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0 pointsmatheusmoreira4y ago0 comments

Yeah, it's so tiresome. It's my device, I should be able to do anything if I want to. Then Android comes up with some API to let apps subvert my will. Who cares if the app doesn't want to be screenshotted? I'm the user. What the app wants doesn't matter, it's never mattered. I could fight this by rooting my phone and using custom implementations that lie to the apps and only pretend to be secure. Then Google comes up with hardware attestation and now there's no way to fake things anymore. It's like we're the enemy that the phone is being secured against. I barely have words to describe how much I hate these companies and the way they try to control me.

We have free software everywhere except phones. I wonder why organizations such as GNU aren't working on free software clients for these popular services like WhatsApp and Telegram. The potential for a positive impact is enormous.

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3 comments · 3 top-level

Hackbraten4y ago

> It's like we're the enemy that the phone is being secured against. I barely have words to describe how much I hate these companies and the way they try to control me.

I’ve had enough of it, too. Ordered a Librem 5 and can’t wait for the day it arrives – so I can finalize my divorce from the Apple ecosystem.

> I wonder why organizations such as GNU aren't working on free software clients for these popular services like WhatsApp and Telegram.

Regarding WhatsApp, it looks like it’s against their TOS, and Meta goes out of their way to detect usage of third-party apps and ban your account [1].

Regarding Telegram: not only do they allow third-party implementations, they even link to them [2]. Besides, Telegram’s own desktop client is FOSS under GPLv3 [3].

[1]: https://www.cultofmac.com/314343/use-a-third-party-whatsapp-...

[2]: https://telegram.org/apps#unofficial-apps

[3]: https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop

5e92cb50239222b4y ago

All Telegram clients are already fully open. (The server side is not, but there are third party implementations).

https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop

https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram

https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS

Plus a few web frontends, I am way too lazy to find them all.

https://github.com/zhukov/webogram

WhatsApp forbids third party clients IIRC.

patrakov4y ago

Nope. We have free software everywhere, except phones, heavy manufacturing systems (where a 3d control can and will be downgraded to reduced-precision on one axis in software just because you are in the wrong country, or disabled if GPS doesn't work), legally valid government interaction (I am disallowed by the contract to use my government-issued S/MIME certificate with anything else except CryptoPro), and many other places.

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