• @ster
    link
    44 years ago

    The metadata is who (IP address, so location) is contacting whom and how frequently they are doing so. Unless it’s P2P, which it doesn’t seem to be.

    It’s an inherently flawed system due to its centralisation. Check out https://matrix.org for a fully free and open source software stack where you can host your own instance and control your own metadata.

      • @ster
        link
        24 years ago

        ISPs are pretty cancerous, yeah. I mean even if you don’t host it yourself you’re susceptible to whoever you get to host your server and their ISP. You could use a VPN but you still have to trust the VPN provider. But ISPs have extraordinary amounts of metadata in almost every case anyway. In the UK ISPs are legally obliged to keep a list of websites that have been accessed.

        Self-hosting is normally better than not self-hosting, and decentralised is normally better than centralised. But this is because of freedom much more than it is because of privacy. For privacy the best thing is to not use the internet at all.