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Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

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121–130 of 233 posts

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

#121
post #97
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have failed to find any list of "known attacks" against diaspora. But I would like to point out a fundamental flaw: What is to stop anyone from setting up a malicious server in diaspora? Even if I don't trust facebook, I still trust them more than a random individual running a server. Hopefully there are some solution for this? Perhaps server operators don't actually see any unencrypted data?

The solution is to run your own server. If you want ultimate control, you have to do it yourself, which is painful - and one of the reasons I like freedombox which has, as a goal, to minimize the pain. They just aren't there yet. The benefit of using a diaspora server operated by someone you trust is the decentralization. Facebook gets EVERYTHING about EVERYBODY, diaspora server operators only get everything about th…

I think they are just splitting up trust to less trust-able entities. Sure, the impact of a malicious entity would be less severe, but the chance of any being malicious is rather big. Cause let's face it, my mom is not going to run her own server, and I believe she has the right to control her data as well as all of us do.

I believe the only way to properly implement a social network is not to trust anyone but your friends. I'm thinking something like a freenet-like apporach, everybody in the network holds a little bit of encypted data, but only the ones you have accepted as friends will be able to see your data unencrypted.

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

#122
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?

As a developer, that's awesome. As a citizen.. I would guess not so much.

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

#124
post #119
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Either they go to FB or DM over Twitter or some other "social thing", but they view email as far more cumbersome. E-mail clients need to be reinvented. There's no real reason for e-mail operation to be cumbersome. I mean, we have such a wonderful, decentralized, asynchronous messaging protocol based on pure text; why do most (if not virtually all) client applications suck so badly?

No argument here. It's really a shame and, if you think about it, email is the least evolved method of electronic communication for the masses in every day use (with the exception of possibly IRC).

BBM would have been the ideal email replacement (it's also still extremely popular in Asia), but too bad it's proprietary and centralized.

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

#126
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'm going to take issue with just one statement here because I'm short on time -

> special kind of oppressor to tell you ... who you are allowed to love and allow into your family.

They don't. You can have a polygamous marriage all you want, you can have an open marriage, you can be as gay as you want.

However, husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter and what not also have legal ramifications, and that is where the law has domain. It has nothing to do with any morality associated with the relationships.

The gay marriage issues stem from a misunderstanding, willful or otherwise, of that. The marriage the state cares about is the contract between two adults, it doesn't give a damn about your morals or god.

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

#127
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As a developer, that's awesome. As a citizen.. I would guess not so much.

In Turkey everything is accessible with API's. Legal records, insurance, education, work, bank records, things you own (houses, land, probably cars), your address (both work and home), your e-mail, phone number, every other phone number you own, you can even do a quick query on if a car has ever been in an accident or if someone has priors.

Not everything is open to everyone though. My company had access to some of this, it was nice. (Edit: nice as in, it made our life easier.)

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

#128
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 contemplating dumping Facebook more and more as the year goes on. I've used it probably every day for six plus years. I've gradually come to the conclusion that I can live without it and can easily keep up with all of my friends and family. There's so much trash, hostility and political arguing on Facebook these days, at least on my network. Some days it reminds me of a dramatically bigger version of MySp…

Sounds more like television than myspace. I'm not saying you're wrong about myspace, just TV fits your definition even better. I suspect there is a high correlation between people who don't watch TV and people who don't do facebook/twitter. I am occasionally exposed to TV and I've noticed over the past couple years a ridiculous level of attempts at twitter integration on primetime major network TV.

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

#129
post #102
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peo…

Before Facebook, there was this thing called "the Grapevine", a decentralized communication network of people who were so intensely interested in everyone else's doings that you couldn't stop them from keeping you up to date about it. I have not, despite my best efforts, been able to unsubscribe from it.

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

#130
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you formulate such a law? What does Germany's Telemedia Act actually say? I can refuse to let you into my house if you won't show me your passport. If you don't have a passport, then I can just refuse to let you in no matter what. How does that change if I'm running a business? Or a web-site? Surely it would be better to focus on supply rather than demand. If government ID is mandatory for everyone (e.g. Ge…

> I can refuse to let you into my house if you won't show me your passport. If you don't have a passport, then I can just refuse to let you in no matter what. How does that change if I'm running a business? Or a web-site? Well, you would presumably be keeping some kind of record of my ID. Perhaps you write down my name, date of birth, and passport number. As a business, in the UK you would have to (amongst other obli…

I'm not sure the DPA needs to come into it. If a nightclub bouncer checks your ID, then he's free to forget all about it once he lets you inside. If all FB do is set an "ID checked" flag (and discard data collected as part of the checking process) then I think they'd be in a similar position - I'm not sure whether you could successfully argue that an "ID checked" flag could count as additional personal data.

(Then again, I'm sure FB hold on to data like thieving magpies, so the idea that they would delete your passport number/image/whatever once they have it is, I agree, laughable.)

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