| Category | CryptPad | Nextcloud |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Purpose | Encrypted collaborative office suite | Private cloud storage and collaboration platform |
| Self-hosting | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Hosted Option | ✅ Yes (cryptpad.fr and others) | ✅ Yes (nextcloud.com or third-party providers) |
| End-to-End Encryption | ✅ Default for all content (zero-knowledge encryption) | 🔶 Partial (not default, limited to client-side encryption app and some external tools) |
| Zero-Knowledge Server | ✅ Yes | 🔴 No (admin/server can access unencrypted content unless encryption is explicitly enabled) |
| Default Encryption Scope | ✅ All documents, messages, and files are encrypted end-to-end | 🔶 Optional encryption, limited in scope (E2EE not applied to calendars, contacts, search, etc.) |
| User Authentication | ✅ Pseudonymous accounts possible; no email required | ✅ Full user management; integration with LDAP, SSO, etc. |
| Account Recovery | 🔴 Not possible without backup keys | ✅ Password reset and admin recovery options |
| Document Types | ✅ Rich suite: Rich text, code, markdown, kanban, whiteboard, poll, slideshow, spreadsheet | ✅ Rich suite via Collabora, OnlyOffice, Text, Markdown, Draw.io, etc. |
| File Sync & Storage | 🔶 Limited: some file upload support | ✅ Full file sync (desktop & mobile), sharing, versioning, previews |
| Collaborative Editing | ✅ Yes (real-time) | ✅ Yes (via plugins like Collabora or OnlyOffice integration) |
| Chat & Messaging | ✅ Built-in encrypted chat | ✅ Built-in Talk app (not end-to-end encrypted by default) |
| Calendar & Contacts | 🔴 No | ✅ Yes (CalDAV, CardDAV support) |
| Federation | 🔴 No | ✅ Yes (federated sharing across instances) |
| Offline Access | 🔴 No | ✅ Yes (via mobile apps and desktop sync clients) |
| Mobile Apps | 🔶 Limited mobile usability via browser | ✅ Full-featured iOS and Android apps |
| Plugins & Extensibility | 🔴 Not extensible; limited to included tools | ✅ Highly extensible: large app ecosystem |
| Granular Permissions | ✅ Share per-document, read/write settings | ✅ Granular permissions per file/folder, group access controls |
| Audit Logs | 🔴 No | ✅ Yes (with Audit Log app) |
| Data Residency Control | ✅ Full control if self-hosted | ✅ Full control if self-hosted |
| Third-Party App Access | 🔴 No (privacy-first: closed system) | ✅ Yes (API, OAuth, WebDAV, etc.) |
| Security Design Philosophy | 🟢 Maximum privacy, minimal trust—even the server can’t read your data | 🟡 Flexible sharing and access with admin and plugin extensibility, but less private by default |
| Compliance | 🔶 GDPR-friendly, but limited enterprise features | ✅ GDPR, HIPAA (with setup), enterprise features |
| Codebase | ✅ Open source (AGPLv3) | ✅ Open source (AGPLv3) |
Category: risk management
During the past two weeks, I’ve enjoyed rich conversations with some creative, insightful friends—introverts all. As an introvert with many interests, I can occupy myself with research and other projects for weeks on end without feeling the need to engage directly with others beyond my wife. A few years ago I became more aware of research finding introverts, to be optimally healthy, need to deliberately cultivate regular social interaction with others. We can do this without violating our other needs. Introversion entails both health boosters and detractors. On the downside, according to Laurie Helgoe, Ph.D., introverts
- may experience more stress in social situations or even when thinking about social situations and avoiding social opportunities may erode health
- be more realistic about negative realities or fixate on them, presenting more opportunities for negative moods or depression
- may be less emotionally adaptable to open or crowded living or working environments (introverts tend to prefer living in less populated areas where they can be outdoors without being crowded, as in many mountainous areas)
- may not benefit as much from fitness and other activities that are organized to emphasize socialization (think Cross Fit or many other popular fitness programs)
- may have less effective immune systems, though the effect is small
- may require more time and effort to think through decision scenarios (possibly due to the denser gray matter in their brains)
- are more easily aroused by sensory stimuli, which can make them seek situations with less stimulation
- may avoid risk-taking, which can have positive and negative effects (they’re unlikely to become gambling addicts but are also more likely to miss significant opportunities that require them to take chances)
- may ignore negative health indicators and delay speaking with health care providers about potential health issues
- may experience slower situational comprehension and response times in loud environments or situations with intensified sounds or urgency signals, such as when exposed to alarms, vehicle horns, or other people yelling commands (think of the spate of recent episodes of police excessive force against people the claim were not obeying their screamed orders)
Regarding the last point above, an introvert friend worries she’ll not be capable of understanding the screamed commands of a threatening policeman and will be arrested, injured, or even killed because of it. There is probably a clinical or technical name for such a temporary inability to process language. I’m unaware of any law enforcement training specifically addressing this issue. If you know more about it, please post a comment.
