The #geekproblem locks us into hardcoded #feudalism, power structures baked into the code itself, with server admins as kings, users as serfs. To break this, we need to build trust-based paths first and let security emerge from that, rather than bolting it on after the fact.
What actually needs to be secured?
- The account → If the instance isn’t secure, the account isn’t either.
- The activity feed → The flows need to be secured to prevent manipulation.
- The credit (data attribution) → Maybe hashing media objects?
But rather than obsessing over client-server security, we accept that trust must be social, not just cryptographic. #4opens keeps security honest, openness exposes flaws so they can be fixed.
The #encryptionists problem, is that they act like encryption is the solution to everything, but in reality, most people’s security is already broken at the device level, old phones, proprietary blobs, built by #dotcons. If you encrypt your messages, but the recipient’s device is compromised, what’s the point?
Open vs Closed
- Closed breeds monsters—plots happen in the dark, and truth is impossible to judge.
- Open exposes monsters—they might still exist, but they can be tripped up and countered.
The #Fediverse, #OMN, and #openweb need messy, trust-based networks, not fantasies of absolute control. Security isn’t about paranoia, it’s about transparency. The takeaway, we can’t solve security in a world where most people’s devices and networks are already compromised. Instead of a head-in-the-sand approach, we embrace the mess, trust the process, and build open systems that expose threats instead of pretending to eliminate them #KISS
Yes, it’s a feedback loop, geeks build the infrastructure of our digital world, but their worldview is trapped inside that same infrastructure. The #geekproblem is the inability to step outside their own frame of reference, even when the failures of their approach are pointed out hundreds of times over a decade.
They think in technical solutions to social problems, and because those solutions look logical to them, they assume the problem is fixed, even when it clearly isn’t. Worse, they don’t understand why people reject their fixes, so they blame the users, not their own blind spots.
What does the #geekproblem do?
- It pushes crossover left/right tech governance that lacks any grounding in real-world politics or social movements.
- It gets stuck in endless debates where nothing ever changes, because geeks can’t see what’s outside their own mental models.
- It defaults to #postmodernism, where everything is relative, nothing is real, and any attempt to define truth is dismissed as controlling “them”.
- It refuses to accept accountability because the tools they build don’t support it.
Example of the #geekproblem? We have already pointed to #indymedia, where geek-led decisions undermined the very social movements the tech was supposed to support. And we see it today in Fediverse governance, where geeks cling to process without understanding power.
The #4opens exposes these problems, but geeks still can’t see them. Why? Because openness forces social accountability, and geek culture resists that. The way forward? We need diverse voices in digital spaces, not just geek monocultures. The Fediverse, #OMN, and other #openweb projects need balance, geeks build the tools, but they shouldn’t be the ones defining the social governance of those tools.
So yeah, go round in circles with geeks all you want, but until they acknowledge there’s a problem, nothing changes. Instead of fighting them, we should be building outside their bubble, bringing in people who have some understanding of social processes, and making the #geekproblem a public discussion.
Because if they won’t see the problem, we’ll just have to work around them somehow, ideas please?
