Communication

   ___                          _         _   _
  / __|___ _ __  _ __ _  _ _ _ (_)__ __ _| |_(_)___ _ _
 | (__/ _ \ '  \| '  \ || | ' \| / _/ _` |  _| / _ \ ' \
  \___\___/_|_|_|_|_|_\_,_|_||_|_\__\__,_|\__|_\___/_||_|
  
                   [Communication]

          by TheOuterLinux (https://theouterlinux.gitlab.io)
          
Last updated: 2020/06/21
Discussion URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheOuterLinux/comments/o519o4/communication/.compact

The following is a list of ways to communicate with people. Some of them
are obvious but for whatever reason, many refuse to leave their 
comfortable, privacy leaking, social-networking camps. So, let it be 
known that I at least tried. Is the following a bit "cynical?" Yep.

1. Go outside. Look forward. Look to your left. Look to your right. 
   Did you notice any other person? Go talk to them. Talking is this 
   thing in which you look someone in the eye, move your mouth a little 
   bit and as the air passes through your vocal chords in combination 
   with mouth movement, certain combinations of sound come out in which 
   represent words. These combination of words lead to sentences. These 
   sentences hopefully lead to complete and understandable sharing of 
   thoughts and ideas. Did you know you could convey these thoughts and 
   ideas to other humans within hearing distance as well as receive
   thoughts and ideas from others? Hmmmm....

2. Phone calls. Did you know that device in your pocket or setting to
   the side on your desk can do more than just download "apps" and
   browse the web? It can also do this thing called "calling" in which
   your voice can be "magically" transported over not just few miles,
   but thousands of them in just a fraction of a second. "Wow! What an
   amazing new technology!" Nope. A lot of really smart people got
   together one day and said "this would neat" and on March 10, 1876, 
   Alexander Graham Bell said "Mr Watson, come here. I want to see you."
   via "talking using electricity." I would also like to note that VoIP
   (Voice over Internet Protocol) has been around since about 1995.
   
3. Text-messaging. Did you know that you do not actually need Facefarm,
   Goolag+, Snapshat, Bumblr, Shitter, etc. to send text-based messages,
   photos, or other multimedia to another person? Not only can your
   "smart"-phone do this without installing extra crap, but text-
   messaging has technically been around since the 1840's with the use 
   of telegraph machines and the "Wheatstone A. B. C. telegraph" as 
   being one of the first to go beyond Morse code and interpret actual 
   letters. 
   
   "But golly gee wilickers Beave, what about the poop emoji?" 
   To quote the great Wikipedia, "UTF-8 is capable of encoding all 
   1,112,064[1] valid character code points in Unicode using one to four
   one-byte (8-bit) code units." The dumbest of phones, also known as a 
   "feature phone," all have UTF-8 support. Hell, even modern Japanese 
   anime still to this day have their characters use flip phones. 
   
   Oracle is the main reason why there aren't more Java MIDlets and not 
   just because everyone wants an Android or iPhone. Worse case 
   scenario, learn to use the smiling emoji more; even old ANSI 
   character sets for systems like DOS and C64 all have a variation of 
   "😁". (Psst... how cool would it be if there actually were a FreeDOS 
   or C64 phone? You know you would want one too.)
   
   Unicode emojis: https://apps.timwhitlock.info/emoji/tables/unicode
   
   And let's say you have a feature phone that does not have data 
   (Internet) working but can still make calls and send/receive texts.
   You more than likely cannot send or receive multimedia messages like
   photos, video, and etc.. Do not let this discourage too much, 
   especially if you are near a more modern computer most of the time.
   All you have to do in situations like this is use a pastebin site.
   Pastebin sites let you upload files temporarily to then send a URL
   to people for them to go to and a few of them have settings for 
   things like when the upload expires and how many can access the URL
   until it is deleted. But, that also means that it is still possible 
   for a stranger to stumble upon this links until they expire, so do 
   not upload anything too important.
   
   [1] "Chapter 2. General Structure". The Unicode Standard (6.0 ed.). 
   Mountain View, California, US: The Unicode Consortium. 
   ISBN 978-1-936213-01-6.
   
