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On the Twitter Hack

schneier.com

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Re: On the Twitter Hack

#51

Post by [deleted] »

basch wrote: post #33
stickfigure wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let's imagine Facebook/Twitter/etc was based on open protocols like SMTP... * You'd have the same spam and abuse problem that email has. * You'd have zero control over the information you post to it, just like email. There would be absolutely no way of stopping or even slowing down the Cambridge Analyticas of the world. "Ownership of your own social graph" is complete and utter nonsense. As soon as you share data…

>You'd have the same spam and abuse problem that email has. Don't you have that already, and they have anti spam measures? How would a facebook post coming from facebook or twitter change what they remove as spam?

[deleted]

Re: On the Twitter Hack

#52

Post by SyneRyder »

gargron wrote: post #11
tomphoolery wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mastodon servers aren't companies.

Some of them are, some are not, as an end-user you don't know and it doesn't matter for the argument: That's over 2,000 organizations providing a Twitter-like service.

In addition there's micro.blog, who seem to be doing okay with their paid-for Twitter-like micro blogging service. Though last time I looked in on it, they'd started interfacing with Mastodon as well.

Re: On the Twitter Hack

#53

Post by mc32 »

twox2 wrote: post #42
mc32 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason MSFT, GOOG, etc., have better security is because they have paying customers who have data to protect. So it behooves them to be proactive about security and to take it seriously.

I mean twitter has plenty of paying customers too? You don't just advertise on there for free.

The data there is quite different. The dependence is different. It’s one thing to have your ad account compromised, it’s a different thing to have your enterprise information compromised with the data of all your users and customers.

Re: On the Twitter Hack

#54

Post by ssivark »

auganov wrote: post #32
basch wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's other ways to deal with anti-trust besides breaking the companies apart. Data portability, interoperability, ownership of your own social graph. If these platforms were forced to act more like email, where leaving google for microsoft doesnt mean i can no longer contact my friends, the network effects that give them monopoly-like power diminish. Imagine how ridiculous email would feel if you need a gmail acco…

> "ownership of your own social graph" What would that mean? > If these platforms were forced to act more like email Who decides who's "following" who? Say I decide to use a competitor. Do I then get to "take" my Twitter followers and can still broadcast to them on Twitter from a different app? Under what conditions can Twitter block your activity? Either they will have to let a lot of spam in or they'll have to ban…

All this is actually worked out in some detail (search keywords federated/indie web). Check out the PubSub model, and the ActivityPub protocol as an example, and Mastodon as a working proof-of-concept.

As a starting point, imagine email & RSS and work forward from there. I'm not saying it's trivial, but it's also not insurmountable.

Re: On the Twitter Hack

#55

Post by valuearb »

“Those messages -- between world leaders, industry CEOs, reporters and their sources, heath organizations -- are much more valuable than bitcoin.“

If they had DN access, then those hackers were like a bumbling bank robbery gang who tunneled in during the medieval of night and ran off with all the pennies, leaving the paper money and safety deposit boxes unmolested.

Re: On the Twitter Hack

#56

Post by Aperocky »

valuearb wrote: post #55

“Those messages -- between world leaders, industry CEOs, reporters and their sources, heath organizations -- are much more valuable than bitcoin.“ If they had DN access, then those hackers were like a bumbling bank robbery gang who tunneled in during the medieval of night and ran off with all the pennies, leaving the paper money and safety deposit boxes unmolested.

Why would anyone message another on twitter with anything important though? Even if they really needed that contact info wouldn't they just use private messages to ask "what's your phone number"?

Re: On the Twitter Hack

#57

Post by bikeshaving »

stickfigure wrote: post #12
metalliqaz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very typical of the libertarian streak that underpins HN. I'm always a little turned off by this strange dominate-the-world culture out of SV. I come from a culture that valued open source and interoperable open standards. Where did my people go? Twitter is clearly and objectively a monopoly or in a duopoly with Facebook/Instagram. At my most charitable, I could include YouTube in the mix. But I'd still say m…

How exactly do you propose to split up Twitter? Split the userbase into 100 groups? Who goes in which group? And what happens when people want to switch groups... ultimately coalescing in a single node? Because, you know, network effects. I don't like Twitter either, so I don't use it. It's a really effective solution!

Rather than splitting up Twitter, what if we just stopped the constant process of acquiring and dismantling any company which dares to threaten the big tech companies. Vine should still be around.

Re: On the Twitter Hack

#58

Post by valuearb »

Aperocky wrote: post #56
valuearb wrote: post #55

“Those messages -- between world leaders, industry CEOs, reporters and their sources, heath organizations -- are much more valuable than bitcoin.“ If they had DN access, then those hackers were like a bumbling bank robbery gang who tunneled in during the medieval of night and ran off with all the pennies, leaving the paper money and safety deposit boxes unmolested.

Why would anyone message another on twitter with anything important though? Even if they really needed that contact info wouldn't they just use private messages to ask "what's your phone number"?

I’m sure that is true 98% of the time. But buried in the mass that is the other 2% are likely some messages that will be very valuable.

Re: On the Twitter Hack

#59

Post by jdkee »

This strikes me as particularly salient as to the point on privacy and security:

"The opposite is true for these tech giants. They get to decide what level of security you have on your accounts, and you have no say in the matter. If you are offered security and privacy options, it's because they decided you can have them. There is no regulation. There is no accountability. There isn't even any transparency. Do you know how secure your data is on Facebook, or in Apple's iCloud, or anywhere? You don't. No one except those companies do. Yet they're crucial to the country's national security. And they're the rare consumer product or service allowed to operate without significant government oversight."

Perhaps this hack will bring the security issue to the forefront of our U.S. legislators.

Re: On the Twitter Hack

#60

Post by dane-pgp »

jsnell wrote: post #46
basch wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then " Bob's Social Media Emporium" as a whole would get dinged in the trust web. If you cant trust the verifier, you wouldnt trust any of their participants. I guess nitpicking the details doesnt matter, but none of these problems seem insurmountable.

Oh, man. You dropped the "Honest" out of "Honest Bob". That's harsh, it's like you think he's some kind of a crook :( Once the biggest node on this network starts not peering with smaller nodes due to them being untrustworthy, what do you think happens? I suspect that the users will move from the smaller nodes to the bigger ones. And then we're right back to where we started. People will be complaining about monopoli…

This does seem like a genuine problem, and there are already signs of this happening in the Fediverse. Perhaps it needs a name, so that people can notice when it is happening, and discuss potential solutions to it. The name I propose is "Federator's Dilemma", as it seems like a game theoretic problem.

As for a solution, my intuition is that the first step might be to create a Sybil-proof voting system for determining how popular individual services are. If a service is refused federation by other services which collectively contain 90% of user accounts, then that's a sign that the service doesn't do enough to stop its users from posting objectionable content. Similarly, service A could report to service B how many abuse reports it is getting from its users about people on service B, with a clear rule about when service B would be blocked.

This isn't a perfect system, and I admit that a Sybil-proof global anonymous distributed voting system might be harder than just solving the Federator's Dilemma more directly, but I think it's worth considering, not least because such a voting system would be useful for countless other applications online.

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