If you’re not sufficiently concerned about people using AI tools to create convincing fake audio and video, now the Computer Vision Lab at Nottingham University has developed an AI system capable of creating fairly accurate 3D faces from single photographs. I uploaded one of my own to the demo tool and a few seconds later it produced the following model (a GIF of captured screen video of me rotating the 3D model):
Imagine what AI can do with multiple images and videos of you (from your social media posts, mobile phone’s images and videos library, surveillance images, etc.). Among other possible take-aways is the need for vigilance and cynicism. If you see or hear something in digital media (online or in media sent to you via email, IM, etc.) that is too terrible, wonderful or just shocking to be true, it probably isn’t. For now, at least, it’s still possible to detect forged media (and fake news, but you probably don’t want to) but soon it will require AI tools to spot the work of other AI tools and we’ll then have to decide which AIs to believe. The make/detect forgeries arms race is accelerating.
Okay, still smarting from me suggesting you may not want to detect when the news you enjoy and agree with is fake? Check out the following video and exercise your media literacy by researching cognitive biases.
Related links (interesting examples of cognitive bias and trolling in many of the comments)
- https://www.ipscommons.sg/fake-news-mind-traps/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XGTTKJJsEw
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkqZfHOvbE
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Brain imaging research indicates some aspects of individual political orientation correlate significantly with the mass and activity of particular brain structures including the right amygdala and the insula. This correlation may derive in part from genetics, but is also influenced by environment and behavior.
“there’s a critical nuance here. Schreiber thinks the current research suggests not only that having a particular brain influences your political views, but also that having a particular political view influences and changes your brain. The causal arrow seems likely to run in both directions—which would make sense in light of what we know about the plasticity of the brain. Simply by living our lives, we change our brains. Our political affiliations, and the lifestyles that go along with them, probably condition many such changes.”
Thanks to member, Edward, for recommending this article: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/brain-difference-democrats-republicans
In a similar vein, Bob Altemeyer conducted and reported on some seminal social science research and theory on political dispositions. See http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/. Note the free book link on the left.
Given the increasing license commercial (and non-profit) internet-based services take with our private data, it becomes increasingly important to pay attention to user agreements and privacy policies. It’s challenging enough to read those legalistic tomes once, much less keep track of their frequent changes. Reputable companies and organizations will automatically notify customers and members of changes to policies, but many include clauses relieving them of change notification responsibility. I could find no federal law holding them accountable to secure your acknowledgment of such changes.
Some years ago I found Change Detection, a free web service that allows you to monitor changes to the text content on any publicly accessible (no login) web page. I’ve used it to monitor changes to the user agreements and privacy notices (nearly always public pages) of the services and products I use. When the text on a monitored page changes, Change Detection sends me an email message that identifies the target page and shows exactly how it has changed. This relieves me of the burden of manually monitoring those policies. Change Detection automates the parts of change monitoring that humans perform poorly at—remembering and following through on tedious, boring tasks.
Two promising energy technologies received press coverage recently. The University of Bristol developed a process for capturing the radioactivity from nuclear wastes into diamonds, thereby stabilizing and reducing the risks associated with waste from fission reactors while also creating batteries that have no moving parts, are safe to handle, and have a productive life of at least 5,000 years.
First, the University of Bristol developed a process for capturing the radioactivity from nuclear wastes into diamonds, thereby stabilizing and reducing the risks associated with waste from fission reactors while also creating batteries that have no moving parts, are safe to handle, and have a productive life of at least 5,000 years.
Second, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) developed a highly efficient process for converting CO2 to ethane, which can be used to store energy generated by renewable sources (wind, solar, etc.). A much greater benefit could be derived if this technology were combined with atmospheric CO2 extractors. DOE claims it has the potential to draw atmospheric CO2 level down to an environmentally safe level.
In both cases, the technologies will have to surmount hurdles before the large-scale implementation that would be needed to have significant positive impacts.
Also, for their benefits to transfer globally, such publicly-funded technologies must remain under public ownership and control. Licensing the non-exclusive use of technologies could be a way for governments to shift part of the burden of revenue generation away from general taxation, which would doubly benefit citizens. For universities, non-exclusive licensing could build endowments to fund additional research and breakthroughs. Unfortunately, government- and university-developed innovations with potential to mitigate public health and other existential dilemmas often end up in the hands of private corporations that then set the costs of products and services too high for the broader benefits of the breakthrough to be realized.
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