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Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

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351–360 of 643 posts

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#353

So can people please quit posting twitter feeds finally? Some of us still have never used or signed up with twitter, or feel the need to, and really don't want to. Bad enough they removed non-javascript access, since they are permablocked through noscript here, I simply close postings on HN that link there and curse them for bothering. Asking for a login atop that is just a 4x non-starter for "news" links. Yes, some…

It would be great if the community here just started downvoting stories that are twitter links. If it's not worth a blog post somewhere, why should we care?

Can you even downvote posts here? I thought you can only downvote comments

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great if the community here just started downvoting stories that are twitter links. If it's not worth a blog post somewhere, why should we care?

Microblogging is no less legitimate than blogging.

Considering how difficult is to follow lengthy posts that are split up in reverse chronological order, and how unintuitive it is to find replies, I surely disagree. The medium is very poor for centralized discussion of a single topic, in contrast to something like a single Reddit or HN article.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#356
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try, but you won't succeed against a dedicated reverse engineer, simply dropping a hook in on the API calls would be enough to grab the decrypted key in a case like that, if not simply statically reading the encryption keys and decrypting it. That's not to say it's useless - some reversers will simply move on to the next app when there's a list of dozens. You can also send requests via your own server, which…

Mobile developers can implement certificate pinning to prevent man in the middle snooping. Twitter's app does this.

That achieves nothing against someone who uses something like apktool/baksmali to do static RE, let alone inject something like Frida to perform dynamic RE. There are even Xposed modules designed to just bypass certificate pinning.

Certificate pinning is a good security measure, but not a counter-RE one.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that they have two motivations in mind: 1. Get more useful data from users like myself who have a Twitter account but are not logged in by default. Every time I click on a tweet that a friend sent me by IM or that I saw linked elsewhere, they are not getting that juicy detailed data regarding my user having seen this tweet. 2. Just assume that mainstream users will simply go "Oh well, I'll make an account"…

They still have cookies and your browser fingerprint. You might be surprised how complete their picture already is.

Have you been introduced you to Firefox containers? Best feature the masses will never use.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#358
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along with "For your own safety".

"safety" is a term that's been abused since at least 1793: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Public_Safety

The translation is inaccurate. It means safety in the same way as the salvation of the soul for Christians, but in a non-religious way, and applied to all of society. Yes, they were both quite grandiose in their wordings and full of themselves.

Safety, as it is commonly used, would better be translated, in French, as "sûreté". "Salut" would be a much, much stronger word.

Although I do see your point.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#359

As a shareholder--good. As a lazy Twitter reader--bad.

I don't have a Twitter account, and this now makes it far, far less likely that I will even click on a Twitter link or engage with the platform whatsoever. I could obviously be in the minority (though I'm certainly not alone), but I'm curious if you think that my scenario will be the less common one and this will actually increase signups, or if it will have a positive impact on the stock price in another way.

Yes I do think this will boost sign ups. It's free and Tweets, for better or for worse, have come to be a sort of "source material." I think many, particularly younger, news-savvy users will seek to access Twitter.

I also think it greatly boosts Twitter's ability to monetize advertising. That's what make Facebook and Google so valuable (just about everyone is logged into an account).

I am, however, curious how this will impact embedded tweets (in articles, for example).

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