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What is the general consensus on Zello? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago by abuttifulpigeon@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I understand that Zello is not FOSS, but their website claims everything is end-to-end-encrypted.

So, in short, should/can it be trusted? If not, are there any good FOSS alternatives that provide similar Walkie-Talkie like functionality?

all 12 comments

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[–] GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The reason FOSS will always be better is because claims like that can actually be validated and audited. Any company can claim their stuff is E2E encrypted, but you'll never know if that's true for closed source software. Even if they do actually do E2E encryption, you'll likely not know if they're doing it properly and with strong encryption algorithms.

[+] abuttifulpigeon@lemmy.world -10 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I wasn't asking if FOSS can be trusted, I was asking if Zello can be trusted. The general consensus judging by the comments so far is an astounding no, by nobody has really provided any good alternatives with similar functionality.

[–] GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I wasn't talking about whether or not to trust FOSS, I was talking about Zello (since it's closed source, which I originally mentioned). There might not be a FOSS alternative, I don't know since I have never needed a walkie talkie app. That's why I didn't mention one and only answered the first part of your question. You're right that it probably can't be fully trusted (because it's closed source).

[–] abuttifulpigeon@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Oh, apologies for the misunderstanding.

[–] ultratiem@lemmy.ca 4 points 11 months ago

Their claims cannot be verified. So no, you can’t “trust” them on anything more than their claims. Which can’t be validated. So…

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

If you want an open source walkie talkie functionality, you can use signal, or even simple x, and send voice messages. Boom walkie-talkie

There are products built on top of Mumble, which is a voice conferencing software, which is open source.

https://github.com/Theofilos-Chamalis/EVO-PTT

The client is open, but they use a proprietary server, which is just mumble

If you want to host your own Mumble server, you can use a more open client that's not tied to a commercial server... Like https://mumla-app.gitlab.io/

....

Being hostile towards people giving you good advice, is not a great way to get good advice in the future. The reason people are telling you about the benefits of open source software, it's impossible to vet or prove any privacy claims with closed source software. They could be lying, people lie all the time.

[–] abuttifulpigeon@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago

Thank you for the suggestions, I will be sure to check them out.

Also, my intention was not to be hostile. I made that comment out of the facts the other comments that were made at that time presented, in which were saying the pros of FOSS, and Zello should not be trusted because of it's closed-source nature. Somewhere in there my tone must have gotten misinterpreted.

Again, I apologize to anyone who read my comments as an act of hostility, as that was not my intention.

[–] NabeGewell@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah well I claim I'm Gabe Newell's brother.

[–] kixik@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago

Why not looking for distributed mechanism, which don't depend on trusting central servers or particular instances on decentralized mechanisms, like jami, or similar?