Someone has stolen my Instagram account • Hacker News Board

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#291

Post by megous » Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

nrmitchi wrote: post #119

megous wrote: post #42

It's part of ToS you can lose your account at any time for any reason. And it's their first rule.

And yet, that rule is stupid. But your logic instagram could just give @kyliejenner to some random person, and you think she would have no recourse? You think it would be acceptable for someone at instagram to do Kylie Jenner a personal favor and give her `@kylie`, and the person who currently has it should have no recourse? Kylie is just an example person with a larger following; I'm not implying that this happened,…

It's not my logic. It's in the ToS. They can terminate that account. And what can they do afterwards is unspecified, so presumably they can do anything, except for sharing private data from that account with someone else.

Banks' baseline behavior is ruled by law and national banking regulations, not just some ToS. That's probably why paypal and similar are in no rush to become real banking institutions.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#292

Post by klyrs » Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #124

otterley wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely a legal theory, and that is fraud. If you claim to be someone you are not, and someone relies on your false claim to their detriment, you are liable.

My point was whether Facebook itself committed a crime and whether the account holder had any recourse against Facebook. To me it doesn't look like it - the username remains the property of FB and they are free to do anything they want with it.

If somebody hijacks your account, they get access to all your DMs and other private info. Are you claiming that all that is fb's property, too?

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#293

Post by rainyMammoth » Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

Good reminder that all "your" messages, photos, private data etc never belonged to you. It always belonged to Facebook and they can do whatever they want with it. Including deleting everything on a whim if it pleases them.

How do we change that? We go back to personal websites that you fully own. All of those platforms have been proven to be highly unethical (especially Facebook). Trusting them with all your data has always been a bad move. We need to take back ownership of our platform.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#294

Post by kamel3d » Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

I lost my facebook account last year after someone copyrighted my own profile photos, I get a strike every time I upload a selfy then my account got shut down, this is slightly different from this story but it show that facebook spend zero effort to fix this issue unless the story blow up, I am political activist in Algeria and the dictator regime there were using some 3rd party companies to copyright activists content on facebook and use it to shutdown their pages

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#295

Post by rainyMammoth » Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

orangefarm wrote: post #10

The arbitrariness with which these companies rule over our digital lives infuriates me more from month to month. We do our best to fight dictators in the physical world but somehow accept them in the digital realm.

Agreed. Only way to fight back is to quit those platforms.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#296

Post by zamadatix » Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #268

zamadatix wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's remarkably hard to actually "own" anything on the internet. The act of paying for something or not does not dictate what's your property - ASNs are leased, IPs are leased, domains are leased, connections are leased and you'll need to either pay or use someone else's to host something on the internet. The closest you could come is legacy IPv4 space and not rely on traditional infrastructure such as DNS. Most regi…

I wonder how Let's Encrypt and other certificate authorities handle disputes over domain transfers?

A DV (domain validation) certificate shows the content came from the person in control of the domain (i.e. can change DNS records or change the server content) not that the person in control of the domain is "who it should be". With that in mind the person who can show current control is able to generate new certificates and issue revocations for old ones.

OV (Organization Validation) and EV (Extended Validation) certificates get into the "is it who they say to be" but Let's Encrypt won't issue those. What all getting validated entails is a bit more in depth for each of these and so is the revocation.

The ultimate protection in cases like domain transfers is limited lifetimes though. Gone are the days where the last guy likely had a 2+ year cert for the domain. Let's Encrypt is 90 days max and it's increasingly hard to get even 1 year from traditional players.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#297

Post by cryptoz » Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

Reminds me of when Instagram stole some dude's account and just handed it to the "Royals" https://www.instagram.com/sussexroyal/

Poor dude was like a WAU for years and Instagram just went 'nah' and gave it to royals.

Your account isn't yours, it's Instagram's. They don't care about you or your photos or your likes or friends or connections either.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#298

Post by rainyMammoth » Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

throwigemp1 wrote: post #182

I work at Instagram and there's literally zero chance of this happening. I work on the backend, so I know the kind of tools or logging we do. If in the chance this happens remotely, like 1 in a million chance, the employee will be fired like instantly. I can't believe a random tweet with a screenshot is on front page of HN with 500+ upvotes.

It wouldn't be if Facebook didn't prove in the past it is the most immoral online company. I get that they pay you, but maybe it's time to take another look at your employer with a more objective lens?

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#299

Post by rainyMammoth » Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

throwigemp1 wrote: post #182

I work at Instagram and there's literally zero chance of this happening. I work on the backend, so I know the kind of tools or logging we do. If in the chance this happens remotely, like 1 in a million chance, the employee will be fired like instantly. I can't believe a random tweet with a screenshot is on front page of HN with 500+ upvotes.

Here we go. Instagram guy tells us it cannot happen. Investigation closed.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#300

Post by zamadatix » Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #279

zamadatix wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's remarkably hard to actually "own" anything on the internet. The act of paying for something or not does not dictate what's your property - ASNs are leased, IPs are leased, domains are leased, connections are leased and you'll need to either pay or use someone else's to host something on the internet. The closest you could come is legacy IPv4 space and not rely on traditional infrastructure such as DNS. Most regi…

Interestingly you can "own" an Onion address for a Tor hidden service quite easily. You know the private key and nobody else does, so nobody can take your address away from you.

Yeah .onion addresses fall into the bucket of signing things (which works) and trying to get people to care enough to use it (which usually doesn't outside of extreme niches).

An interesting note on Onion addresses though is the top supercomputer is already at the level to be able to brute force collisions for any onion address in a little over a decade. I expect within about 10 years when this becomes a more imminent problem names will become longer.