Discord defends itself against efforts to stop piracy on its platform by saying no to more invasive data collection. Even though Discord isn’t exactly known for privacy, this is a great move for its users. What are your thoughts?
Discord defends itself against efforts to stop piracy on its platform by saying no to more invasive data collection. Even though Discord isn’t exactly known for privacy, this is a great move for its users. What are your thoughts?
If they did not collect any information, they would not have any information to give when they are served a subpoena.
How else would they store and sync the information?
Sync from another online user. If each message is signed by the author, there’s a built-in protection against tampering.
It’s really not hard, they just have to care enough to build it that way.
Can’t feds also sync them from other users?
Sure, if they’re granted access to the channel. But that access would come from users of the channel, not the service itself, and if the service doesn’t store the keys (i.e. you need at least one user online to get access), the service can’t really help the feds.
And whether to provide access to history for new users can absolutely be a setting on the channel. I’m just saying that having the messages only on the clients doesn’t preclude sharing those messages with a newcomer.
Encrypt it end to end with them not having the keys
They do have to retrieve old messages when new users join though. I’m sure the government can force them to lett them in a server and unlock the roles
Keep the data but encrypted. Let users send links that contain the pki info to decrypt the messages. Have that pki info generated client side.
Discord would only need to shuffle data, provide authentication, and provide the web app data down to the client. But every bit of user shared and generated content would be encrypted to them.
Like I said, Discord can still be compelled to let feds join the server, thus receiving the PKIs.
If the the pki is generated by users client side by a secret discord doesn’t control it wouldn’t be an issue.
Why?
Why is channel history needed for new users?
Back in the IRC days you joined a channel that was just empty, if you wanted the history you had to run an IRC client continously, I remember running screen irssi on a separate computer and sshing into the server, reconnecting the screen with irssi in it.
If you want the history automatically, you can’t expect privacy.
At the same time, expecting privacy in a room where a bunch of strangers hang out is already unreasonable. If everyone already in the channel can log the chats, for example by idling in the channel, then adding E2E on top of that is probably a false sense of security.
I have an issue with something I’m using and there is a discord server I will join it. I then search my issue and its usually been adressed in the past. Without history I would be forced to ask the question that has probably been answered many times in the past.
I had no idea you could do that, sweet!
That’s not true, you can pull the history from other users who happen to be online.
The feds can also pull such history when they join the server
Sure, and the users of the channel could decide whether to share that history with new users or not. My point is that if you don’t have messages on the server, the service can’t help here, and it’s up to the users of the channel to set their own policies. If the data is stored on the server, the service could be legally obligated to provide that data.
Because a lot of people go to discord servers to access existing information?
Far more than should tbh. Too many little game mods will have a Discord for questions and reporting issues rather than using their GitHub or a forum.
Oh I agree, it’s very much a “forcing a round peg into a square hole” situation, but I doubt discord will make any changes to push back against it
Why would they care what you use it for as long as you use them and give them money
That is a good point, I have never done that, and to me it is just a chat system…
90% of the reason I even have discord is because people much smarter than me use it to share information. Nobody uses other areas suited for sharing information anymore. It’s either Reddit or discord.
I still do that today.
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Insults, very compelling argument!
Go back to Reddit with that shit!