this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
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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?

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Encrypt it end to end with them not having the keys

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (7 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Because a lot of people go to discord servers to access existing information?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

That is a good point, I have never done that, and to me it is just a chat system....

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Oh I don't think it's a problem for Discord, but when it comes to software projects specifically I find the reliance on Discord frustrating because of its non-public orientation. If I'm having an issue I'd far rather search for a solution on a public wiki, bug report system, or forum than sign up for one more Discord server.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Why would they care what you use it for as long as you use them and give them money

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Because now you're using discord for more things? You're giving them more data? What's not to like

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Doubt that they are scrapping the data themselves at this point in time. They care more about the user count as their major revenue seems focused on selling nitro and whatever shit they are putting up in their shop. Not in anyway saying that it is secure obviously and they might choose to sell data like reddit but gotta sick with the more plausible scenarios.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well who knows, they do offer AI summaries now so they're at least using the data for something,who says they won't use it for other things in the future

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Didn't know that was a thing but I am on a Linux fork so haven't seen that yet.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

They've only enabled it on a few servers but you can force enable it via vencord plugins

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I remember running screen irssi on a separate computer and sshing into the server, reconnecting the screen with irssi in it.

I still do that today.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you want the history automatically, you can’t expect privacy.

That's not true, you can pull the history from other users who happen to be online.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The feds can also pull such history when they join the server

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

I had no idea you could do that, sweet!

[–] fruitycoder 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Like I said, Discord can still be compelled to let feds join the server, thus receiving the PKIs.

[–] fruitycoder 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If the the pki is generated by users client side by a secret discord doesn't control it wouldn't be an issue.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Either you share the message history to new users (which includes feds) or you don't have any history. I don't understand what you mean

[–] fruitycoder 2 points 1 month ago

The server provides the data to authenticated users and helps facilitate pki between the clients.

If someone is added by the server to have access to the data but wasn't given a key capable of decryption by an actual user they wouldn't have actual access, just encrypted data.