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living-without-discord.md (12065B)

 # living without Discord
 <!--[time 201909201455.27]-->
 
 (okay, it's easy, and I've done it before. but since the E-mail thread
 on the matter generated a lot of attention, I figured it was appropriate
 to give some context in more of a prose format, as well as what I have
 done to remain as a member in some communities in which I participate.)
 
 a quick chronological recap of my Discord usage:
 
 * **<time datetime="2017-01-09">2017 Jan 09</time>**: I create a new
   account on Discord, after having left it for a while due to being fed
   up with the guilds I joined at the time. they were communities around
   a video game I play, Agario, and quickly I figured out that I would
   much rather play the game than get into drama within specific player
   groups. by 2017 I was using Discord mostly to keep up with Twitch
   communities and a variety of other video games, software projects (why
   they choose Discord for their projects is beyond me), and various
   communities.
 * **<time datetime="2018-07-01">2018 Jul 01</time>**: I E-mail Discord
   support because I started receiving reCAPTCHAs upon login, not for
   Tor, but for using my VPS' IP address which has never been a vector
   for abusive traffic nor has been blacklisted during my ownership of
   the address:
 
   > Today I set up TOTP two-factor authentication for Discord, hoping I
   > could remove the E-mail confirmation and the reCAPTCHA for login. I had
   > to switch to a VPN IP address just now because my ISP has been unable
   > to resolve certain websites lately, including Discord, and so the
   > reCAPTCHA is giving me trouble and asking me to fill in a LOT of
   > captchas even though I'm sure I'm getting them right. I assume the IP
   > address I'm currently using is "high risk" in Google's database, but I
   > can't really help it.
   > 
   > I don't have all night to fill these out just to check up on the chats
   > I'm in, so can you please care to explain why this extra step is
   > necessary for an otherwise-protected account? Other sites such as
   > NameCheap let me bypass CAPTCHA check if I set up two-factor.
 
   Discord's response stated, <q>Right now, enabling 2FA on your account
   will help you bypass the change in IP address emails for Discord,
   however if we suspect suspicious activity you could still be flagged
   with a Captcha.</q> I can't fairly say that I was ever suspect for
   <q>suspicious activity</q> but regardless, Discord said they would
   <q>pass [my] idea</q> along. to this day, it seems their login
   mechanism has been untouched.
 * **<time datetime="2018-10-04">2018 Oct 04</time>**: yet another
   reCAPTCHA incident:
 
   > I want to use Firefox to access Discord now, but the reCAPTCHA is
   > endless and keeps telling me I have failed and that my browser is
   > sending automated queries. It continues to do this even if I allow all
   > cookies and scripts on the page (I use an addon to whitelist these for
   > security), and even if I disable any proxies and use my real IP
   > address. Audio reCAPTCHA tells me I need to try again later as well
   > (which seems unfair to blind users). As I have stated before, I have
   > two-factor authentication which should be enough to let me log in.
 
   Discord would not waive their CAPTCHA requirement even still, and I
   had to work around by <q>[l]ogging in from another browser, logging
   out, and then logging in from Firefox</q>. as you can hopefully see by
   now, I have a lot of problems simply with their login process, even
   before my full use of Tor on the site.
 * **<time datetime="2019-08-15">2019 Aug 15</time>**: after a long
   period of Tor usage, working around the CAPTCHA issues by simply
   waiting not to be served one upon login (and then proceeding *never*
   to clear Discord cookies) I invite a user on my <q>friends</q> list to
   a guild I had just created. almost instantly, this triggered a phone
   verification prompt, which I could not bypass by using the mobile app
   or another browser, even without Tor. this was not the first invite
   I've sent to someone in my Discord contacts with Tor. the only
   difference I can see is that my guild was less than a week old, but it
   already had a few members from a public invite I sent in another
   channel.
 
   you can see that E-mail exchange in [my previous post] [].
 * **<time datetime="2019-08-16">2019 Aug 16</time>**: at least Discord
   is a step above many other companies, letting me delete my account
   without having login access to it. I was able to initiate the deletion
   process over a support E-mail, and two weeks later, the account has
   officially been deleted. people on Discord have confirmed that my
   account has disappeared from the user listings.
 * **now**: I am able to participate in certain guilds without the need
   for a Discord account. I'll explain below.
 
 [my previous post]: </blog/guess-im-done-with-discord.xht> "guess I'm done with Discord"
 
 ----
 
 the E-mail exchange between me and Discord ended up on [Hacker News] []
 to which it received a lot of attention, including that of a Discord
 developer who claims that <q>code [his] team wrote caused [my] account
 to be locked.</q> some misconceptions surfaced that I would like to
 address:
 
