Bonum Certa Men Certa

Modern spyware and the problems of "Discord newspeak"

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 09, 2024,
updated Sep 09, 2024

Evil Earth Discord GIF

Article by Sami Tikkanen (IRC nickname: Sompi), original in Finnish or English.


The history of modern instant messaging

 

Remote messaging has taken many forms during the known history of humanity. Before electricity was invented, messages were transmitted using smoke signals and carrier pigeons. With electricity the telegraph was invented, and human voice was turned into an electric signal and transmitted through long wires - the latter is still in use today and is known as "a telephone". The significance of a telegraph in communication has practically been lost after digital computers that route messages automatically became common.

 

First digital messaging applications used very simple protocols and often no other client program than just a telnet client was needed. The SMTP protocol, which is still actively used in transferring e-mails between servers, was developed in 1982. The IRC protocol, which was developed in Finland by Jarkko Oikarinen in 1988, became the first broadly used instant messaging protocol.

 

 

Definitions of technical terms used in this writing

 

Client: A program that the user installs to their computer to use the service.

 

Server: A program that is installed to the server computer, which relays the messages between different users.

 

Protocol: A set of rules that the client and server programs use to exchange information between each other.

 

Payload: The "useful" data that is transferred from a client to an another client via the protocol - in the case of communicator applications this is usually a message from a user to an another user.

 

End-to-end encryption: The payload is encrypted by the client that sends it, and it is decrypted by the client that receives it, so that the server that relays the message cannot see the decrypted contents of the payload.

 

Instant messenger: A synonym to the word "chat".

 

Bridge bot: A bot that relays messages between two or more conversation channels. Different conversation channels can use different protocols - for example, the bot can relay messages between an IRC channel and a Matrix channel.

 

Free: Free as in freedom. Has nothing to do with the price. May or may not be gratis.

 

Differences between closed and free instant messengers

 

Probably the most important difference between closed and free instant messengers is how their name is used. The name of a closed instant messenger program is usually associated to their client program, but when we are speaking about a free instant messenger, we are speaking about the protocol and not any particular computer program. In fact a free instant messenger IS the protocol - there may or may not exist a client program of the same name, and "THE client program" certainly doesn't exist. Good examples of this are two well known instant messengers IRC and Mumble: Both of them have many existing client programs and the first of them doesn't even have a client program that would be named after the protocol. A free instant messenger is a protocol that is implemented in the context of the server or client program.

 

The protocol of a closed instant messenger is usually completely undocumented, and because of that creating an alternative client program is very hard and laborious work. Using an alternative client program may also be completely forbidden in their terms of service, which is the case with Discord. A closed and undocumented protocol creates a situation where the instant messenger in question works only on those devices that the official client program has been made for. In contrast to this free instant messengers have an open and documented protocol, which makes it easy to write a client program. The most commonly used free instant messengers have client programs for practically every type of computing device.

 

An undocumented protocol also makes it difficult to create bridge bots, and often the terms of service completely forbids using bridge bots. Usually the main business idea of a closed instant messenger is to keep its users trapped inside its walled garden. Apart from some exceptions closed instant messengers don't usually have a publicly available server program and thus creating an own server is impossible, which makes them more vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks and censorship by totalitarian governments.

 

 

How marketing changes the meaning of words

 

Most proprietary closed-source computer programs are produced by profit-seeking companies. Often their marketing is not exactly honest - especially when the workings of the product in question is not completely understood by its average user. The same phenomena can also be seen with computer software, and one of the most used means of untruthful marketing is to change the meaning of words to better match the agenda of the company. The worst case scenario is that the new way of using the words becames established as the new normal, which is at an especially high risk of happening within the contexts of technical literature, where the target group of the marketing often initially learns about the new word from the purposely untruthful marketing material. The establishment of the newspeak definitions of the words into the normal usage of language makes technical things even harder to understand.

 

Often it seems that the misleading use of words has caused almost irrepairable damage, and this can even be seen happening to university students of information technology, the very people who should learn these things properly or else in the near future no-one is able maintain the digital systems that our society increasingly relies on. After one has initially learned a misleading definition for a technical term, it becomes very hard to adjust the inner paradigms to understand the real technically correct meaning of the word.

 

Usually the purpose of using words misleadingly is to "flatten" the meanings of words that are considered positive things. For example, the word "secure" may be used for an instant messenger program that does not even have end-to-end encryption and all messages are saved to the server in plaintext form - in that case what they actually mean is that only the connection between the client and the server is encrypted. Discord calls the groups inside their service "servers" to create a misconception that everyone can create their own servers for Discord. Of course, in reality, it has nothing to do with actual servers - the word "server" means and has always meant, in the hardware level the computer that runs the server software, and in software level a program that listens to connection requests from clients, and neither of those can be created via clicking some links in some Electron app.

