Are there any comparable hosted messaging services that don't do this?
signal/telegram
Telegram does crawl links sent in non-encrypted messages. Links in secret chats are left alone, though.
Facebook crawls links in PDFs you send in Messenger
141–150 of 165 posts
Re: Facebook crawls links in PDFs you send in Messenger
#142[flagged]
Re: Facebook crawls links in PDFs you send in Messenger
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did, more than a decade ago. Do you think they stopped? How would I know there is no shadow profile being constantly updated? It's apparently not my data and privacy and I have no say in it at all when someone uploads their goddamn contact list to these frickin' crooks. Is that your understanding too? So This solution is not a solution. This solution only works if we stop other people from using it. How's that goin…
> This solution is not a solution. No, not a complete solution, but it's a step in the right direction. One of the reasons advertisers as well as ordinary users come to FB is to be in contact with you -- to have your attention. Stop using FB and you take that away. FB ends up with less of an audience with which to entice others.
There's enough users remaining that your shadow profile still has value and facebook march on.
This solution is not a solution. Definitely do it, and you'll really enjoy doing it too - life improves! Just don't think it's any kind of solution to any of the systemic problems that are being discussed because it isn't. Not even a partial solution. Not even a meaningful start of one.
Re: Facebook crawls links in PDFs you send in Messenger
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is links INSIDE a pdf. Thats one step further than most people assumed.
PDF is an open format. Scanning PDF for the links is probably the least you could assume. You gotta assume they will reconstruct generations of your family tree if they can from your chat history.
"...reconstruct generations of your family tree if they can from your chat history."
People might pay good money for that!
Re: Facebook crawls links in PDFs you send in Messenger
#145Facebook spies on everything you do. Stop using it. This is the only way this will end. It's not even a useful product. Stop being sheep.
I did, more than a decade ago. Do you think they stopped? How would I know there is no shadow profile being constantly updated? It's apparently not my data and privacy and I have no say in it at all when someone uploads their goddamn contact list to these frickin' crooks. Is that your understanding too? So This solution is not a solution. This solution only works if we stop other people from using it. How's that goin…
What are you claiming is the market failure here?
Re: Facebook crawls links in PDFs you send in Messenger
#146Microsoft does this with Skype too. They say it's for detecting malicious links.
If Microsoft really wanted to help Skype security it would be pretty easy to realise an account has been hacked when people are suddenly message a link to all their contact list they never have for 10 years.
The amount of time I've gotten those obviously spammy links form people I have never talked to in a decade plus.... cant be hard to red flag these.
Re: Facebook crawls links in PDFs you send in Messenger
#147This should not be news to anyone. Facebook scans all links posted in Messenger.
This is links INSIDE a pdf. Thats one step further than most people assumed.
Then people have strange assumptions.
Once a service starts blocking malicious links, the obvious next step is to conceal the link through some sort of indirection.
Re: Facebook crawls links in PDFs you send in Messenger
#148Facebook spies on everything you do. Stop using it. This is the only way this will end. It's not even a useful product. Stop being sheep.
I did, more than a decade ago. Do you think they stopped? How would I know there is no shadow profile being constantly updated? It's apparently not my data and privacy and I have no say in it at all when someone uploads their goddamn contact list to these frickin' crooks. Is that your understanding too? So This solution is not a solution. This solution only works if we stop other people from using it. How's that goin…
> It's apparently not my data and privacy and I have no say in it at all when someone uploads their goddamn contact list to these frickin' crooks.
Afaik that's actually the legal situation in the US due to the third-party doctrine [0]. It's one of the ways government mass surveillance has been "legalized" without having to comply with the Fourth Amendment.
Re: Facebook crawls links in PDFs you send in Messenger
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did, more than a decade ago. Do you think they stopped? How would I know there is no shadow profile being constantly updated? It's apparently not my data and privacy and I have no say in it at all when someone uploads their goddamn contact list to these frickin' crooks. Is that your understanding too? So This solution is not a solution. This solution only works if we stop other people from using it. How's that goin…
What are you claiming is the market failure here?
