New version of Joplin contacting Google servers on startup

[ajay]

@ralphcrew

Beyond just the reality of privacy, there is also the mental comfort level. Many people are paranoid, as they are not able to calculate the actual risk posed to them by Google data collection. They just want to feel safe. Sometimes feeling safe can also be very important. So, if it is assessed that Google server calls are not a substantial privacy risk, that assessment needs ideally to be available either in form of a pinned post or a section in the privacy policy. This will give people a ready reference each time they feel challenged on privacy aspects of Joplin. All this panic over Google server calls might just be down to lack of knowledge about how software works. People like me feel helpless in a software infused world, with no concrete idea what reasonable limits of something might be.

This very plausible, wonderful explanation can be demystified rapidly. Either you think that Bruce Schneier is a nut, and his blog is useless (that is why Senators invite him to report in Congress I assume), ... in this case your statement on paranoia and panic is a useful call to reason. Or Bruce (not to mention the enlightenment we got from the Snowden files) has many serious points to make. In this case your call to reason is simply ... completely useless. Everybody choose for herself.