4. Radio. 1970s: "To all feeding the bear, be careful. There's a fox in 
   the hen house just before the taco stand and the bird dog is barking. 
   3s and 8s. Over." Now fast forward to 2021 and read your best 
   friend's last text-message. It's either very boring or if actually 
   spoken in real life, would be "hrribly confuzin. lol fam." 
   
   Radio communication for commercial use has been around since the 
   1890s. Your WiFi, Bluetooth, AirDrop, Chromecast, remote controlled 
   drone, etc. are all using radio signals. The only time you need a 
   license to communicate using radios in most countries (research what 
   your requirements are) is if you plan to use amateur bands above a 
   certain frequency and high frequency (HF) bands. And you know what 
   the funny thing about radio communication is? Other than electricity 
   costs, as long as you are following your local laws, there's no 
   "provider" and therefore no extra costs. Ever. They even make "walkie
   -talkies" (two-way radios) now that can go as far as 2 miles on an 
   average day, some of them have encryption, and many of them have LCD 
   screens and VOX (voice-activated transmission) features. As far as 
   HAM radios go, that's a whole other thing I'm not getting into for 
   this write-up.
   
   You can also use radio to broadcast text-messages and files via 
   programs like Flarq, Fldigi, flmsg, and Flrig. http://www.w1hkj.com/
   
   For sending and receiving pictures, lookup "Slow Scan TV."

5. IRC. Internet Relay Chat. This is what powers old-school chat rooms
   and newer services like Twitch still use it. And if you are a fan
   of free and open-source software, many of the maintainers of said
   software or operating systems utilize IRC to address concerns. At the
   time of the write-up, the most popular service for IRC seems to 
   either be "Freenode" or "Libera Chat" but I prefer "OFTC" as it much 
   more friendly towards Tor users, or at least historically, but many 
   of them regardless will enable/disable this if traffic gets too 
   "robotic." There are SEVERAL IRC clients to choose from for just 
   about any operating system you can think of and many people still use
   it, even if your AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) decided to no longer 
   work, and that decision was made for as late as December 15, 2017.
   
6. Video conferencing. More and more people are doing group video chats
   these days than ever. Video conferencing is not a new technology.
   Large business have been doing this since the 1980s, but the 
   technology for it was first introduced at the 1968 World's Fair in
   New York, aka "Picturephone" from AT&T.
   
   As far as what to use in 2021... Jitsi seems to be one of the best
   choices. It is a free and open-source platform that you can either 
   use their servers or set one up yourself. There are clients for both
   Andriod and iOS, as well as the web client. All you have to do is
   start a room and then send people an E-Mail link and that is about
   it. You can video chat, audio chat, share your desktop, share files,
   and has etherpad support.
   
7. E-Mail. Why so far down the list? That's because unfortunately, 
   unless you have realized just how stupid it is to have a GMail or 
   Yahoo account, even though most people have one of these, E-Mail has 
   been left to most as an "account manager" of sorts, something you 
   only use to sign-up for services, track the occasional Amazon 
   package, or for something stupid like Google Docs if you are a 
   student. Your University probably didn't give you much of a choice in
   this regard and you may even have had an Office 365 E-Mail something 
   or other forced onto you as well. But having that said, it is also 
   sad how we all have this very powerful communication and file-sharing
   method that no one uses, many of which are probably out of privacy 
   concerns, or the complete opposite as it is not "convenient" like 
   other messaging "apps," to which most that use privacy as a sells-
   point is simply depending on ignorance. Just use ProtonMail and then 
   maybe something like AbiWord's collaboration feature via an account 
   through AbiCollab.net and heaven forbid if anyone needed to learn 
   "git add .", "git commit -m '...'", and "git push" commands. Jee... 
   That was hard -_-
   
8. Snail mail. Though popularly known as "snail mail," you can in fact
   send people messages on this substance called paper in which is 
   placed in an envelope with with stamps on it, a sort of currency that
   post offices all around the world use, to then be sent to anyone with
   a mailing address, which if course is usually public information.
   People have been sending each other letters via carriers of some
   sort, be by walking, horse, camel, car, etc. since about 2400 BCE
   and possibly even earlier than that.
   
