Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 219 posts

Re: Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

#181

Post by tafle »

vaporstun wrote: post #107
endlessvoid94 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a facebook account without an email address?

In my opinion, this is one of the most interesting questions on here. Facebook's default method of identification is and always has been (since thefacebook.com times) an email address. If they are launching their own email client, it will be silly for them to require you to provide them with another email address in order to use their site. How will they authenticate people? Or they won't and there will be a ton of s…

Mobile verification, I would think. I believe gmail already requires this for new accounts.

Re: Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

#182

Post by tlack »

sorbus wrote: post #163
sasidharm wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you already trust Google with your email, then it cant be that bad.

Google doesn't have a tendency to change their privacy policy and intentionally release private information, while Facebook does. [EDIT: Changed "the" to "their," and "rules" to "policy," as this makes my sentence both look better and more accurate.]

When you say "intentionally" are you referring to the recent UID leaks? If anything Facebook is doing more to protect user privacy now with their "no exporting your friends email" policies.

Re: Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

#183

Post by philfreo »

ErrantX wrote: post #86
gojomo wrote: post #28

If @facebook.com email addresses have a stronger link to real, non-spammy, non-mass-produced identities than other domains, they could become preferred at many other sites -- a broader version of Facebook Connect.

Setting up fake Facebook accounts is trivial. Sure, not as easy, perhaps, as some of the spammier email providers. But if the domain gets that much good karma it would be worth the effort...

Actually - it's not. To interact with other users in a significant way they have CAPTCHAS to fill out - unless you confirm your account via a mobile phone SMS (which can only be used 1-to-1).

Re: Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

#184

Post by pyre »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #167
sasidharm wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you already trust Google with your email, then it cant be that bad.

I feel increasingly uncomfortable using GMail but I still think Google is a step up from Facebook.

Yea. It's too bad that Amazon's cloud is black-listed from most major email providers.

Re: Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

#185

Post by pyre »

raganwald wrote: post #85
TomasSedovic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he means it the other way: e-mail addresses ending with facebook.com could signal "this is a genuine person, not a spammer".

Yes! It may be easy to spoof outside of Facebook, but internally FB routes it's own emails, so when you use Titan to read a message from another Titan email address, Facebook can show you thatbit's genuine, Spammers can create shell accounts, but they can't friend you, so when you receive email from someone you don't know, Facebook can shown you their friends list and public profile, or use that to prioritize your in…

Soo... basically whitelisting functionality. Something that we've had for a long time. Only this is automatic since people are (hopefully) more diligent about their Facebook friends list than their Gmail/Hotmail/Outlook address book.

Re: Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

#186

Post by moultano »

swombat wrote: post #114
ErrantX wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting up fake Facebook accounts is trivial. Sure, not as easy, perhaps, as some of the spammier email providers. But if the domain gets that much good karma it would be worth the effort...

1) Facebook can build a simple API which, given an email, tells you the trust rating of that person. "To sign up to this service you need a Facebook trust rating of 10 or more" 2) Emails from facebook can include the trust rating too. How to get the trust rating? That's exactly what social networks are: networks of trust. Pick some obvious trustworthy nodes to start, expand from there with diminishing trust as you ge…

Make a fake profile with an image of a hot girl. Send out friend requests to random men. Done. This is not hard to automate.

Re: Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

#187

Post by sasidharm »

sorbus wrote: post #171
alexgartrell wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Buzz?

My understanding of that was that the individual in question (was there more than one person?) clicked through confirmation screens without looking at them, assuming that everything would be okay. It is not Google's fault when users are idiots. However, I may be wrong; I only recall one instance of this happening with Buzz, and may simply have missed other ones. Other times when google violated privacy which I rememb…

Google is not evil by nature (though i have my own doubts) and Facebook is also not evil by nature. Facebook simply has a different philosophy on _sharing_. They believe that people should share everything and be more social. If this is not something people are not comfortable with, then those people have no business in signing up for facebook and complaining that everything is shared by default. As far as Google's privacy 'glitches' are concerned, in my experience bugs make it into production accidentally. But pieces of code that are developed specifically to sample wifi packets that might contain sensitive data or code that exposes all my email contacts to the entire world do not make into production accidentally.

Re: Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

#188

Post by psadauskas »

chopsueyar wrote: post #118
sp4rki wrote: post #32

I've always thought that Facebook could make a real difference by becoming a central hub to control your "persona" or identity so to speak. Facebook could integrate with every other service and app under the sun, and users would not require to input information (any more then their Facebook uri) to register for anything. Instead they're trying to undercut Google by keeping them out of the 'shared data' agreement and…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_%28online_service%29 Is MySpace dead? Prodigy is, so is kozmo.com, and broadcast.com. My money is on Amazon. No other network has as many users associated with credit cards as Amazon, as well as written reviews by 'authorized' users.

I've long wondered why Amazon doesn't have a authentication service, like Facebook and Twitter. Seems like it would be really useful for startups based on EC2.

Re: Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

#189

Post by joezydeco »

sasidharm wrote: post #161
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #110

Zuckerberg is absolutely the man I want to trust with my e-mail.

If you already trust Google with your email, then it cant be that bad.

I trust I can read my gMail over SSL without someone firesheeping me. Can I do that with Facebook right now?

Re: Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

#190

Post by alexophile »

brandnewlow wrote: post #158
look_lookatme wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trotsky has lots of upvotes because he or she managed rev the Hacker News Facebook Hate Machine with a bit of humor.

Can we get a trademark on the HNFHM?

We would need to establish a bona fide intent to use it for commerce, although it does seem like there's a strong market for facebook hating...

On a semi-related note, the reasoning for that is actually quite interesting - the justification stems from the congressional power to regulate commerce between states.

Post reply on HN