfolding in the US but where I work in the UK, the boss is not fighting us over it, thankfully. Almost all our clients are not in Europe & some team members were commuting an hour or more, some were leaving early to pick up kids - so a flex time policy was in place, even before the pandemic.

Since the pandemic, junior/mid members come in once a week & seniors once a fortnight. If I can fix it remotely, then I do, if not then I go in - never by threat & can leave when I'm done. As a plus, performance & work quality increased, people have claimed back 1-2 hours a day. Comms with US/ AUS teams is easier than before. So while I'm lucky, if they want it back to like before then I will freelance until I find the balance I need.