   But what about privacy? Have you ever heard of a thing called
   encryption? Spartans were encrypting messages between battles around
   600 BCE and so I think you could get a little creative too if needed.
   And even if you live in a country in which something like this is
   illegal, you still probably have laws protecting your snail mail, 
   maybe even more so than electronic forms of communication. That seems
   to be something not a lot of people think about. For instance, a 
   person can "accidentally" bump an office desk's computer mouse to 
   reveal an opened E-Mail with no legal issue, or at least that I am 
   aware of, but if someone opens your mail without your permission or
   a warrant, it is usually a felony, not to mention that if your 
   mailbox is attached to your front door, someone has to be on your 
   property to get to it in the first place. And if you use a mail-slot 
   instead of a mailbox and the door was locked and some one other than 
   you was caught digging around, then that is breaking and entering.
   
   You have to remember something. We currently live in a time in which 
   gaining physical access to a tangible item is either more difficult
   or unrealistic due to ignorance of the existence of said items, as
   long as you are not stupid with your social networking. There is also
   the dangers that come with attempting to obtain a physical item from 
   a person's home (some people dial .357) or while in transit by 
   federally protected transport than a digital version that was 
   probably obtained in bulk by hackers that will honestly never get
   caught.
   
   In other words, and for example, even though we have all of this 
   encryption technology, you are still much more likely to have your 
   credit card information stolen because of a web purchase using an 
   insecure, log-hungry server than if you were to snail mail a credit 
   card to a friend every day for a year and then cancel them as soon as
   they arrive for obvious reasons. Hopefully, you get the point.
   
   Realistically, no one cares about your mail or even your E-mails and
   text messages (most of the time), but stealing a person's snail mail 
   requires active human contact while the digital medium can be stolen 
   using penetration software or perhaps even legally purchased because 
   you did not read the terms and conditions, to which even if a 
   messaging service does not sell your data, some countries allow the 
   Internet provider themselves to sell whatever information they can 
   collect. And if you are the sort of person that is doing legally 
   questionable things, this also means that your IP is probably a
   snitch since why get a warrant when you can just buy-up an area's 
   data and then run software to hunt for certain site visits or 
   suspicious activity. Most services regarding the Internet that say 
   they clean the data they sell to keep it from being personally 
   identifiable usually end up being proved wrong one way or the other.
   And as far as I am aware, no one is going through the trouble of 
   selling scanned copies of someone's "Hey Grandma" letters on the
   dark web.
   
   In short, when is comes to snail mail, unless you are just trying to
   save trees, it seems as though time, money, and common sense are the 
   only real issues.

___
 | |_  _    |   _  _  _  _  __   |/ __  _    __
 | | |(/_   |__(/__> _> (/_ |    |\ | |(_)\^/| | o  o  o Unfortunately..
                 [The Lesser Known... or used]
                 
1. Teletext. Have you though it would be cool to turn on your TV and
   then use a remote to access lots of very useful information or play
   mini games? No, I am not talking about a "smart" TV. I am also not
   talking about your cable or satellite's TV guide channel. In the 
   1970s, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) release a service
   called "Ceefax" in which you hooked up a system to your TV as a go-
   between for the antenna and then used that system's remote to access
   "pages" of information that were being broadcasted over the air. You
   could quickly check the weather, sports, stocks, etc.. And you know
   what the crazy part is? This service was around until about 2008 in
   which all TV broadcasting was required to be digital and even so, 
   you can still find teletext broadcasting in some countries in which
   that sort of broadcasting is much more reliable than the Internet.
   Matter of fact, while many sites were frozen during 9-11 due to heavy
   web traffic, teletext services temporarily became the best source for
   news updates in the UK and places around Europe.
 
2. Disclaimer: If you are reading this from TheOuterLinux website, you 
               probably know what a BBS is. However, the younger 
               visitors may not and that is why it is listed down here.
               Also, if comparing to IRC, most people know what IRC is 
               or have used IRC without realizing it.