 * yes, the tone for my E-mails was very blunt. I never degenerate to
   this stage unless I am repeatedly dealing with someone's issues. it
   seems to be the only way people will listen sometimes. I know E-mail
   etiquette but I will not pretend to be something I am not, no matter
   the medium. I am aware that customer service representatives have to
   deal with a lot of shit on a regular basis, which is why I never gear
   my frustrations to the representatives themselves, but instead to the
   company they represent (except in some odd cases where the
   representative is legitimately braindead, which hasn't been the case
   for Discord).
 * some (now dead/flagged) comments suggested the usual: that I was a
   criminal for using Tor, that I should use a VPN, that I was attacking
   Discord even though I believe my initial blog post on the matter was
   impartial, that Tor traffic somehow happened to kill their parents and
   rape their kids, et cetera. I commented in the discussion already,
   that I use Tor to encourage privacy awareness on the Internet. it's
   less out of my own necessity for privacy (I use a normal Web browser
   configured with a proxy and whatever privacy/security/anti-nuisance
   tweaks I wished to include, rather than opting for Tor Browser. I
   would still suggest Tor Browser for near-absolute anonymity at the
   software level) and more to prove a point that yes, Tor is usable on
   the Web, and yes, there is legitimate Tor traffic, especially from
   censored countries and ISPs. the fact that Tor also attracts nefarious
   usage is unfortunate yet unavoidable. people *need* to find other ways
   of addressing issues inherent with the Internet.
 * the Discord employee himself suggested I purchase a burner phone for
   the purpose of verifying my account. does anyone else find this
   absurd? I didn't make a direct reply to him because I honestly was
   getting tired of following the HN discussion, but it's odd that
   developers know of ways around supplying a <q>legitimate</q> phone
   number and not only don't see them as an issue, but also actively
   encourage such practices.
 
   simply put, I will not pay any amount of money either directly or
   indirectly for Discord. phone verification should never be a
   requirement, either, since there are still people who only have
   landlines (which Discord's partner Twilio does not support) or who
   don't have a phone at all. and then there are the class of people who
   only need/want VoIP, which as I stated in another comment, I would
   eventually drop my cellular provider in favour of setting up a VoIP
   phone, and then just prepaying for a data SIM, using Wi-Fi most of the
   time. I believe this to be more cost-effective considering I want to
   go all-out on my home Internet when I'm able to live on my own, and
   given that the USA doesn't have a good choice of telcos, I can also
   avoid financing those companies.
 
 it isn't all bad, though. many people expressed agreement with me,
 stating such things as:
 
 * while I hadn't paid for the service, it wouldn't have made a
   difference even if I had paid e.g. for Nitro. others have complained
   that Nitro subscribers do not receive elevated customer service. one
   person stated that my mere presence on Discord helped to make it a
   more viable product (however small my individual impact) and in that
   way, I was actually <q>paying</q> Discord simply by using it and
   strengthening its network effect.
 * Twilio's phone database is too poor and outdated to be viable for
   verification, false-flagging users' phone numbers as VoIP when this is
   not the case. chalk up another one for <q>phone verification is
   awful</q>.
 * my tone in the support ticket was actually warranted (I was a bit
   surprised to hear others side with me on this).
 * various assertions that Discord doesn't care about its userbase, that
   reCAPTCHA is broken, … you know, painfully obvious things that some
   people simply live with rather than avoid them. it's understandable; I
   chose my own battles, and I will continue to use the Web in the manner
   that I do, just to prove a point that it is possible to take the Web
   back into my own hands.
 
 [Hacker News]: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20789799>
 
 ----
 
 shortly after I requested deletion of my Discord account, I had set up
 [Synapse] [] for the [Matrix] [] chat protocol, where my public instance
 now resides at <https://matrix.volatile.bz/>. but before you make an
 account on there, be warned that I provide zero guarantees for usability
 or uptime. while I personally do use it, I am looking into an
 alternative which would hopefully not use up so many resources and would
 be more performant. so far, most (or, more accurately, all) of the
 Matrix ecosystem is in a state of heavy development. personally I have
 little faith in Matrix's long-term success, but at least there are
 plenty of ways to bridge different other chat networks together,
 including Discord.
 
 since I could not generate an API key for Discord (I'd have to ask
 someone to do this on my behalf) and I simply did not want to run the
 [node.js bridging software] [matrix-appservice-discord] due to fear of
 running into issues with my already-limited resources, I settled for
 [t2bot] [], a public bridging service that bridges Telegram and Slack in
 addition to Discord. sure, there are some issues with relation to
 latency, but I believe this is justified by not having to hassle with
 running the software myself. and for that I thank TravisR for offering
 such a service. (you can [donate] [t2bot donation page] to keep his
 service alive if you wish.)
 
 this bridge now operates for the [BFBB Modding] [] guild, a community
 dedicated to dissecting and making mods for the 2003 console game
 *SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom*, a game I loved as a
 kid and would never have expected such a following to this day; as well
 as a small general chat guild for another community that disbanded
 recently. I was a moderator in the BFBB guild due to my efforts for
 hosting the game's wiki, and an administrator in the latter guild, which
 incidentally had to be recreated because I could no longer transfer
 ownership to another member. a third guild related to Minecraft
 advertised their Matrix bridge to me, so I am joined there as well. I am
 not sure whether the bridge existed already or if my departure from
 Discord prompted them to set up a bridge; in any case, it's cool that
 some other people see eye-to-eye with the issues Discord introduces to
 free, open chat.
 
 [Synapse]: <https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse>
 [Matrix]: <https://matrix.org/>
 [matrix-appservice-discord]: <https://github.com/Half-Shot/matrix-appservice-discord> "matrix-appservice-discord"
 [t2bot]: <https://t2bot.io/discord/>
 [t2bot donation page]: <https://t2bot.io/donations/>
 [BFBB Modding]: <https://battlepedia.org/>