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LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

engineering.linkedin.com

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Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#141

Post by j_s »

buckbova wrote: post #122
vdaniuk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this comment, nostromo. You've managed to address privacy problems with the Linkedin Intro while praising the technical solution. This is a great example of constructive criticism that I, for one, would like to see more on HN. Constant raging decreases the efficiency of knowledge transfer and community building. Maybe one such comment / thread would be enough to significantly increase quality of a discussi…

My sarcasm processing engine had a coredump. I have no idea who is sincere anymore in this thread. Please turn on sarcasm tags so I should know whether to agree/disagree, be pissed, etc.

Agreed. Typically I count exclamation marks towards sarcasm, but this thread has been difficult.

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#142

Post by sliverstorm »

Kiro wrote: post #97
zaroth wrote: post #75

I don't think I've ever gagged quite like that while reading a technical article describing a "neat hack". At first I'm thinking, oh, I wonder how they convinced Apple to let them use some private APIs, and then... curiosity turns to revulsion as soon as I saw that proxy diagram. Good god... LinkedIn MITM IMAP. That is truly terrifying. How would you even go about installing that on the user's phone? Oh, that's in th…

What exactly were you expecting? I think it's a neat hack using some clever tricks.

I agree. Imaging computers by dd'ing disk images over the network via netcat isn't secure or a Good Idea, but it is also a neat trick.

This, like dd+nc, has some practical concerns such as security, but that doesn't mean it isn't creative and interesting.

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#143

Post by mcphilip »

IMO, LinkedIn has a history of enough bad business practices that it should be shunned like a pariah and treated with complete suspicion that they may have ulterior motives in designing this MITM app.

I have never joined LinkedIn and have never been interested in any position that requires an easily gamed LinkedIn profile instead of meatspace references.

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#144

Post by throwaway2048 »

carbocation wrote: post #4

Technologically this is straightforward: it uses a proxy server that sits in between you and your actual mailserver. I think the privacy concerns of having your mail (potentially) available over yet another server in exchange for modest convenience makes it unlikely that I would use this, but I'm sure many will find the trade-off acceptable and desirable.

>I'm sure many will find the trade-off acceptable and desirable.

This is making a big assumption that they understand the implications. Or that LinkedIn explains them at all.

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#145

Post by djrogers »

skizm wrote: post #132

Looks to me like Apple has some security to tighten up. I definitely don't think you should be able to do most of this stuff, but you can't really fault LinkedIn I don't think. They made something that adds value to their product and it got approved by Apple. Either way, the hacks are cool ones and I'm glad Linked-in did this write up. Keep 'em coming. EDIT: not an app apparently.

This isn't an app and Apple has no involvement in approving it. RTA - it's an IMAP proxy that injects some css/html stuff to each of your emails.

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#146

Post by vdaniuk »

buckbova wrote: post #122
vdaniuk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this comment, nostromo. You've managed to address privacy problems with the Linkedin Intro while praising the technical solution. This is a great example of constructive criticism that I, for one, would like to see more on HN. Constant raging decreases the efficiency of knowledge transfer and community building. Maybe one such comment / thread would be enough to significantly increase quality of a discussi…

My sarcasm processing engine had a coredump. I have no idea who is sincere anymore in this thread. Please turn on sarcasm tags so I should know whether to agree/disagree, be pissed, etc.

We need to have user-generated labels attached to comments: sarcastic, flamebait, domain expert, etc. And then go even more meta and have algorithmically and/or privileged users affirm the label. Lets throw in some labels for common cognitive biases, statistical errors, logical fallacies and eagerly slap them on all popular offending comments. And then go all in on multivariate testing of mutations of algorithms optimizing for best (your definition may very) discourse.

If such thing would happen and became popular, someone-is-wrong-on-the-internet crowd would be puking rainbows all day long.

I guess it is a question of time this becoming feasible.

BTW, I wasnt sarcastic.

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#147

Post by davidkclark »

skizm wrote: post #132

Looks to me like Apple has some security to tighten up. I definitely don't think you should be able to do most of this stuff, but you can't really fault LinkedIn I don't think. They made something that adds value to their product and it got approved by Apple. Either way, the hacks are cool ones and I'm glad Linked-in did this write up. Keep 'em coming. EDIT: not an app apparently.

There is really no Apple approval to be given or not given here. It is really just creating a new email account. There is no real way that Apple could stop them from doing this if they wanted to. It is up to you if you tell linkedin your email credentials. I would certainly not recommend it, even without their track record.

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#148

Post by gergles »

chimeracoder wrote: post #94
tptacek wrote: post #17

I don't care who the company is, or how trustworthy you think they are: avoid giving third parties credentials to your inbox.

Not that we should trust anybody, but let's not forget that LinkedIn already has a history of losing user credentials: http://www.pcworld.com/article/257045/6_5m_linkedin_password...

No, they don't, and you keep posting that they do despite being proven wrong several times in the past. They lost hashed passwords which are not user credentials.

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#149

Post by shortsleeves »

cpg wrote: post #121
zaroth wrote: post #75

I don't think I've ever gagged quite like that while reading a technical article describing a "neat hack". At first I'm thinking, oh, I wonder how they convinced Apple to let them use some private APIs, and then... curiosity turns to revulsion as soon as I saw that proxy diagram. Good god... LinkedIn MITM IMAP. That is truly terrifying. How would you even go about installing that on the user's phone? Oh, that's in th…

I tend to agree that no sane person with minimal technical knowledge would balk at this. I already know that Yahoo! sells the email addresses of the people I exchange even one email with to LinkedIn and I am repulsed by this. LI then turns around and offers them as connections. I should note I am always logged out from LI to prevent even more evil from them. LI is just evil and should be eradicated.

I think you might be forgetting that by e-mailing said person, you become part of their contacts too. Should that person decide to import or sync their contacts in linkedin, a relationship between you and that person is established on their server. ie: it's an _undirected_ edge between you and your contact, which they seem to use to display stuff back to you.
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