   BBS. Bulletin Board System. Once upon a time in about 1973 there was
   a system called "Computer Memory." Ooooh Aaaahhhh... This system ran
   on a very large main frame computer in Berkeley, California in which
   people could remotely access from several terminals placed throughout
   the San Francisco Bay Area. The early 1980s rolls around and similar
   systems start popping up and are being called "BBS's" except this
   time, if you had money, your family probably had a computer in their
   home to remotely access one of these BBS's and do all sorts of things
   like look up information, send messages, upload and download files, 
   and run games. Yes. Your PS3, Xbox360, and/or Wii, although all are 
   great gaming consoles, were not the first to have easy to use, online
   multiplayer capabilities and this, though much more crude, has been
   around since the 1970s. And, Bulletin Board Systems, though many of
   them use modern URL's instead of phone numbers to connect to them,
   are still alive and kicking and newer ones being created every once
   in a while. Visit https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/ for a directory
   list and you can either use the 'telnet [URL]' command or something
   that looks more authentic such as 'Netrunner' by MysticBBS
   (http://www.mysticbbs.com/downloads.html).


3. Tox Clients. "What about WhatsApp? What about Telegram? What about
   Signal? According to whistle blower blah blah blah..." Hush for a
   second and hear me out. If the service or application has the ability
   to share content to another service or application, do not use it.
   If you see a "share" button, assume it has been compromised.
   
   Tox is a peer-to-peer, encrypted communication protocol that uses a
   server to let friends know you are available to talk to and to 
   connect people when someone decides to audio call, video chat (or 
   screen-sharing), text, or send files to a friend. It does not store 
   anything beyond perhaps an IP address temporarily. It also does not 
   require any sign-up at all. No E-Mail. No phone numbers. Nothing.
   
   The downside (or upside?) of a Tox client is that you cannot send a 
   person a message if they are not also running their Tox client. There
   is also no group video chat, or as far as I am aware. Some clients
   have more features than others.
   
   Tox clients: https://tox.chat/clients.html
   
   There are more clients for Android and iOS, but for some reason, this
   site does not list them. Though to be fair, running FOSS on a 
   proprietary, telemetry [spyware] infested, operating system is better
   than the alternative, but still kind of "sucky."

4. Decentralized social networks. These sites have been popping-up all
   over the place within the last five or so year. Mastodon is a good
   Twitter alternative. PeerTube can be used to upload videos. Pixelfed
   instead of Instagram. Lemmy instead of Reddit. Gilgamesh instead of
   Twitch.
   
   The point of a decentralized network is for example, if Twitter goes
   down or your account gets removed, there only other option would be
   to find an alternative or quit using Twitter. However, services like
   Mastodon have several servers with their own rules and such. If
   Mastodon.social went down, though if it did, something is horribly
   wrong, you can just migrate to another server. It will be a different
   address, but it is built using the same stuff and your followers, if
   on other servers, would still have copies of your posts. In other 
   words, decentralized social networks are the ultimate free speech
   platforms.
   
   However, do not get let these "free and open-source" platforms get
   jumbled up with logical fallacies like "privacy" and "security." Yes,
   anyone can look at and improve source code for most of these sites,
   but better security does not mean better privacy, though it so when
   put the other way around. For example, Mastodon has good security
   but privacy... maybe not. You can do things like try to make it so 
   that only followers can see these your posts and even have it so 
   that you have to approve people before they can follow you and hide
   your followers and who your are following from the general public,
   but the problem is if someone is following you using a different 
   server (aka "instance") than the one you are using, than that
   instance's server gets a copy and now you not only have to trust
   the instance you signed up with but now potentially 20 or more of 
   them if you have followers from all over the place. It is sort of 
   like Blockchain in that a decentralized social network takes away 
   your right to be forgotten and yet, you are only as strong as you 
   weakest link. Free speech: yes. Privacy: sort of. 
   
   Though, it is still better than letting Shitter, Facefarm, or Goolag 
   have your posts. The maintainers would sell their grandmother's data
   if they could; actually, you know what, they probably do. I really
   doubt anyone at Twitter hq said "Ok employees, give us a list of 
   those whose data we cannot collect and sell." I doubt it very much.

