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LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

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Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#141

Post by edwardunknown »

Aloisius wrote: post #96
edwardunknown wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't import anything to LinkedIn. One person showed up on mine who could only have come from either my Twitter account or G+ account, both of which have been deleted. Yes, it was a hot chick I was creepily cyber stalking. Like you haven't ever.

So you and the person it suggested to you don't know anyone in common that might have uploaded their address book?

I guess that's possible, but unlikely. I'm looking at it now, she's still there and so is a girl I had a crush on in junior high. This is fascinating but extremely disturbing, I'm deleting this thing asap. I figure I must have googled her and found her LinkedIn page while signed in, it could have been years ago. In fact that's got to be the explanation for both of them unless they did something extremely unethical with the email address I gave them.

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#142

Post by freshhawk »

finnw wrote: post #85
freshhawk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a great idea, but I think everyone who has had it is stopped when they look at just how unwilling people are to exchange keys (or understand them) and how unwilling browser companies are to put effort into interfaces for managing keys (both of these obviously feed into each other).

The type of user who uses public keys usually knows better than to use server-side key management on a social networking site (however pretty the interface may be.)

Oh definitely, that's why I highlighted the lack of innovation in browsers for handling keys and encryption/decryption. This all needs to happen locally (not the trendy thing these days) and the current tools aren't at the level where that's going to happen at a large scale.

There would still be the key-exchange problem (I can't imagine a system that would make it easy for non-technical people to exchange keys out of band, even if you could explain why that was necessary and what it means), but with good browser tools I bet the number of zero-knowledge type sites/p2p networks would explode.

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#143

Post by rhizome »

nsoun wrote: post #19
jere wrote: post #18

Here are some things I find more creepy about LinkedIn: -It tells people when I view their profile. So now I never view people's profiles because I don't want to look like a stalker. Imagine if Facebook worked this way. -An andecdote, but maybe you've experienced it: a guy I worked with about 3 years ago (and only for 2 weeks) has "endorsed" me several times recently. I don't know if this is some kind of quid pro quo…

You can disable the option in your profile settings to not show when you've viewed someones contact info, however, this means you'll no longer know who the people are the view your profile.

AKA copying OKCupid

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#144

Post by rhizome »

smsm42 wrote: post #127
rhizome wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what legal standard should Google be held, then? Are you really advocating the multinational/Internet companies pick and choose what laws they follow according to their own needs and whims?

I'm not advocating anything like that. I'm saying before criticizing Google for trying to avoid or change the laws, it may be useful to consider if these laws are actually good idea. If they are not, all props to Google for trying to circumvent or repeal them. I do not see why one needs "legal standard" to evaluate somebody's actions. Why not use the standard that is supposed to be the base for the legal standard ins…

You need a legal standard because the Russian censorship you describe is a matter of existing law. Also, note Yahoo's experiences with France.

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#145

Post by seagreen »

megrimlock wrote: post #140
michaelochurch wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great question, and it'd take me a long time to answer. My first thought about resumes is that they serve two purposes, one legitimate and one not: (a) social status grading, which is easy for douchebags to game and for extortionists ("do or I'll fire you and give you a bad reference") to abuse. (b) a list of "ask me about " topics where X ranges over areas of professional expertise and interests, so they can probe y…

I like your idea of point allocation (especially if we can include STR, DEX, and INT). But how do we set up the taxonomy of attributes? Particularly with hierarchical relationships (ex: is Machine Learning a subset of AI?) you'd want rough consensus if you're going to run graph algorithms over it and conclude anything beyond data-visualization style "Look, pretty data!" data pron. That's one of the hilarious things a…

It would be way more fun to write up a personal character sheet than a resume. We need an open RPG system for real life!

