@uranther @sireebob Tox is pretty good, but doesn't seem to have many users. I use qTox on the Freedombone mesh as a chat/voip/video system. You can also route it through Tor.
@aral I was never a believer in DiEM, but I agree with your reasons for leaving. Secretive Central Committees are always a big warning sign, and something to avoid. If ideas can't withstand outside scrutiny - or even by the sound of it internal scrutiny - then they're probably not good ideas.
I'm hoping that 2018 will be a better year for federated social networks, with more users and more network effect.
It sounds like C3 does have a problem with its organizers or general standards. Probably there should be a review of this, because it's not good to lose people to pointless drama.
@cjd Based upon what I've read of it, one guy who tried to kill another hacker is giving a couple of 34C3 talks, and the organizers knew about this well in advance, apparently with documented evidence.
If that's true - and I have no way of knowing whether it is - then the guy is an obvious security threat. It raises the question of how decisions are made about who gets to do talks and whether there is anything in place to keep known bad guys out of congress or at least to warn attendees about them.
@neither I don't really know much about Stross other than that he's a scifi writer and from that talk it seemed to me that he was behind the times or just raising concerns which aren't especially important, such as video propaganda. He seemed to have no concept that it might be possible for users to control software.
@therealpennyfortheguy The silo systems are problematic in general. I'm trying to keep the amount of outrage in my Twitter timeline to a minimum by unfollowing anything or anyone which is no longer relevant.