U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#171

Post by mopsi » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

scarejunba wrote: post #168

mopsi wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather have everyone who can afford a car drive around without any oversight? Building Code for websites is something I would be willing to support, e.g. no plain-text password storage allowed.

Meanwhile, the reality of building code: User must rotate their password every 7 days or be locked out pending in-person approval. The software must enforce this restriction while allowing a two-hour grace period on days when daylight savings changes. You: this is retarded and anti-security. Them: the lawyers are on their way. Stay put.

The building codes I am familiar with (fire alarm systems) are completely sane "best practice" guides.

I recently renovated a 1950s building, among other things I designed and wired a fire alarm system from scratch, and passed inspection on first attempt. The building code gave very valuable pointers: what kind of cables should I use, how zones should be wired, how many sensors I should have, how they should be placed, how long backup batteries should last, etc.

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#172

Post by the8472 » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

jonfw wrote: post #135

dependenttypes wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of data ownership is a very anti-freedom/pro-copyright concept.

With such a shallow view of freedom, physical property ownership is a very anti-freedom concept as well, is it not? Ownership of a house is an infringement on the freedoms of other poeple who want to live there? Intellectual property is no different than any other sort of property. The right to own property is invaluable, and serves the purpose of maximizing freedoms in the long run.

Ill-gotten goods can be confiscated.

The same for knowledge would involve lobotomies.

Would you please hold still for a moment?

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#173

Post by acollins1331 » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #136

What's missing here is the ability to ERASE all of your data from any service at your desired level of granularity. In other words, I ought to be able to tell Facebook to only keep a one month history on me and truly delete everything else, including from backups. If I want a 100% erase of everything, I should be able to get that too. It should be a simple single button operation with suitable confirmation. Perhaps I…

They don't want that. They want to be able to ping facebook and get a universally readable source of everything about you.

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#174

Post by beatpanda » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

Haha, remember more than a decade ago when we all thought that interoperability was more profitable, and that everything would just naturally tend toward open standards? Wow. We were all just stupid?

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#175

Post by beatpanda » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #103

buboard wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wonder what caused them to limit their platforms so much.

A mixture of bad tech legislation, concerns over Russian interference, and good old-fashioned anti-competitive tendencies. Having itself supplanted MySpace, Facebook is in a good position to see how easy data-exports can help competitors supplant a dominant company. 3rd-party clients are also a good way to remove ads and tracking, which is obviously not in Twitter or Facebook's best financial interest.

This fight is much older than that. If you want to get sad, read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FriendFeed

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#176

Post by beatpanda » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

koalaman wrote: post #113

Alex3917 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook already has a data export feature. No it doesn't. It doesn't have the phone numbers or email addresses for the vast majority of people, even the ones who have their email address and phone number in their profile.

Facebook's argument that this data actually belongs to the friends and not the profile that's being exported, while convenient for Facebook, has to be acknowledged as a reasonable point of view on this matter.

Their argument doesn't hold up under the slightest amount of scrutiny. You can go to your friends' pages and manually extract their email or other contact information. If it's visible to you, its because your friend made a decision to make that information visible. They designed the data export tool that way knowing that the main thing someone trying to leave Facebook wants is contact information for their friends that they may only know how to reach on Facebook.

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#177

Post by mffnbs » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

xkde wrote: post #95

At this point, if Facebook wasn’t public and I was Zuckerberg, I’d wind down the company and update the home page to simply read, “I’m leaving it as I found it. Take over. It’s yours.”

I always used the analogy of a message board that I put in my yard. If people start dictating that I need to display the nazi graffiti someone spray painted on it, I'm just going to remove the damn board.

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#178

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

mopsi wrote: post #171

scarejunba wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, the reality of building code: User must rotate their password every 7 days or be locked out pending in-person approval. The software must enforce this restriction while allowing a two-hour grace period on days when daylight savings changes. You: this is retarded and anti-security. Them: the lawyers are on their way. Stay put.

The building codes I am familiar with (fire alarm systems) are completely sane "best practice" guides. I recently renovated a 1950s building, among other things I designed and wired a fire alarm system from scratch, and passed inspection on first attempt. The building code gave very valuable pointers: what kind of cables should I use, how zones should be wired, how many sensors I should have, how they should be place…

Unfortunately a lot of FIPS is more like the contrived absurd example.

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#179

Post by droithomme » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

Maybe they can handle this like the phone number portability rules. All internet users will be charged a $5 or so monthly "social media portability tax" which will then be distributed to these 100 million+ user companies to help pay for the cost of maintaining the portability systems.

Re: U.S. senators want social media users to be able to take their data with them

#180

Post by snagglegaggle » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

mopsi wrote: post #171

scarejunba wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, the reality of building code: User must rotate their password every 7 days or be locked out pending in-person approval. The software must enforce this restriction while allowing a two-hour grace period on days when daylight savings changes. You: this is retarded and anti-security. Them: the lawyers are on their way. Stay put.

The building codes I am familiar with (fire alarm systems) are completely sane "best practice" guides. I recently renovated a 1950s building, among other things I designed and wired a fire alarm system from scratch, and passed inspection on first attempt. The building code gave very valuable pointers: what kind of cables should I use, how zones should be wired, how many sensors I should have, how they should be place…

You say you are familiar with building codes. But have you ever tried to build or renovate a building?

Some areas are okay. Others are not. The issue is not so much building codes, although there are definitely codes that e.g. push specific products from specific vendors and other shenanigans, but the approval process that gives the local authority unlimited time to mess with you for any reason.

There is, I think, a single US state that puts reasonable limits on project authorization, but I can't remember which it is.

All in all, doing anything with real property opens you up to just having your money taken by the government and lawyers while accomplishing nothing.