Market Failure [1] is the definition in economics for this situation.
There is a non-price, non-market mechanism imposing a cost upon us. Just like if your neighbour at the restaurant lights up a cigarette and you hate that and it spoils your meal. You can't very well "give up smoking" to fix that. Just like any public good - eg national defence, it can't be done by a free market alone and so never is. Just like if a factory opens and pollutes a river killing all the fish, the fisherman can't stop transacting with the factory to get their livelihoods back. Just like any natural monopoly - eg piped drinking water supply and distribution to buildings in a city which is heavily regulated everywhere on earth, (often really badly, sure) because you can't change providers at will and you can't do a startup and get into that market. Proprety rights and enforcement - we don't do private courts and police as a rule and laws are not supposed to be for sale to the highest bidder.
Facebook have my data, they use it, without my consent and I have no way of taking my business elsewhere to remedy that. This is one of the many costs facebook impose on all of us. These are costs that not all of us feel we want to bare or feel there is a benefit from it. Us stopping using facebook does not fix that cost, we continue to incur it. That meets the textbook definition of "market failure".
Just by the by, this is not simply "my claim", this is the normal, definition of market failure in any economics textbook and regardless of political leaning. Whether you think that this market failure is an important one or not certainly can be debated. Eg it's market failure if I don't like the color my neigbor paints their front door - the response to which is usually "so what, get over it." You can, and facebook do, make that kind of argument here. Facebook PR will avoid "market failure" as it sounds somehow worse than a technical description of the situation to much of the public, as it does perhas to yourself. But there's not much doubt about it (at least as far as I'm aware), that it meets that usual, and well understood defininition among ecomomists.
Re: Facebook crawls links in PDFs you send in Messenger
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Telegram is barely e2e.
Messages in plain text on the server? That's /not/ e2e at all! That's just a con. Advice: avoid telegram completely, always. Or is my news old and that's no longer the case?
Q: What is this ‘Encryption Key’ thing?
When a secret chat is created, the participating devices exchange encryption keys using the so-called Diffie-Hellman key exchange. After the secure end-to-end connection has been established, we generate a picture that visualizes the encryption key for your chat. You can then compare this image with the one your friend has — if the two images are the same, you can be sure that the secret chat is secure, and no man-in-the-middle attack can succeed.
Newer versions of Telegram apps will show a larger picture along with a textual representation of the key (this is not the key itself, of course!) when both participants are using an updated app.
Always compare visualizations using a channel that is known to be secure — it's safest if you do this in person, in an offline meeting with the conversation partner. Q: Why not just make all chats ‘secret’?
All Telegram messages are always securely encrypted. Messages in Secret Chats use client-client encryption, while Cloud Chats use client-server/server-client encryption and are stored encrypted in the Telegram Cloud (more here). This enables your cloud messages to be both secure and immediately accessible from any of your devices – even if you lose your device altogether.
The problem of restoring access to your chat history on a newly connected device (e.g. when you lose your phone) does not have an elegant solution in the end-to-end encryption paradigm. At the same time, reliable backups are an essential feature for any mass-market messenger. To solve this problem, some applications (like Whatsapp and Viber) allow decryptable backups that put their users' privacy at risk – even if they do not enable backups themselves. Other apps ignore the need for backups altogether and fade into oblivion before ever reaching a million users.
We opted for a third approach by offering two distinct types of chats. Telegram disables default system backups and provides all users with an integrated security-focused backup solution in the form of Cloud Chats. Meanwhile, the separate entity of Secret Chats gives you full control over the data you do not want to be stored.
This allows Telegram to be widely adopted in broad circles, not just by activists and dissidents, so that the simple fact of using Telegram does not mark users as targets for heightened surveillance in certain countries. We are convinced that the separation of conversations into Cloud and Secret chats represents the most secure solution currently possible for a massively popular messaging application.
https://telegram.org/faq#q-what-is-this-encryption-key-thing