[Cryptography] Signal hypothetical use case becomes practical since cellular providers have started censoring private text messages

[erik]

On Saturday, January 1, 2022 1:41:11 PM EST Theodore Ts'o wrote:

> Distinguishing "general chatter" from spam is the trick.  I don't want
> to individually block each spammer after they have annoyed me once
> with an unwanted contact. 

As a wise and elderly young lady once stated so eloquently, "What do you mean, 
'Eww'? I don't like spam!"

Whether something is spam or not in regards to communication is determined by 
whether the recipient wants to receive it or not. I highly doubt people are 
sending a link to the Canadian Covid Care Alliance in an unsolicited manner. 

That being said, there's a reason we are all posting on this subject on a 
moderated list, and moderation has it's place... I just don't feel moderation 
is required in one-to-one communications that people *expect* to be private. 

So, ultimately, if it turns out that this link is blocked for being spam, then 
this is a mistake because the sender and the recipient are both annoyed by the 
block in transmission.  What others on this list are defending, however, is 
not merely "Spam Blocking" but active censorship of information that they do 
not wish to be shared. Call me old fashioned, but what two people want to chat 
about, and what information they want to share, seems to be none of my 
business. 

 
> That being said, after seeing how irrational so many people are, to
> the point where they are drinking bleach or showing up at hospitals
> after poisoning themselves with horse medicine, I have to say I'm much
> less convinced by the claim that "free spech is an unalloyed good"
> than I was 5 or 6 years ago.  

I can understand that perspective, however I'd push back on it for a few 
reasons:

1: We have seen unprecedented levels of press and social media censorship over 
the last several years, right around 2017 is when it started ramping up fairly 
heavily. This means many of us are not getting the facts from "Both Sides", as 
it were. You may have unintentionally demonstrated this by referring to what I 
assume to be Ivermectin as "Horse Medicine". This is one thing that the news 
media and social media sites have been actively portraying, you can be 
forgiven for thinking that Ivermectin is a product not intended for human 
consumption, but a veterinary medicine. This is a mistaken view, however. 
Ivermectin has been used to safely and effectively treat humans for well over 
30 years. While it is true that it is used in a veterinary context, referring 
to the product as "Horse medicine" has been compared to calling water "Nuclear 
fuel-rod coolant".

(I want to point out that I'm not making this point because I want to argue in 
favor of using Ivermectin as a treatment for the Coronavirus, I understand 
some doctors have reported success with this treatment and others vehemently 
disagree, but instead to point out that in a world that is censored, you only 
get one side of the story and can easily end up believing misinformation that 
is beneficial to the elites even if factually incorrect or misleading). 

2: It seems to me that, if I were interested in ensuring that people all 
believed what I wanted them to believe, it would be useful to not only censor 
opposing viewpoints, but to censor in a way that people would *support* me in 
censoring. To take an example from antiquity, arguments in favor of blasphemy 
laws often circled around the idea that blasphemers weren't merely going to 
burn in hell themselves, but take innocent people with them by eroding their 
faith. Therefore, many people were very much in favor of executing 
blasphemers, and they felt as though it was the "Right thing to do" because 
those blasphemers could poison the souls of the faithful. Using introspection, 
one might wonder whether they believe what they believe because they have done 
an analysis of data, or whether they believe what they believe because others 
want them to believe it. 

3: Censorship breeds distrust. If you are a layman who is getting both sides 
of a story, neither side censoring the other, you may occasionally choose to 
buy the false story. However, if you KNOW that censorship is occurring, 
regardless of how credentialed and competent those providing the truth to you 
are, you are distinctly aware of one very important fact: They are hiding 
something from you. You don't know if what they're hiding is highly important 
and incontrovertible evidence of them being wrong. You don't know if their "To 
Serve Man" book is actually a cook-book or not. The veracity of what they are 
hiding is unknown, but you can be certain that they are hiding something. The 
mere fact that they are is enough for many people to totally dismiss what 
they're saying. This grants a LOT of credibility to people who may be totally 
incorrect. 

4: You say:

> "Lies can travel half-way around world before truth has a chance to
> put on its sneakers"

I would agree with that statement, so let's take it as a truism. Working 
backwards, we can determine that the information that travels faster is the 
lie, and the information that travels slower is the truth. 

Considering the information being censored is not widely available and is less 
accessible, wouldn't that imply that the mainstream narrative in regards to 
these matters is the lie? 

I'm being somewhat facetious about this, to be clear, but given the two 
competing narratives and which is moving faster, I'd say that if this old and 
beloved quote were applicable, that would definitely be a point in favor of not 
censoring the private communication of individuals. Let's give the truth a 
chance to stretch its legs a bit. 😁

_____________

Since the original email was sent to this list describing the phenomenon of 
SMS blocking, there are *other* sites discovered to be blocked. I want to 
bring these up because I do not intend to argue the merits or demerits of any 
particular Coronavirus response strategy on this list (happy to take it offline 
for anyone interested), so if we wanted to discuss the issue without going 
into anything too hot-button, these other blocked URLs might be good stand-
ins. 

Odysee.com is a video sharing platform that uses LBRY as it's backend (For 
those unaware, LBRY is a blockchain-based system to store the locations of 
hosted files, to grossly over-simplify, think of someone using a blockchain as 
a torrent tracker and that roughly describes the function of LBRY). It serves 
up general interest videos on a variety of subjects, similar to YouTube and 
other video sites. It has been blocked. I have tested today on my T-Mobile 
phone and it still appears to be blocked. 

Bitchute.com is also blocked, it is a video site that I am not very familiar 
with but appears to host some gardening videos and probably more controversial 
things.

FreeTheStates.org appears to be a pro-life activism website, and is also 
blocked on T-Mobile. That's less hot-button, right? 😛

-Erik