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Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

arstechnica.com

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Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#141

Post by rbanffy »

errantmind wrote: post #28
kumarvvr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When free speech turns to hate speech, filled with lies and distortions, can it still be called free speech? Is free speech absolute? If tomorrow, fox news falsely says your family is defrauding the IRS, qould you be ok with that because thwy have the right to free speech? The intent of free speech is to have tge freedom to criticise those in power. Not to spread hate and divisions in the society.

Yes, it can be called free speech, although there can be repercussions when that speech falls into slander / libel / defamation. Outside of that, why would you ever want the government deciding what you can and cannot say? Right now you may be aligned with the government, but that can change very easily in the future

Remember we are not talking about what the government says is acceptable, but what Twitter's terms of service say.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#142

Post by naniwaduni »

rbanffy wrote: post #135
naniwaduni wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not as much as you'd like to think of the "western world" is northern and western Europe. The "rest" of it includes, among other things, most of eastern Europe and pretty much all of South America.

I can say that "What’s labeled centrist in the US would be considered basically authoritarian fascism in most of Western Europe" and it'd still be right.

You'd be more right, and also it'd sound notably less impressive than the expansive claim about the western world.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#143

Post by asabjorn »

xahrepap wrote: post #121
asabjorn wrote: post #106

As much as I love open source, Gab should have never been open source. It seems very unwise to make a highly targeted free speech social media platform available for easy backend code analysis. No wonder they were hacked. https://git.rip/gab/gab-social

I don’t believe that Open Source == Less Secure. See also: Linux, Ngix, Postgres... Many many open source projects are secure. They’re not perfect but an argument could be made that they’re more secure BECAUSE they’re open. Software with crosshairs on its back practicing garbage security practices will be pwnd the same regardless of it’s open-ness. Honestly. With a lot of the tools out there these days. I question if…

It is way easier to find a software vulnerability in a backend you have the code for, instead of probing a black-box backend for vulnerabilities. For instance, you can use static analysis tools to discover vulnerabilities.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#144

Post by asabjorn »

spideymans wrote: post #129
asabjorn wrote: post #106

As much as I love open source, Gab should have never been open source. It seems very unwise to make a highly targeted free speech social media platform available for easy backend code analysis. No wonder they were hacked. https://git.rip/gab/gab-social

If you’re depending on the confidentiality of your source code to keep your system secure, then your system was never secure in the first place.

That is not a fair assertion, as source confidentiality to limit wide-spread computerized and manual inspection of backend code to find flaws is just one of many tools to mitigate attacks.

For instance, in this case a group with sufficient security research skills politically opposed to some of the gab users seem to have utilized the source-code to find a vulnerability the Gab team had not discovered yet.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#145

Post by Auracle »

_coveredInBees wrote: post #100
EdwardDiego wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much the same as /r/conservative on Reddit.

Lol, yup, I was just thinking that after I posted. /r/conservative is hilarious in that they rail against censorship and free speech issues and yet basically self censor so strongly that only "flaired" (someone vetted to be part of the group-think) users are allowed to post in pretty much all discussions. And even flaired users who dare to oppose the group-think are quickly banned. The cognitive dissonance on that su…

I don’t think they have much of a choice. When I’ve gone there after large news events and they have unflaired people able to post it turns in to /r/politics 2.0.

I have seen discussions there from people on both sides of the political spectrum where neither side was downvoted to oblivion, which is more than you can say for most of Reddit.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#146

Post by rbanffy »

anigbrowl wrote: post #97
leesalminen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both market to the (mostly American) far right, with their shtick being basically "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation". It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended.

It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. It is indeed incredible, though perhaps not in the sense that you meant.

I think the right (no pun intended) word here is "disheartening".

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#147

Post by asabjorn »

glenngillen wrote: post #136
asabjorn wrote: post #106

As much as I love open source, Gab should have never been open source. It seems very unwise to make a highly targeted free speech social media platform available for easy backend code analysis. No wonder they were hacked. https://git.rip/gab/gab-social

Isn't this the reason most privacy conscious people advocate for OSS solutions? Precisely because their security can be verified and not prone to some undocumented backdoor that is secure purely through obscurity. Also "many eyes make all bugs shallow" etc etc.

In the case of Gab "many eyes make all bugs shallow", but those eyes in this case had malevolent intent so the value of those extra eyes is dubious for a platform with as many high-skilled tech enemies as Gab has.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#148

Post by Auracle »

pii wrote: post #63
sgtnoodle wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like there's plenty of "willful misunderstanding" from folk on both sides of the political spectrum. It seems like two sides of the same coin to me, and it doesn't really matter too much because ultimately the carnival game is rigged to eat the coin regardless. Whether you're a neo-nazi or a marxist-commie, we're all slightly awkward but reasonable nerds here right? I think most sane people can agree that da…

Genuinely, I want to find common ground with people who don't say anyone who isn't a neo-nazi is ALL THE WAY LEFT AND A DANGEROUS PERSON

Maybe you could start by realizing the vast majority of people on the right aren’t neo-nazis.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#149

Post by throwawei369 »

This increase of extreme assault on free-speech platforms should be worrying to everyone. Not too long ago, we were hailing the "internet" as a free fair space. Now it is a free fair space ... for everyone but some kind of people.

I'm for free speech but this specific kind of targeted attacks is getting out of hand.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#150

Post by phroobster »

gizmo686 wrote: post #132
mikepost001 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other mode“ For a non-American, could you explain how this is far right? Sounds pretty liberal.

Adverse selection. If your differenciating feature is "you can say what you want without getting banned", your userbase is going to tend towards people who get banned on other platforms. In todays climate, that is mostly the far right. Compounding this is PR and network effects. Once they become known as the place for the far right, then more far righters go there, and more distant people avoid it.

Alternative viewpoint: platforms without censorship tend to be right wing because that is what succeeds in a free marketplace of ideas. Left wing ideas require censorship to thrive.
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