 

 

Conceptual problems when speaking about information security

 

During the recent years the security of closed source computer programs has often been in the headlines around the world. Spying features have been found, among the others, from the operating systems of Microsoft and Apple. The fact that Facebook makes money by selling information about its users has raised conserns. Many countries have been boycotting Huawei when building 5G networks because of the possibility of China using their network devices for spying purposes.

 

Often the discussion about security gets derailed or becomes completely impossible, because the definitions of words are unclear. Already long before the era of the modern "Discord newspeak" security companies have had the habit of marketing their products like security was something that could be bought from a store, which has already made it difficult to educate people about the subject.

 

Understanding the security of instant messengers is not possible, if the concept of a server is unclear. Essential things are the encryption and the question of whether the server is trusted or not, and if not, does it see the messaging between the clients. Because of the "Discord newspeak" a typical conversation about security goes like this:

 

1: To be actually secure, the messenger program has to encrypt the messages between the users.

 

2: Discord uses an encrypted connection. Therefore Discord is secure.

 

1: Discord is not secure, because its encryption is not done between the users. Its encryption only exists between the client and the server, and the messages are saved to the server in a plain-text format. They probably also sell all your messages to advertisers.

 

2: I created my own Discord server that I trust, because it is my own server and I can always trust my own server! In addition to that, creating a server to Discord is very easy, because it only requires clicking couple of links from the client program! Only with outdated legacy messenger apps you need to install some server program and leave the computer powered on 24/7 just to have a server!

 

What went wrong? The conversationalist no. 2 knows that encryption between the client and the server is sufficient for security, if the server is trusted. However, they thinks that the Discord group they created is a "server" and therefore concludes that the messages cannot end up in the hands of any untrusted parties. Discord erroneously calls the social media groups within their service "servers".

 

 

Other examples of "Discord newspeak" and untruthful marketing

 

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Layoffs and Shutdowns at IBM, Not Just Microsoft
Same as Microsoft
With Workers Back From a Holiday Weekend, Microsoft Layoffs Carry on, More Waves to Come
Now it's Monday and people are bad to work, even some journalists
You Need Not Wave a Rainbow Flag This Month to Basically Oppose Arseholes Looking to Disrupt and Divide the Community
Don't fall for it
What Miguel de Icaza and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar aims, different methods
 
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025
The FSF's (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) 2025 Summer Fundraiser Already Past Halfway Line
This is where GNU/Linux actually started
Mozilla Had No Good Reason to Outsource Firefox Development to Microsoft
What does Mozilla plan to do when GitHub shuts down?
Mozilla Firefox Did Not Die, It Got Killed
To me it'll always look like Mozilla got killed by its sponsors, especially Google, which had a conflict of interest as a sponsor
Dan Neidle, Whom Brett Wilson LLP SLAPPed (on Behalf of Corrupt Rich Tax Evaders), Still Fighting the Good Fight
Neidle fights for the poor people
Wayland Should Start by Dumping Its Very Ugly Logo
Wayland wins the "ugliest logo" award every year
Stop Focusing on Hair Colours, Focus on Corporate Agenda
If someone commits a crime, it does not matter if his or her hair was mostly white or there was no hair or a wig or whatever
Links 07/07/2025: Science, Conflicts, and a Fictional K-pop Group
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: Being a Luddite and Announcement of Gotify
Links for the day
Links 07/07/2025: XBox Effectively 'Dead', DMCA Subpoena Versus Registrar
Links for the day
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day
[Video] "Copyleft Isn't a Bug."
"Copyleft isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. GNU GPL forced the world to treat code like a public good."
Being in Social Control Media Means Exposing Oneself to Heckling
Richard Stallman does not (either himself or directly) post to any social control media
Links 06/07/2025: Airlines Perils, Scams, and Breaches
Links for the day
Two Risks to Companies: The Microsoft Culture and the Microsoft Tools
Novell was killed by a form of "social engineering" by Microsoft
It's Hard to Trust People Who Worked - Not Only Those Who Still Work - at Microsoft
Bryan Lunduke is just what people would call an "arsehole of a person"
For the Second Time, Bryan Lunduke From Microsoft is Siccing Racist Trolls and Vandals at Me
You're only reinforcing the point we made yesterday
Links 06/07/2025: End to End Encryption at Risk, Reuters Twitter ("X") Account Withheld in India
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
Links for the day
Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
Links for the day
PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
let's just be patient
Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.