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Uninstall the NightOwl app

robins.one

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Re: Uninstall the NightOwl app

#101

Post by Chabsff »

NavinF wrote: post #37
crazygringo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, usually I associate super-shady things with hiding the fact that they're super-shady. I'm thankful, but also genuinely curious, why they put this explicitly in their TOS. It just kind of seems to be like the kind of person/org who would implement this shady stuff in the first place, would also actively hide that they're doing it. Is there a legal reason that protects NightOwl by explicitly putting it in the TOS?…

A lot of "free" VPN apps do the same thing and I haven't heard of any of them getting in legal trouble. It's kinda like running a tor exit node except most buyers just wanna borrow the user's IP to scrape sites that are otherwise impractical to scape with just a captcha solver due to aggressive blocking of non-residential ISPs and heavy rate limiting.

The difference being that it's somewhat related to the app's operation. In this case, it's completely orthogonal to the app's marketed function.

Re: Uninstall the NightOwl app

#102

Post by trolan »

mcguire wrote: post #89
mschuster91 wrote: post #8

I hate silent takeovers so much. Chrome developer extensions are another very popular thing for bad actors to buy out and replace with malware, and it sucks.

What's silent about it? It's right there in the TOS, which you agreed to by using the software. Caveat Emptor, and all that.

silent: tending to speak very little: not loquacious

If the buyer alone was responsible, there would be no terms of service. It's only with community protections and regulations that you get the information required to attempt to make an informed choice. The same community should be empowered to drive normal ethics without it being overtaken by the 'drivers licenses are tyranny' crowd.

Re: Uninstall the NightOwl app

#103

Post by icyfox »

burkaman wrote: post #75
icyfox wrote: post #20

I know this happens with some frequency, I wonder how frequently the companies update the TOS with language like this. The very idea of a self-updating TOS that will govern all usage into perpetuity feels like it should have been legally stuck down years ago. This company's current language on indistinct modification rights: > We reserve our right to alter the terms in this Agreement and/or the pricing information an…

It has been struck down and probably would be again if anyone felt like suing: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2007/07/court-says-no-to... , https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=592583419165850... > [Safeway] reserves the right to, from time to time, with or without notice to you, in [Safeway's] sole discretion, amend the Terms and Conditions for use and purchases regarding the online shopping services. A…

Thanks for linking to these. They are certainly in the right direction although they're a bit vague on how much notice to give:

> Even if Douglas’s continued use of Talk America’s service could be considered assent, such assent can only be inferred after he received proper notice of the proposed changes. Douglas claims that no such notice was given. (Douglas v. Talk America)

> But the Court also concludes that, even in light of their agreement to the Special Terms at the time of registration, customers' assent to the revised Terms cannot be inferred from their continued use of safeway.com when they were never given notice that the Special Terms had been altered. (Rodman v. Safeway)

Both cases seem focused pretty narrowly on situations where notice was not given. Is continuing to use an app after an update notification enough? Glancing over a GDPR-like popup? An email? I'd prefer an explicit opt-in to changes once they've occurred.

Re: Uninstall the NightOwl app

#104

Post by stjohnswarts »

spiznnx wrote: post #59
TZubiri wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Is this a common slang in infosec? I've never seen it used like this and it has highly insensitive connotations for me in other contexts.

I haven't heard anyone using that homophobic edgelord word in probably a decade. Maybe a time traveler?

Re: Uninstall the NightOwl app

#106

Post by otterley »

hoofhearted wrote: post #80
dspillett wrote: post #43

> The application … makes a lot of connections to [site], a website that sells tickets to live music events This is a common use for residential proxies. Ticket touts buy use of the infected users to make requests to try beat restrictions on access from data-centre hosts or high-volume access from and other hosts, to increase their charge of getting valuable tickets for later resale. A number of backdoored (by the cr…

NordVPN does this as well. Google and Amazon own large blocks of IP ranges for their cloud services, so it’s fairly easy to detect bots built on AWS and Google cloud. On the other hand, Verizon also owns a large block of IP addresses that they give out to their residential customers. NordVPN takes advantage of the fact that people like Netflix and Amazon don’t want to block out Verizon’s ip ranges, and disguise netwo…

Do you have a link to more information somewhere? I'd like to know more about what NordVPN is doing, if true. It's certainly not what their customers expect.

Re: Uninstall the NightOwl app

#107

Post by I_am_tiberius »

linuxdude314 wrote: post #100
I_am_tiberius wrote: post #88

As a side note I want to mention that I use Night Shift on mac os and every day!!! I need to switch it back on because there is no option to leave it enabled all day long.

What are you talking about? The whole point is you leave it on and it tracks the sun. Does this not work for you?

Yes, this works. but I want to have it enabled constantly because I like my screen that way.

Re: Uninstall the NightOwl app

#108

Post by dingosity »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #93
dingosity wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Stop being a jerk and play nice. Say what you mean without attacking people.

I don't think I was attacking people, but will defer. In less inflammatory prose, let me say:

There is a problem on the net that is exacerbated by funding models which seek to use free services to do "bad" things. The Ad-Driven model has problems that the needs of the end user are often not considered paramount, but instead the needs of the advertiser are. After all, they're the ones paying the bills. Print newspapers famously had this problem, balancing the interests of editorial and advertisement.

Furthermore, there are people on HN whose enterprises are funded by ad revenue. I worry they (and their investors) err on the side of the advertisers rather than on the side of the users when there is a conflict. I doubt there are many here who would go to extremes such as enrolling customers iPhones into botnets, but there is always that temptation. What if you were a couple weeks away from laying everyone off and a shady partner sidled up to you and suggested such a move. I believe it would be a moral crisis for any entrepreneur: shaft your customers or shaft your business, its investors and its employees.

I am lucky to operate from retained earnings and (at least for the time being) could firmly reject such an offer. I appreciate that I am probably in the minority in this respect.

I bemoan the current state of affairs where so many entrepreneurs could even conceivably be tempted by such a Faustian bargain (without asserting the majority are.)

I am ensaddened that experiments like Bitcoin seem to have devolved into ponzi schemes rather than effective micropayment vehicles. Such a platform could conceivably open up new business models which would allow entrepreneurs to ignore this particular devil.

Re: Uninstall the NightOwl app

#109

Post by ncallaway »

sublinear wrote: post #85
kfrzcode wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also not a lawyer. I'd think there's a level of interpretation to the enforceability of a given clause if it's not adequately exposed or is unconscionable in fairness. I'm guessing it's not so easy as clickwrap = rock solid contract.

Sure if a majority of users expect apps to not steal your data or misuse your internet connection. Sadly this isn't the case anymore. The layperson is distrustful by default and can only rely on the more astute to blow a whistle. Even a judge would just say to not install apps that aren't critical to your everyday life and be done with it. Nobody has the time to swat at flies.

> The layperson is distrustful by default

This sounds like it was written from an alternate reality. It doesn’t match my experience at all

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