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#146

Post by iffyuva »

wtetzner wrote: post #123
blhack wrote: post #91

I finally joined linkedin about a week ago, and it just feels...scammy. It's interesting to me (or frightening) that some of the smartest people I know have the fewest endorsements. People I know doing [1] actual real work on things like "microcontrollers" have...3-4 endorsements with them, but people who I know have only maybe installed Linux, have 20 or so endorsements for "linux". There are people I know who are p…

The endorsements on LinkedIn are useless. LinkedIn suggests things like "Endorse [So and So] for [some thing]," and people just click the "endorse" button. People that know nothing about technology have endorsed me for skills I don't have.

That endorsements looks more or less like a poll. People with whom I have barely worked also endorsed me! Very creepy!

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#147

Post by elements »

jtbigwoo wrote: post #40

There's a more benign answer to the creepy connection suggestions. LOTS of people import their email address books into linkedin. It's not a stretch to think that his girlfriend's mother (or some other relative) imported her address book that contained the names of both the OP and the girlfriend's stepfather. As far as the creepier name mismatches go, my oldest email address list has tons of maiden names and unused/d…

This relates to something I noticed recently. Out of the blue, I started receiving "join my network" requests from people whose names sounded vaguely familiar. I couldn't remember ever meeting them, and their profiles didn't give me any clues as to where I might know them from. I searched the inbox of the email account associated with my LinkedIn profile, and it turns out that they were all people I had contacted about items for sale on craigslist.

So, I'm guessing that my address was somehow added to their address books, which they then imported, and that's how LinkedIn identified out "connection". What that doesn't explain, though, is why these invitations were sent out. I'm confident that none of these people would have knowingly sent an invitation to me, so I'm guessing that LinkedIn is obtaining their "consent" without making it clear what is going on.

If anybody understands the process behind this, I'd be glad to know. The sad part is that once I realized who these people were and that they almost certainly didn't intend to send invitations to me, I didn't bother to investigate any further, because that's the kind of thing I've come to expect.

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#148

Post by [deleted] »

Aloisius wrote: post #94
rayiner wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "who has viewed your profile" feature leads to epic lulz. There is this forum on the internet that is full or racists, misogynists, and homophobes (and is tangentially useful for getting legal industry gossip). A major troll posted a link to a fake Linked-In page (under his control) with a comment along the lines of: "how did this person get this job with such a shitty resume" (or something like that). When peopl…

Hrm. That shouldn't work unless they are within three degrees of the person. Or at least, it didn't work when I was there. Views to people's public profiles weren't recorded and there is no automatic redirect to their private profile. Links to people's private profiles have an auth token in it that is good only for the account that generated it, so unless you're relatively closely connected, you can't actually view l…

[deleted]

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#149

Post by corin_ »

Aloisius wrote: post #25
jere wrote: post #18

Here are some things I find more creepy about LinkedIn: -It tells people when I view their profile. So now I never view people's profiles because I don't want to look like a stalker. Imagine if Facebook worked this way. -An andecdote, but maybe you've experienced it: a guy I worked with about 3 years ago (and only for 2 weeks) has "endorsed" me several times recently. I don't know if this is some kind of quid pro quo…

You can turn off your visibility when browsing other people's profiles. By default, it should be anonymized anyway, unless you switched it when trying to view profile stats : https://www.linkedin.com/settings/wvmp-visibility?goback=%2E... Personally I keep mine fully on since it is a good way of passive contact (I once browsed ~1000 VCs with a headline that was somewhat provocative as an experiment and about half loo…

Premium accounts still see it, though.

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#150

Post by base698 »

freshhawk wrote: post #142
finnw wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The type of user who uses public keys usually knows better than to use server-side key management on a social networking site (however pretty the interface may be.)

Oh definitely, that's why I highlighted the lack of innovation in browsers for handling keys and encryption/decryption. This all needs to happen locally (not the trendy thing these days) and the current tools aren't at the level where that's going to happen at a large scale. There would still be the key-exchange problem (I can't imagine a system that would make it easy for non-technical people to exchange keys out of…

I think if you take away the need to it to be really truly secure it's workable. Social profiles aren't nuclear secrets, they are just posts about topics and pictures. I think if you embed the private key with a symmetric key password that would be good enough. I do wonder why that hasn't been done especially in the era of native mobile apps.
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