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A Facebook Sixth Sense

kirszenberg.com

11–20 of 84 posts

Re: A Facebook Sixth Sense

#11
post #9

I used to have a rule in my ad blocker that blocked the typing notification and read notification from being sent. Both of which are features that I despise When typing a `POST https://www.facebook.com/ajax/messaging/typ.php?dpr=1` is sent for example.

Used to? Did you stop or does it no longer work? Was it as easy as adding that URL to your ad blocker blacklist?

Re: A Facebook Sixth Sense

#12
post #7

Fascinating article, and thanks for taking the time to research it and write up the results. This kind of thing makes me think that Facebook et al will eventually push for a way of having closed source client-side scripting.

Good for us that there is no such thing as closed source client side logic in web applications (without installing extensions/plugins). You can only obfuscate.

Re: A Facebook Sixth Sense

#13
post #9

I used to have a rule in my ad blocker that blocked the typing notification and read notification from being sent. Both of which are features that I despise When typing a `POST https://www.facebook.com/ajax/messaging/typ.php?dpr=1` is sent for example.

Used to? Did you stop or does it no longer work? Was it as easy as adding that URL to your ad blocker blacklist?

I've started using a bundled app for messenger.com so haven't looked into blocking them for that. Also use the mobile Messenger app a fair bit.

I'd like to switch away from the Facebook platform, but it's seriously difficult to convert people away from it.

Re: A Facebook Sixth Sense

#14
post #12
post #7

Fascinating article, and thanks for taking the time to research it and write up the results. This kind of thing makes me think that Facebook et al will eventually push for a way of having closed source client-side scripting.

Good for us that there is no such thing as closed source client side logic in web applications (without installing extensions/plugins). You can only obfuscate.

Not yet there isn't. But I can imagine it being made possible, in the same way as EME is allowing DRM on media.

Re: A Facebook Sixth Sense

#17

So, as a code example, fine---but I'd caution against actually using this with your friends unless you know they're okay with it. They will be acting under certain social expectations with regard to when and how people can see their typing notifications based on when and how they were able to see them before, and if you tweak your way into getting more access without your conversation partners knowing it beforehand,…

Thanks Dad.

Re: A Facebook Sixth Sense

#18

The same thing has been possible with Pidgin for ages - it opened the chat window automatically when a contact started typing.

It was definitely an option for AIM, and I believe it was an optional plugin rather than a default feature. I remember freaking out friends in high school :-)

Re: A Facebook Sixth Sense

#20

    I think the biggest biggest takeaway of this blog post 
    is how easy it is to hook into the code of a
    well-structured modern web application.
So does this mean that spaghettification of your web application code will work as a higher barrier to enter against these kind of clever workarounds?

Admittedly, writing spaghetti code will make the programmer feel miserable, but does it really deter people from hacking on your code?

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