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Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

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Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#101
post #45
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes definitely. People who doesn't use facebook by choice are thought of being crazy. I use facebook, for me its a great to keep in touch with my friends and family members who are all over the world. I have a friend who doesn't want to jump in to the facebook bandwagon and our mutual friends thinks he is crazy for not using facebook. The side effect is he almost never gets invited if there is a get together and have…

Have a look at Diaspora

We've been contaminated by greed as a community. We think about building the product that will make us millionnaires when we should be working hard to design consumer tools and protocols that avoid lock-in and promote freedom. We're mislead by people from other spheres that will be the grand winners and leave us with a f-up world and playground. We either build for them or are assimilated by the lure of dollars. Where has the spirit gone ? This isn't what I learnt hacker to mean.

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#102
post #81
post #2

With each passing day, I look less and less like a lunatic for avoiding facebook (and its ilk) like the plague. You should try it.

I have been thinking about it, but around here Facebook is so common it would be weird not to have it. My friends never send SMS any more, they use Facebook messenger. Nobody asks you for your phone number, they ask to add you on Facebook. Nobody invites anyone to anything without creating a Facebook event. If I suddenly leave Facebook I am certain I'll also lose out on a lot of social life. What do you use for insta…

> Nobody invites anyone to anything without creating a Facebook event.

> If I suddenly leave Facebook I am certain I'll also lose out on a lot of social life.

This. You can't expect people to set up and populate their own mailing lists to notify everybody they want to invite to their birthday party or share news of their engagement.

I hate it too, but the reality is that being off facebook means losing touch with people that you don't have to lose touch with. Very, very few people will make an effort above and beyond the default choice these days (facebook events) to notify/invite you to stuff that involves more than a half-dozen people.

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#103
post #89

One of my least favorite memes in western society is that individual people actually believe that the government has some say in defining your name or the boundaries of your family. Everything from the idea of "legally changed his name" to "same-sex marriage" illustrates the problems of turning to city hall for approval or consent of individuals' and families' deeply personal and private matters. I wish the US had tw…

I'd like to point out that your amendments do not solve the problems you mention, as they fail to include how your choices affect others. A variant of the two-body problem, if you will.

Let's pick drugs. Half of the drugs regulations deal with keeping you from killing yourself, which your approach would simplify (although sounds like a variant of "let's solve stupidity by removing warning labels and let the problem sort itself"). The other half, however, is how this change would affect society as a whole, and drug addicts are a burden on society (see: homelessness, hospital costs, correlation with violent crimes, impaired drivers hurting others, etc).

Of course, we know you would never become a dangerous addict lying in the streets arguing with yourself, but you can be damn right that I almost certainly would. And that's why, as I see it, Society (represented by the Government) jumps in and says "no drugs for either of you".

The other points follow a similar line of thinking.

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#104
post #89

One of my least favorite memes in western society is that individual people actually believe that the government has some say in defining your name or the boundaries of your family. Everything from the idea of "legally changed his name" to "same-sex marriage" illustrates the problems of turning to city hall for approval or consent of individuals' and families' deeply personal and private matters. I wish the US had tw…

I'd like to point out that your amendments do not solve the problems you mention, as they fail to include how your choices affect others. A variant of the two-body problem, if you will. Let's pick drugs. Half of the drugs regulations deal with keeping you from killing yourself, which your approach would simplify (although sounds like a variant of "let's solve stupidity by removing warning labels and let the problem s…

"Some people are irresponsible" does not justify the universal deployment of terrible and profound oppression such as you describe.

Indeed, we have attempted it. Remember prohibition? We still have myriad addicts, have wasted unconscionable amounts of money, and senselessly ruined staggering amounts of lives attempting to pretend that society has claims to or on the physical body of an individual.

If the "burden on society" argument was in any way real, cigarettes and alcohol would be outlawed. It's simply a red herring.

