it’s ok just make the account, everyone is using it
🥲
My son’s school created an MS account for him, for christ’s sake! In 1st grade…
What the fuck
Exactly. I was shocked as well. They even wanted us to teach him to memorize the password. In. The. 1st. Grade.
To be frank they probably wanted to have a backup in case we get another corona lockdown so he could use Teams for school. But still!
At the place I work at, we all are given Azure Virtual Desktops, which we use for everything. I’m working remotely from another country, so there is damned input lag too. Copy/paste, any data transfer is disabled too.
The worst part is we need to use “Remote Desktop” app to connect to our VMs, and it is available for EVERY platform except linux. Like they got browser client, windows, mac os, android, iOS. BUT NOT FOR LINUX. So I use VirtualBox to open windows machine, and use that to connect to VM.
This is sad :(
You could try out the Remmina Linux client’s RDP plugin.
This is their choice not to configure it correctly. You can set up Azure RDP and use Remmina as a front end to FreeRDP or just FreeRDP by itself.
Also why are they using a browser “client”? That is also an odd configuration. You don’t need a special client. I use Firefox on Linux (with a container - love those) to connect to the Azure Desktops.
I do all my windows work from a Linux machine. Recently I traveled to another country and did all my clients Windows (Azure remote desktops) work from a Steam Deck (Arch linux), lol.
Your school wants you to use Whatsapp?
Mine too, but it wasn’t forced on me. All of my classmates use whatsapp but not having too deal with all the needless stuff on there is great in my opinion
Important notifications, informing holidays, events special classes, and all communications go through whatsapp.
Also sometimes online/video class links are posted there
WhatsApp has replaced text messaging in a lot of countries. Even banks use WhatsApp
Refuse. They can’t force you to use it. If they want you to use discord, say you only use matrix. If they want you to use chromeos, say you only use GNU/Linux
A school can absolutely force you to use software?
No? It’s not their hardware and even if it was they can’t force you to use that hardware. I’m not sure about the laws around it but I do know schools can’t force you to agree to contracts (such as EULAs)
Schools sign the contracts themselves for license deals. The program either doesn’t collect the same data, or doesn’t collect anything other than analytics.
They do this in Enterprise too. All of our enterprise software is a special version made for distribution. No EULA is involved.
LOL, maybe in a competent school system. Meanwhile, in my kids’ school system even things like signing up to pay for school lunches is outsourced to some shitty third-party service with an outrageous ToS that includes a binding arbitration clause with said arbitration being conducted in Louisiana (a different state hundreds of miles away).
Maybe times have changed but when I was in school a decade ago they would just say I don’t care and punish you for not doing your work lol, they can absolutely make you use it by virtue of being in charge
That’s definitely illegal
They can’t but i might want to stop schooling
They can’t force you to use it.
No, but they can fail you for not participating in required class exercises.
They can’t punish you for not accepting a EULA
Did you ever attend school?
Yes
Yes, yes they can
I can’t refuse because i have to use solidworks
I had the same problem here. I solved it by using an app (Element) that gave you the ability to use all messaging apps (WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal) in one. Then I stopped using it because you can’t make video calls or listen to some audio messages.
But you have to setup a custom synapse bridge for element right ? Or did you find public servers ?
Yes! You have to set custom bridge Especially for Whatsapp, you have to set the bridge that expires every 15 days, so on the 15th day, you have to re-download Whatsapp in order to reconnect the bridge. For what you are referring to, the public server stuff there is matrix that is the Element messaging system
ah too bad, I had looked up about the WhatsApp bridge thing but was too lazy to setup the bridge, I was hoping there would be Publix bridges (although bad for privacy)
Guess I’ll have to
threatenconvince my friends to use matrixGuess I’ll have to
threatenconvince my friends to use matrixYeah I think so :'-D
bro sooo true, not to mention gmail as well
What’s easier from the teacher/teachers representative, use 1 widely distributed app, or download 100 different messaging programs/interfaces and make sure every student knows the proper channels to contact every other student?
There will always be someone unhappy, let’s try to keep that from being the person who has to do this dance day in and out for the rest of their underfunded lives?
I want to agree Meta’s terms of service to get education?
Schools should use a free software messenger instead so that no one is forced to run untrusted apps on their device.
100 different messaging programs/interfaces
It’s like four or five. We did this back in the late 90s. Some people used AIM. Some used Yahoo Messenger. Some used ICQ. And some used MSN. We survived.
It was such a common thing that multi-protocol clients like Trillian were popular.
