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Post by reaperducer » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

narak wrote: post #10

alex_young wrote: post #5

> This project is "currently used by some law enforcement agencies in countries where resources are limited". Pretty troubling statement. Does this tool help repressive governments track people across accounts? That’s sure what it looks like.

Any openly available tool can be used by anyone for any purpose. The idea that we can pick and choose is ridiculous, and with the exception of rare cases, avoidance of building generally useful tools for the chance that bad actors will also use them is a losing proposition.

Post by reaperducer » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

majkinetor wrote: post #30

orasis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building a tool is an ethical choice. Technology has no inherent right to exist. This is a bad project.

This is invalid thinking. Bad actors can make such tool themselves (if they can't, they are not really that good) and have incentive to do that, so non existence will only slow them down. I don't care about analyzing other people for any purpose so I don't. Having this tool readily available lets me analyze myself and people I care about to protect them from bad actors and educate them in the process.

Post by vmception » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

laurent92 wrote: post #40

vmception wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why you also dont tell the service your phone number or reuse an email address

I wonder if Google has a backdoor API which lets group people by backup email. If one always creates an account with the previous email as a backup, the link is east to make. That would be especially useful for censorship services across competitors: Although Google Facebook and Twitter compete, sharing the flagged accounts would allow recognizing the same user coming back with a different email address.

Post by reaperducer » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

pruski wrote: post #35

vmception wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why you also dont tell the service your phone number or reuse an email address

New email per every service you want to use? It shouldn’t be this complicated

Post by harryf » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #39

pca006132 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is not a problem with the tool, this is a problem with those platforms. Even if this tool is not published, bad actors can still make their own tools. I think we should rather demand the platforms to enforce better measures against this kind of usage, rather than blaming this tool.

this is not a problem with the tool, this is a problem with those platforms. It's not the missile that's the problem, it's the guy who launches the missile. Why not both?