Re: What can an informed patient suggest instead of zoom?

[Jean Louis]

* Pedro Lucas Porcellis <porcellis@eletrotupi.com> [2020-09-09 18:44]:
> > In the predicament when the doctor's office offers "zoom" for
> > teleconferencing with patients from home what can a somewhat informed
> > patient suggest instead of "zoom"
> 
> You can simple recommend to use alternatives, like Jitsi. Although, I
> think you should do with common sense in mind.

I know that people use the word "alternatives" yet I think there is no
alternative to free software.

For experiment, I have installed Android OS on one spare notebook,
just to try the WhatsApp and to see what is it doing, as I never use
it, I have my own page why not to use WhatsApp and I give to people
explanations. And result of the experiment is that it will not work
well if I do not allow WhatsApp application to get access to all my
contacts, so all my contacts are moving to WhatsApp servers. It will
be obvious that WhatsApp will take any contacts I have and I do not
know what all is taking, is it taking notes, addresses, vCards, or
just phone numbers, I have no idea.

What I know is that I do not know anybody in that company.

So what is common sense to me is to think about it and not to give
away my contacts to unknown foreign companies where I do not know
anybody face to face, neither I spoke with them on phone.

So by common sense, I will tell this same to my friends, and never had
problems in understanding, in fact they understood that Whatsapp is
doing emotional threats to lose all your friends if they are not on
Whatsapp. And I let them think. There is no force involved, everybody
can think for themselves.

And for the reason above explained, which is common sense, as giving
away list of contacts to unknown people is outrageous, or grossly
offensive to decency or morality, as anonymous asking for the list of
contacts is not decent and not moral, for this reason, there is no
alternative to proprietary software neither to centralized abusive
networks.

Apropos "alternative":
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Alternative

> I'm slowly teaching my therapist to use alternatives (she has only used
> Google's Duo or WhatsApp for video-calls), like using Duo on the Web,
> then proceeding to teach her to know other tools, like Jitsi.

In my opinion, people like therapists should respect privacy of
others, that is foremost priority, and by using WhatsApp, they give
away list of contacts to unknown company, and contacts did not agree
to that, and nobody asked them. Why would a therapist give away all
contacts to unknown company? The unknown company, without proper due
diligence have taken contacts, and we do not know what are they
doing. At the day D, the contacts can as well be used for
extermination of certain groups or friends, which have been done
throughout the last 100 years with success, including in Rwanda,
Bosnia recently and Europe in second world war. It was myself, who
have asked a criminal organization in defense of a war criminal to
remove the racist lists they made for extermination of thousands of
people based on their names or nation belongings, and they did remove
it, as they had to comply with certain privacy laws in
Europe. Contacts inside of Whatsapp will be abused as they can be
abused, as simple as that.

> Being an activist for free software does not mean that I will force or
> shout at people to use GNU / Linux or to join the cause, but every time
> I feel that I have the opportunity *and it makes sense*, I will try to
> give the hint.

I have never encountered resistance and that may be due to fact that I
do not put attention, and I do leave people decide how they wish. And
I have never use any force, neither encountered resistance. I simply
say what I use, why I use it, and I explain myself well what means
freedom so that there is no misunderstanding between free of charge
and freedom of using software. Free software makes sense all the time,
proprietary software does not make sense all the time.

There is this Aurora APK for Android OS, from F-Droid.org and inside
there are those Exodus reports, try researching those Google Playstore
applications, they are as abusive as they can be. For example simple
keyboard application made by Google itself and by other provides as
well is going to ask users for contacts, for Internet connections, for
location, to read SMS and write SMS, and to read storage and so on,
why would keyboard application be able to do that all? So it makes
sense to warn people about the abuses and offer them abuse free
operating system and software.

> People need to understand why free software is better, and they will
> naturally choose if they fully understand.

That is right, and you may explain it better and with more
details. Myself I stress privacy in first place.

Jean