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#105
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried it for over five years. Many people use facebook messaging as their primary form of text communication these days. Texting is expensive and regional, and nobody uses email, wants to remember email addresses or IM handles, or deal with spam. WhatsApp totally fucked themselves by not running on tablets. For lots of people, the most effective way to reach them quickly is facebook messaging. That's fact, not opin…

Nobody uses email This is an absurd statement - over 1 billion people use email, far more than actively use FB messages. Many people use facebook messaging as their primary form of text communication these days. Many people don't. I've never had an account and never had a problem in my professional or social life as a result. It's just never come up. If your friends all use Facebook, tell them it's a bad idea (for ma…

I'll make a slight addendum: Most people have an email address if they frolic online, however I rarely meet people who prefer to conduct communications over it. Of course, they need one for FB or Twitter either way, but...

Either they go to FB or DM over Twitter or some other "social thing", but they view email as far more cumbersome. This is especially true with family these days as the first question I get is, "are you on Facebook". It's an inescapable part of society nowadays in that they view the site as something-other-than-internet and more user-friendly, more quick and more "connected", if that's the operative word, than email.

Sending/receiving text is over FB chat is still viewed as preferable to the not so straightforward method of email. Even the venerable IRC is viewed as less acceptable; "wait, don't I need a client or something for that? Won't I get viruses and stuff?" Never mind the fact that they still need a mobile client to chat over FB or Twitter, but they view it as "it came with the phone".

Bottom line: FB and Twitter have taken over communication where email once ruled for the vast majority of people I interact with. They can't be bothered with email, but they still are my friends and family.

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#106
post #90

How does Facebook intend to validate these government IDs? I'm pretty sure they can't. They want you to send a scan of some photo-id - that means that all the anti-tamper / anti-forgery tech that might be on the actual ID will be non-existent. If you are lying about who you are, it will take about 10 minutes in photoshop to come up with something that will pass their test. Are there any countries that even provide va…

Turkish Government has an API. You post all the info on the ID to it, and it returns true or false. You have to be a legal entity in Turkey to access it. (Edit: Correction, everyone can access it, and it doesn't require all the info anymore, just ID number, name and birthday. https://tckimlik.nvi.gov.tr/Service/KPSPublic.asmx?op=TCKiml...)

I'm guessing there are other countries that provides this?

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#107
post #90

How does Facebook intend to validate these government IDs? I'm pretty sure they can't. They want you to send a scan of some photo-id - that means that all the anti-tamper / anti-forgery tech that might be on the actual ID will be non-existent. If you are lying about who you are, it will take about 10 minutes in photoshop to come up with something that will pass their test. Are there any countries that even provide va…

The same argument could be made for house hold locks.

An experienced lock smith could open an average house hold lock in probably minutes. (not to forget most people are neither skilled lock smiths nor photoshop editors)

That doesn't mean a locked home isn't secure. Most people would never think about breaching such a social contract and breaking in locks.

If one wants to break in or if one wants to lie, one can always do. Most people would never do; for the rest, it is a different problem really.

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#109
post #2

With each passing day, I look less and less like a lunatic for avoiding facebook (and its ilk) like the plague. You should try it.

Never ever registering or browsing facebook was the obvious thing to do, at least it is for people who have been around and online for a while. It's the total opposite of the web and the internet, not pseudymous, centralized, using shady tactics to grow, spamming at times and so on. I don't care everybody, their grandma and their dog have an account, until it is decentralized p2P, encrypted and my data stays my own a…

Where did you find this encrypted decentralized p2p email service?

Edit: I guess there is a obvious solution, you and all your friends hosts personal mail-servers, correct?

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#110

Not as bad as Paypal with their requirement that you provide proof of SSN to unfreeze your funds that were frozen for no apparent legitimate reason.

In fairness, PayPal, being a money transmitter, has to deal with regulations more complicated and onerous than anyone who hasn't worked in that business can ever know or understand, so there isn't any basis for holding them to blame for such things.

Facebook has no such excuse.

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