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LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

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111–120 of 836 posts

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#111
The fact that every job application wants a link to my profile on a platform that tries to push "brain training puzzle and games" on me just makes me angry every single time. I really hate LinkedIn and my active rebellion against it is hurting my ability to find a new job.

I know there has been other LinkedIn hate on HN this week. I know they have some good tools for job searching and hiring. I still wish we as a society could move on and leave this one with MySpace.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#112

>The user is never asked. Never told. LinkedIn’s privacy policy does not mention it. OMG is literally every article written with LLMs these days I just can't anymore. It's all so tiring.

This is incredibly normal language and quite close to how I would write this quote, so what makes you think this is LLM text?

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#113
post #14

The headline seems pretty misleading. Here’s what seems to actually be going on: > Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, LinkedIn’s JavaScript executes a silent scan of your installed browser extensions. The scan probes for thousands of specific extensions by ID, collects the results, encrypts them, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers. This does seem invasive. It also seems like what I’d expect…

How is probing your browser for installed extensions not "scanning your computer"? Calling the title misleading because they didn't breach the browser sandbox is wrong when this is clearly a scenario most people didn't think was possible. Chrome added extensionId randomization with the change to V3, so it's clearly not an intended scenario. > vs. something inherently sinister (e.g. “they’re checking to see if you’re…

When "the browser is the OS", scanning that is a pretty big chunk of "your computer".

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#115

this is a massive violation of trust > The scan doesn’t just look for LinkedIn-related tools. It identifies whether you use an Islamic content filter (PordaAI — “Blur Haram objects, real-time AI for Islamic values”), whether you’ve installed an anti-Zionist political tagger (Anti-Zionist Tag), or a tool designed for neurodivergent users (simplify).

> this is a massive violation of trust

This is not. To violate trust, there should have been some.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#116
post #14

The headline seems pretty misleading. Here’s what seems to actually be going on: > Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, LinkedIn’s JavaScript executes a silent scan of your installed browser extensions. The scan probes for thousands of specific extensions by ID, collects the results, encrypts them, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers. This does seem invasive. It also seems like what I’d expect…

> It also seems like what I’d expect to find in modern browser fingerprinting code.

Time to figure out if I can make FireFox pretend to be Chrome, and return random browser extensions every time I visit any website to screw up browser fingerprinting...

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#117
post #14

The headline seems pretty misleading. Here’s what seems to actually be going on: > Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, LinkedIn’s JavaScript executes a silent scan of your installed browser extensions. The scan probes for thousands of specific extensions by ID, collects the results, encrypts them, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers. This does seem invasive. It also seems like what I’d expect…

It is likely in response to scraping. Linked in is heavily scraped by scammers who do the BEC scams. So linked in is trying to find ways to link together banned accounts, to handle their ban evasion. I run a site which attracts a lot of unsavoury people who need to be banned from our services, and tracking them to reban them when they come back is a big part of what makes our product better than others in the industr…

Understandable, and yet none of that makes it ok.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is probing your browser for installed extensions not "scanning your computer"? Calling the title misleading because they didn't breach the browser sandbox is wrong when this is clearly a scenario most people didn't think was possible. Chrome added extensionId randomization with the change to V3, so it's clearly not an intended scenario. > vs. something inherently sinister (e.g. “they’re checking to see if you’re…

When "the browser is the OS", scanning that is a pretty big chunk of "your computer".

but the language of "your computer" implies files on your computer, as it would be what people commonly call it. Merely just the extension is not enough.

If it has the ability to scan your bookmarks, or visited site history, that would lend more credence to using the term "computer".

The title ought to have said "linkedIn illegally scans your browser", and that would make clear what is being done without being sensationalist.

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