@gaazkam attackers don't try MitM because of TLS, there's why the number of real attacks are so low.

@nobody Does WhatsApp do it?

Well, whatsapp uses signal's protocol for encryption, so, yes

Oh

Thanks

Actually, turns out Google Messages is using the signal protocol too

Ah, I got sidetracked

Regarding an explanation of schizophrenia:

> You know how sometimes you sit on the bus and someone walks by you, and you think "If he would have grabbed my phone and just ran away, there is nothing I could have done.", right? We all randomly create these hypothetical scenarios. But for someone with schizophrenia, they can't differentiate between a fictional hypothetical and something that actually happened.

> So they become distressed, thinking someone had actually stolen their phone, while still holding their phone in their hand. When they then realize that their phone is in their hand, cognitive dissonance occurs - on one hand, they believe their phone has been robbed. On the other hand, they're holding their phone (literally).

> Their mind bridges this gap by altering the schizophrenic "fantasy" further, including something like "So, he tried to rob me, but I fought him off!", so they can keep this belief alive. They then may proudly exclaim to their family how they were getting robbed today, but they fought the attacker off. And you may think they're lying, and objectively, they are, but due to their mental illness, they themselves are not aware that what they're telling doesn't correspond to real-life events.

@MechMK1 That's not representative of all "flavors" of schizophrenia. That's describing a pretty severe case. The trouble is that schizophrenia is a wide spectrum of similar but different troubles. There are not "one" schizophrenia, but many.

@A.Hersean Correct, just like autism

Yeah

It's just one explanation I've heard, and it serves more to allow someone with no experience with the topic what it might be like to be schizophrenic, rather than serve as a diagnosis guide

Think of it of an equivalent of "This is what a colorblind person sees" pictures

A psychologist once severely simplified schizophrenia while explaining it to me like this: a schizophrenic person is someone who does not perceive the world as it is, their perception of reality is distorted. This distortion can be mild to severe, and can take many forms, like paranoïa.

That's a bit of a broad explanation.

But yes, it's true.

Another thing that can occur during schizophrenic episodes is believing that everybody is talking about you, just barely not loud enough for others to hear

If a person recognizes that they are schizophrenic, can convince themselves to accept reality?

@nobody The trouble is not for them to accept reality, but to perceive it.

Yeah, but can't they think like (continuing Mech's example) "I still have my phone, and everybody around me is sitting calmly, so I must have been imagining stuff, specially since I know I'm schizophrenic"?

@nobody You can know you are paranoid or that the voices you hear comes from your mind, that does not prevent you from seeing clues that a conspiracy is after you and that does not stop the voices from speaking.

So, in other words, schizophrenic people cannot recognize their schizophrenia? In that case, I truly pity them.

Or continuing the example: you must have imagined your phone being stolen, but still, it did happen, you know it. And it did not happen, because you imagined it, you know it too. You know that 2 different and opposite things are both true.

Oh, damn, that would be confusing

You cannot trust anyone else because you are paranoid, and you cannot trust yourself either

I once saw an interview of a psychiatrist that had a patient that was seeing snakes everywhere. Once, on a whim, she brought a real snake. The patient was even more afraid, because this one was real. He always could tell that his imaginary snakes were not real, but at the same time they were very real for him and he described them as such.

A sickness of the consciousness is truly devastating.

Essentially, the machine you use to perceive reality and make basic logic deductions breaks, and you never know when it breaks.

Then can you ever know for certain that yours isn't broken?

Go see a psychologist. They will tell you.

Also, everybody is slightly broken in some ways. Nobody's perfect.

update from the Brazilian serial killer: he got captured, and killed... if I had made that bet, I would have won.