5. VoIP. You probably use this all the time in one variation or another
   and don't even realize it, even if you have a "dumb" phone.
   
6. Pigeon post. Yeah... not a whole lot to say about this other than
   Pigeons crap everywhere and is a very unrealistic option. The homing 
   pigeon can be used to send messages attached to their feet for up to 
   about 1,100 miles in rare cases with about 600 miles as the top 
   average at speeds of anywhere between 60-100 miles per hour and this 
   "technology" has been used since about 3000 BCE. You basically raise 
   a homing pigeon, which is usually a mix of domestic pigeons and rock 
   doves, within a certain area. You then take a few with you within a 
   cage to wherever you are traveling to and when you want to send a 
   message back home, you release one of the pigeons with a message 
   attached and they somehow know how to find their way back.

7. Smoke signals. Ok, so we are getting to some ridiculous stuff at this
   point. But let's say you built a really huge and long wall to keep
   out an invasion. How in the world are you going to let everyone know
   about an approaching army? About every so many miles, you setup a
   fire pit of sorts that can be easily seen by the next person down
   the length of the wall and then everyone that sees a fire on the
   wall, lights theirs. You can even set it up so that different color
   smokes mean different things. Have you ever wondered where the idea
   of using glow sticks at airports came from? People have been using
   a pair torches to create messages over medium distances since about 
   150 BCE. Colored smoke is used to represent the selection of a new 
   Pope. Special smoke grenades are used in combat to mark areas for 
   airplanes and helicopters. Smoke is used in emergency situations to 
   signal for help.

8. Sound in general. People have been blowing horns to signal
   all sorts of things since the beginning of time. Bells are typically
   used to signal some sort of church or royal event, as well as your
   classic homestead situation in which someone's mom is also screaming
   "SUPER IS READY!" Whistles are typically used in herding situations
   or by life guards and annoying referees. However, the bullroarer,
   which produces a much lower sound, is used to signal all sorts of 
   things. Drums are usually used for ceremonial reasons, war, or more
   currently, for entertainment such as the great Neil Peart. Bagpipes,
   though also now essentially used as instruments, were actually 
   originally designed to scare the crap out of enemies during battles.
   If you have never heard one in real life, they are MUCH louder than
   you think. If I saw a bunch of dudes running towards me with swords, 
   skirts with no underwear, painted faces, and bagpipes, I would would 
   be scared too.
   
9. Symbols and steganography. Though I wouldn't condone actual 
   vandalism, I am referring to things like cave paintings, carvings in
   trees, stacking stones, and things of that nature. And just because
   something looks like art doesn't necessarily mean that is all it is
   as it could be a form of steganography. This is when you conceal a
   message within another message. People typically do this on computers
   using JPEG images to embed another file. You can also use an image
   format like GIF that indexes its colors so that when changing one of
   the colors (typically black) to another, another image or message
   appears. But because most people only use GIF for animations (89a)
   instead of still images (87a) and are also using JPEG or PNG, hardly
   anyone outside of retro-computing thinks about color indexing 
   anymore.
   
   Bonus: If you've ever wondering how older console games could have
   animated waterfalls without taking up much space, all that was is the
   colors being indexed and then changed to give the appearance of an
   animation. The famous, 3D, bouncing Amiga ball uses this technique
   too.
   
9. Seance. Ummmm.... yeah.... no....

 __
/   _ __ __  _ __  _|--- |  o __  _    _|_ __ o  _  |  _
\__(_)||||||(_|| |(_|    |  | | |(/_    |_ |  | (_  |<_>

[Command-line Tricks]


Once per day free SMS message:
-----------------------------
curl -X POST https://textbelt.com/text \
--data-urlencode phone='5555555555' \
--data-urlencode message='Hello world' \
-d key=textbelt
       
curl -X POST 'https://smallsms.app/text' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \
--data-urlencode 'phone=4444444444' \
--data-urlencode 'message=Welcome to smallSMS!' \
--data-urlencode 'key=smallsms'

If just interested in command-line notes in general, feel free to
check out https://gitlab.com/TheOuterLinux/Command-Line.