On 3/08/2014 9:21 AM, Joel Rees wrote: >> On 03/08/2014, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote: >>> What about Google Hangouts? That might be a reasonable substitute.... >>> >> Google? That is even more sinister than the NSA, isn't it? The NSA >> doesn't drive around suburbia, filming everyone in their yards. > > Google has too much money and is out of control. > > The NSA has too much money and is out of our control. > > There is a difference. Sometimes only minor, but mostly not so minor. Sure, there are lots of trust problems. Microsoft and Google are great big US companies ... that's a problem just to start with; the US Government or any of their agents can easily destroy all your privacy any time they like. Apple is somewhat better, but still a US company, subject to the same problems (they also have a huge Apple tax for consideration too ... larger than most other taxes, even the M$ taxes that are paid for licensed software). If you have a smart phone, chances are it is Android (Google owned IP and control) or iOS (Apple owned IP and control). Even if you have a Linux based phone (other than Android), then you still have the issues of components above the OS to consider. Sure you could use Cyanogen Mod, but that is still based on Android ... just less Google. Further on trust, given what we know now about BadUSB and all the stuff in the NSA /store/ ... you can't even trust any hardware! In terms of hardware, I don't want any fingerprint readers, nor do I want any other unwanted spying /tools/ to be available to the spooks. Anything with Intel inside is also suspect for similar reasons to the issues with Microsoft / Google / Apple being based in the US. The mobile I want today is the OnePlus One ... Chinese made, can we trust them? It's a very, very sorry state of affairs when you realize that you cannot trust any company to keep you safe and with privacy; with limited or no trust in hardware, ditto for software. As an Australian, in Australia (all my life), I am supposed to be /free/ from NSA spying, but that doesn't rule out our own security agencies. Nor does it help if I wish to use Tor and/or other encrypting / privacy related technology. The biggest impediment to doing video calls is the bandwidth or lack thereof worldwide ... in AU we have a stick government that got voted in thanks to the media doing a real hatchet job on the previous government. No government is perfect, but at least our former government was working towards giving us fibre to the premise, not that it would have solved all bandwidth issues, it would have helped greatly; the current government wants to give us fraudband for not much less in real cost to build and far greater cost to operate -- it's a political mess and we all [or least a great majority] suffer the consequences. I'll still stay clear of Skype, I don't need it. I don't use Google Hangouts, but one day I might; the latter would definitely be my choice of the two. We need a Google Hangouts version from Duck Duck Go or similar. In the past I've tried Ekiga, but it was never good for me. Recently I've tried RedPhone, but again network issues and lack of bandwidth / local servers is a problem. VoIP can do video without Skype and there are some VoIP servers that have [at least in the past], managed to be a gateway to Skype users -- not sure if that was limited to voice, but it probably was. I'm sure there must be some other suitable alternative offering voice and video securely and widely. Cheers A.
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