Tech Privacy and being a furry?

[Stylish-Lupine]

One of the things tech interested people value is privacy, and security, but to be honest I'm quite underwhelmed with some of the furry related services in both respects, I haven't done too much digging, I know there are some very good IRC messaging protocols, but I don't know where fellow furs are at or what they use.

Furs tend to be, (from who I've engaged with) pretty tech minded, but haven't found much of a community based around better protocols for RPing and chatting, F-list is pretty garbage web IRC, and I basically can't use Tor with it.

Discord is also a no go for me in this respect, call me paranoid and it's pretty unusable with a proxy, certain VPNs, or Tor. also the CEO has a weird history. I use it for casual IRC based comms, but outside of that I wouldn't RP or share furry related interests over it.

I think for furs, web security is important, but I don't know of actual large groups of them using secure protocols, methods, or hosting sites for that purpose

 

[Fallowfox]

'Massaging protocols' sound pretty suspicious to me!

 

[Stylish-Lupine]

'Massaging protocols' sound pretty suspicious to me!

I fixed it officer spellcheck

 

[PLEASE DELETE ACCOUNT]

I used to use OTR on Pidgin (for AIM/MSN/Yahoo), and on IRC for chats with other people, but it has that fatal flaw that at some point you have to share the key, and if you do not physically live near them, you are sending the key out in the open pretty much defeating the purpose.

I honestly gave up and just went to minimizing what I do, rather than trying to secure every avenue.

 

[Fenja Weaver]

I'm not really savvy so I'll just lean out of the window and call you paranoid for not wanting to use Discord.
Also, do you really need to have so much security?
It's just some roleplaying with strangers that, from my view, gets smutty somewhere along the line with most furries.
I can't really imagine someone who'd want to engage with these sort of people anyway.

 

[Fallowfox]

The most important security probably revolves around not accidentally revealing financially relevant information, becoming entrapped in scams or downloading viruses.

There probably are wider, impersonal, social consequences to social media participation. A group with a vested interest could scrape a large number of people's details or social media postings and use that for a nasty purpose.

 

[Fenja Weaver]

So how likely is it to fall victim to a scam, downloading a virus or accidentally revealing financially relelvant information during furry roleplay on Discord? Ö.ô

 

[Stylish-Lupine]

Furries in my opinion are more emotionally swayed, tricking a "friend" into paying for a commission, etc etc.

 

[Troj]

When it comes to Discord, I think a good rule of thumb is to not do anything that would totally ruin your own or someone else's life if it got leaked. I'd also recommend having a different display name from your actual Discord name and your fandom or fursona name, just for an added dollop of privacy.

Otherwise, just follow the usual protocol of making and keeping secure passwords, protecting your sensitive personal data, considering the amount of personal data you're comfortable with sharing with the world, having a reliable anti-virus program and keeping it updated, avoiding scams, and thinking twice (as @Stylish-Lupine indicated) before just falling for another furry's sob story, idle promises, or frantic begging for this-or-that.

 

[Stylish-Lupine]

the issue is the data discord collects, what can "ruin" your life is pretty subjective, but I'd rather not my boss or family know that I'd want to fuck animal people, etc etc, and Discorrd goes out of its way to profile you, and connect data points about you,

Besides, even if discord wouldn't release or blackmail me, a data breach can still happen.

 

[Troj]

Very fair point! And the same goes for any site that is actively gathering data on you and trying to connect those same dots.

John Oliver did a very thorough and disturbing segment on that topic a bit ago.

Well, and life ruination is indeed relative, but I was mainly hinting at folks to especially think twice before doing or supporting anything violent or illegal!

 

[Fallowfox]

So how likely is it to fall victim to a scam, downloading a virus or accidentally revealing financially relelvant information during furry roleplay on Discord? Ö.ô

Romance or commission-based scams.

 

[Fenja Weaver]

Romance or commission-based scams.

Which can basically happen to you on any platform that involves two people interacting with each other, can it not?

 

[Stylish-Lupine]

Yes and no, medium of exchange matters, I tend to trust web forums more than instant live chats, cause you can more easily scrub metadata or think before doing something,

 

[Khafra]

If a scam would work on you in Discord, it would work everywhere else. It's pure social engineering, and not much else.

RP groups and privacy enthusiasts don't have a lot of overlap I'm afraid, so you'll have to find a compromise. Your average RP enthusiast nowadays sits around on discord or social media, because it's easier to find communities there. You have the option to try telegram, depending on how much you trust their claims about privacy. Or like others pointed out, get a burner account for discord that you use just for roleplay. Create a brand new non-google email to register, use discord in a browser inside a VM or a compartmentalized OS, route your traffic through TOR, don't give out your real life information. I don't do RP so I may not have too much experience in what goes on one-on-one RPs, but I don't think it would be hard to keep everything restricted to fandom-relevant topics.

 

[Dragoneer]

It's a lot easier just to say "here are the limitations I'm operating in, what are my choices?" The problem is that, while yes, furries are tech minded and open, the vast majority of people are not going to jump through hoops to access online communities that take extra steps, or aren't where their friends are located. Because the vast majority of people are using Telegram and Discord, and while it's fine to have reservations regarding them, it's also just as easily fine to be aware of the limitations.

That's kind of the problem with tech. People tend to go migrate to places where communication and accessibility are easy, and at some point you also hit people who are more retro-enthusiasts, where the ability to share an inline picture in a chat is viewed as a negative. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's a big internet, but the question is what are you looking to sacrifice? Because it sounds like you're already aware of IRC, and that's kind of really the only place where you may find an active set of users.

 

[Stylish-Lupine]

I am aware of IRC, but not gonna lie most of them don't really advertise, aren't the things I'm looking for, have their own security issues unto themselves, and a like of the clients and features of IRCs are less than steller.

I need to look into XMPP based stuff, but I hear there is a lot of options, and spinning up your own is super easy.