You really want your teachers to read your cryptic emo away messages on written with papyrus?
We survived
Reach for the stars!
There will always be someone unhappy, but let’s make them unhappy with mild annoyances and not serious privacy violations. I’d rather prefer the Whatsapp users to be unhappy than the Signal users. In a long run it’s doing them a favor.
Fine, use one app but make it the Free Software one, then.
Regardless, it is completely unreasonable to dictate that people consent to onerous third-party corporate terms of service in order to access government services, especially ones enforced by truancy laws!
Ours just use email
Yeah some of my University classes mandated the use of this “Lockdown Browser” last year. Pretty sure it’s just spyware that, conveniently, can render HTML
It’s actually a rootkit on Windows which is the worst part.
It’s the same with work tbh… Lots of companies have big contracts with Red Hat but the only option for their employees is Windows.
I understand the logic behind it, but it still feels dumb.
To work or study at my Univ, you have to give your phone number to Microsoft for the 2fa. They pay shitload of money for Office 365 and they are almist forcing us to use that stupid suite. This year I will give an special course on FOSS alternative to my students. Fuck that bullshit hail corporate.
For me it’s family and friends wich refuse to switch from whatsapp to signal for example
They don’t even have to switch just install it, I have multiple clients for different people and it doesn’t really effect me negatively other than remembering what to message people on
Sadly my friends won’t even do that. Don’t know about family but knowing them they also probably won’t. I expect rhem to not even understand why i want to switch
Then there’s governments banning encrypted messaging apps cuz all the heckkin terrorists are pro privacy and Foss I guess.
Its almost like banning knifes
Fuck WhatsApp. All my homies use Signal.
Sadly all my homies still use WhatsApp. So it’s though for me to switch.
exactly. We are 6 guys, me and one other friend tried a lot, but just couldn’t :/
Maybe it’s because I don’t talk to that many people for it to seem significant, but is there an issue with just sending someone a standard text message?
“Text message”? What are we - barbarians?
Seriously though, using text messages these days means that inevitably you will encounter the green vs blue issue. Android and Apple phones don’t play nice with their text messages. Gods help you if you ever get into a group text message thread with multiple Android and Apple phones. Anytime an Apple user reacts to a message it’s sent as a separate text message, “John 🤣 to ‘Check out this meme’”
At least with WhatsApp it puts everyone in the same texting playground.
This is such a bummer. Recently one of my friends started considering iPhone just because of this blue/green issue. I hate how big corps are trying their best to f*ck their users
laughs in beeper (iMessage on Android, RCS on iPhone, and other chat apps like WhatsApp and signal over Matrix bridges)
Text messages cost money and only support text
And before someone says MMS, NO. Just, no. I never want to use that shit again.
RCS go brrr
Those are not private at all, whatsapp, as a protocol (so basically xmpp) is pretty good using E2E. Facebook/Meta collects your metadata, but not the messages.
_meta_data
Nobody here uses text messages anymore. It’s just old tech I guess
The problem with texts is you cannot leave a group chat. So you’re at the mercy of the group to create a new one or forget about the chat.
I didn’t even think of that downside but yeah, that sucks
“It’s preparing you for the real world”
Force quits stupid company app
Decentralised solutions will never be broadly accepted. People care about comfort and ease to use and centralized companies wiill always have the edge in this.
I don’t necessarily need decentralised solutions. I just need free software solutions. There is much comfort and ease in apps like signal
What about when being centralized allows the quality of the product to suffer?
What is digital sovereignty?
If they want you to use WhatsApp they can provide you with a device to use it on, then at least it’s completely isolated from your own data and can’t do too much harm.
Ok, but this is reality, and in reality schools don’t give a fuck about these subjects, third world country schools at least.
They don’t give a fuck in first world schools as well
Btw oficially, in my state, schools use their own forked version of ubuntu (KITE Ubuntu), spevifically designed for school use and has foss programs installed and syllabus teaches only that. But still, since the online class started in 2020, google meet, whatsapp and all of them are “required” by students. The problem is that none of the schools or teachers actually knows why “free software only” in schools were introduced
I hate using WhatsApp for university shit. Wish they just use Telegram or Teams
How are either of those better?
They’re Separate apps I don’t use for everyday communication. I can isolate them
Ah fair point. You could run WhatsApp in a work profile or on a second device, but you’d probably have to jump through some hoops with a second phone number.
Use signal for everyday communication, two problems solved.
So what do they do when you say “I don’t have a smartphone”?
