131–140 of 151 posts
You know how sometimes people ask on HN ‘how can I use software to make world better?’, well, you just asked the opposite question. Don’t make shit like this. I could do it too, but I’m not gonna.
I'm sure politely asking people not to do something that benefits them will surely work.
There are 350 social media sites?
Ok, since we're on this topic.. why can't we delete our old submissions/comments or the account itself on HN? HN probably is the only "social media" sites I use that you can't do that. This can't be good for users' privacy or "right to be forgotten".
IIRC you can just email the admins (check the FAQ) and they’ll help you out.
If this were any other website, it'd be decried as a dark pattern
I’m surprised by the backlash regarding this tool. Well, I guess surprised is the wrong word. I get that it is creepy. There are lots of websites that do this very thing like whatsmyname.app. I personally like running my username through tools like this and aggregating my digital presence. When I was younger, I signed up for lots of sites that were the cool, new thing. Checking myself years later, I am shocked by the…
Tools like this also make me uncomfortable and I said as much last time an issue like this was discussed [1]. But I don't think the "it can be abused" argument is compelling. Most of the tools we have today can and have been abused. As you point out, we know bad actors use infosec tools and run the same POCs that researchers produce when they find new exploits and vulnerabilities (after disclosure); they check the sa…
I think that anyone developing a social media app for the 2020s will need to make a conscious decision to not let users pick their own unique identifiers. You can't expect users to protect themselves, because you don't know what dangers might exist in the future for them that do not exist today. The other thing you can do is not allow your API to iterate over the set of all users by user-set identifier. It's an extre…
Completely agreed. If I were to ever set up a forum, I'd find whatever "adjective-adjective-noun" generator that Gfycat uses to generate their URLs and present new users with a list of 100 of these to choose from.
Ok, since we're on this topic.. why can't we delete our old submissions/comments or the account itself on HN? HN probably is the only "social media" sites I use that you can't do that. This can't be good for users' privacy or "right to be forgotten".
HackerRank (the coding challenge/interview platform) allows viewing profiles even without logging in - While it doesn't show things you do for specific employers, still not something I realized the site was doing and could have ramifications if you use it to play around.
7Cups, the online therapy/talkspace site, allows viewing profiles even without logging in. Far more dangerous and worrisome than a lot of the other sites on here because of stigma around mental health; it's easy for me to imagine an employer or insurance salesman running a username through here and finding out that a candidate has been (likely) dealing with MH issues.
Tinder(!) lets allows viewing a user's public pictures despite not being logged in - seems like a not great privacy measure - not sure how resistant this is to crawlers and the like but a tad bit concerning.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tools like this also make me uncomfortable and I said as much last time an issue like this was discussed [1]. But I don't think the "it can be abused" argument is compelling. Most of the tools we have today can and have been abused. As you point out, we know bad actors use infosec tools and run the same POCs that researchers produce when they find new exploits and vulnerabilities (after disclosure); they check the sa…
I somehow agree that there is no good strategy against "dual use" . However, why not simply put usage terms in the licence. The copyright owner chooses actively what uses they allow. IMHO it would be an ethically good thing to at least try to at least legally disallow "abuse": Authors of software need to claim more responsibilty and at least actively reflect on potential uses of their software.