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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

#251

Post by raverbashing »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #209
magic_haze wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play the devil's advocate, how is this any different morally from what Gmail (and Outlook, and Yahoo) do with their external emails feature? In each case, you give them the credentials for your other account, they pull the mail and display it in their interface (which, presumably, adds some new features that doesn't exist in the other account. Like conversations and tags.) LinkedIn is doing pretty much the same th…

G-mail/Yahoo: moving your content to your e-mail address. LinkedIn: moving their content to your e-mail address. G-mail/Yahoo: Duplicating your content. LinkedIn: Manipulating your content. G-mail/Yahoo: E-mail providers. LinkedIn: Social media provider. G-mail/Yahoo: uses protocols as intended to provide service. LinkedIn: uses hacks to provide service. G-mail/Yahoo: No risk of compromising devices. LinkedIn: Extrem…

Oh yes, and if the Linkedin IMAP MITM stops working for some reason I stop getting my emails?

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#253

Post by sunasra »

napolux wrote: post #46
napolux wrote: post #45

Do I really need a mobile "rapportive" (acquired by linkedin recently) in exchange for ALL my emails? NO :P

BTW, technically speaking is really cool

It depends on types and frequency of email we are getting. It may helps to prioritize for responding mail.

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#254

Post by gnur »

csarva wrote: post #218
neohaven wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they going to log in to your email account to MITM it, exactly, other than sending your password in cleartext to them? I'm not saying the connection itself is cleartext, but that they will be storing your email password in cleartext(!) to access your account at your email provider...

They need your cleartext pw in order to create a config profile and that's it. Why would they need to store your pw at all? Once the config profile is setup, the IMAP AUTH request gets proxied through them to the original provider and handled as normal. No need to store any pws at the proxy.

Except that the proxy is accessing YOUR imap provider for new mail. Every time they connect to that imap server they'll need your credentials.

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#255

Post by benatkin »

ivix wrote: post #110
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…

Nerd outrage hyperbole much? This is an OPT IN service. You know, only for people who WANT to use it? If it causes you this degree of apoplexy, you are in luck: you don't have to use it.

It's only opt-in for the end user. If it were really opt-in, it would be opt-in for the domain owners and/or the email providers. Come to think of it, I wouldn't have an issue with this, and it might be worth it for recruiters who use LinkedIn for everything (and in my opinion are doing it wrong).

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#256

Post by lewispollard »

The iPhone Mail app allows embedded CSS right? I mean, why not solve this for all mobile devices by adding the top bar to all emails, marking it display: none; and using media queries to show it if it's a mobile resolution?

Also, pretty sure the :hover state touch interaction is something anyone who's done any kind of mobile web development knows about.

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#258

Post by ig1 »

This thread is a great example of filter-bubble thinking.

There is a trade-off between security and features here, and while for some people it'll be worth it for others it won't.

The majority of posters here are likely developers/technical people for who the features aren't that important and for who security is a much higher priority (because they're thinking about it from a personal email perspective rather than a professional email perspective).

For people working in bizdev, sales, recruitment, etc. their equation is completely different. This delivers them high-value (being able to close more deals faster) with a relatively lower security trade-off.

Their professional email account is likely already hooked into their CRM, email analytics, backup service, audit and archiving services, address book services, etc. Their PA and corporate IT likely has access to their email as well. Adding Linkedin is just one more service from a company they already trust with highly confidential information (leads, Linkedin inbox mails, etc.)

(incidentally I'm guessing a lot of HN users probably have half a dozen chrome extensions for SEO, screen grabbing, debugging, etc. from unverified sources which have access to far more information than just your email credentials)

Re: LinkedIn Intro: Doing the Impossible on iOS

#259

Post by zimpenfish »

duhprey wrote: post #171
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…

It's funny, I read all through that with my rose tinted glasses thinking they'd created a local IMAP server on the phone, which would have been clever (and, I think, doable)... in fact I was running this perception until "Our proxy server is written in Ruby using EventMachine, which allows it to efficiently handle many concurrent IMAP connections" And I thought, why the heck would one phone be issuing so many concurr…

http://blog.fastmail.fm/2013/09/17/ios-7-mail-app-uses-multi...

"[iOS 7] opens many IMAP connections at once for searching each folder concurrently. We’re not sure on the upper bound on the number of connections it will make, but saw at least 10 in one case."

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