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Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

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Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#341

Post by mithr »

If this is really for the purpose of email verification, I can't even begin to fathom what they were thinking. Asking for users' email credentials is terrible, but even requiring that they log in using OAuth is ridiculous!

Verifying email addresses is a solved problem that doesn't require _any_ of that... you just send a time-sensitive, signed link containing a unique identifier to that email address, and users click it to verify their address.

I really can't understand why they would choose to go a different way -- and particularly _this_ one.

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#343

Post by philipov »

nnq wrote: post #314

Last service that I remember asking me for the signup email password was ...wait for it ... MySpace! It was years ago, but it sounds a bit like a swan song pattern to my ears despite the lack of any rational connection... ...they should find a new WhatsApp or a Snapchat to buy ASAP because sooner or later they'll be too uncool for people to share the interesting content in their garden, so their humongous user base's…

What is a swan song pattern? Google thinks it's a quilting style.

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#344

Post by tfehring »

luckylion wrote: post #339
short_sells_poo wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Certainly, you're right that we depend on each one to say "no, I won't do that", but I feel like there's a difference in quality: evil intent vs willful ignorance/negligence. Oh so you are saying that the willful and deliberate exploitation of people's private data, the willful and deliberate ignorance of laws by companies like Uber, the willful and deliberate "research" done by tech companies to determine the most…

No, I'm not saying that at all. There are _some_ companies that run targeted campaigns to influence elections, sure, but they are a tiny minority in the world of tech. I don't like Uber's business tactics either, but I don't see them as the face of the tech industry - in fact, I don't really see them as a tech company. Count everybody who's main source of income is driving for Uber as an employee and the percentage o…

> Again, let me make that clear: I'm not arguing that every company in the tech industry is staffed by angels, but that intentional bad actors in tech are the exception, not the norm.

Just to be completely clear, are you arguing that the opposite is true in finance - i.e., that the norm is to be intentionally malicious?

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#345

Post by 3minus1 »

philipov wrote: post #343
nnq wrote: post #314

Last service that I remember asking me for the signup email password was ...wait for it ... MySpace! It was years ago, but it sounds a bit like a swan song pattern to my ears despite the lack of any rational connection... ...they should find a new WhatsApp or a Snapchat to buy ASAP because sooner or later they'll be too uncool for people to share the interesting content in their garden, so their humongous user base's…

What is a swan song pattern? Google thinks it's a quilting style.

just look up swan song

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#346

Post by h3ckr »

leCapitalist wrote: post #82
kyle-rb wrote: post #67

I just don't understand how this gets implemented without someone speaking up and saying "hey, wait, isn't this an insane thing to do?". I would guess it's some combination of the complainers being ignored, and people at a higher level thinking "well we're doing this in a secure way, as long as the user trusts us, and why wouldn't they trust us, we're Facebook!".

Easy. The engineers who built it care mostly about their total compensation and getting promoted. They therefore gleefully implement the product requirements. The PMs behind the idea also care about the above, except they are held to account by business objectives. By narrowly optimizing for a particular objective (reducing account fraud) in an unprincipled manner, they come up with an insane feature idea like this.…

This. You nailed it

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#347

Post by CelestialTeapot »

ThePadawan wrote: post #290
CelestialTeapot wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they not pay any attention during the humanities portion of their education? That's part of why it's there. Disclaimers: I'm not an engineer, but my CS degree is ABET accredited. I also took a few more Archaeology, Cog Sci, and Philosophy classes than strictly necessary.

Personal data point: Did a Bachelor's + Master's degree in CS in Europe. Only around 5% of my coursework had (and could!) be outside CS. And you could fill that with things like Game Theory 102 or Copyright Law 101 or something without issue.

That's more like the typical engineering school format. I went to a Liberal Arts university, nearly half my classes were general humanities and sciences. The rest were in my major (also required an additional 18-21 credits for the ABET accredited degree option).

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#349

Post by temp19281 »

hopler wrote: post #230
temp19281 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not blame Plaid? Plaid's value is providing the SDK that developers can plug into their app to connect user bank accounts with their app. They have purposefully decided not to show a very common step in the user-facing bank link/onboarding flow of displaying exactly what information you are providing the developer with (e.g. think about FB Connect, Twitter, and Google and how each requires developers to show exac…

People willingly sign up for Plaid. Banks have vendor lockin and special legal rights others don't have

Users are generally dumb. I don't disagree that users are granting permission to these apps, but I'm saying that Plaid is making it purposely opaque in a way that common auth flows like FB/Twitter/Google do not get do or get away with.

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#350

Post by romwell »

philipov wrote: post #343
nnq wrote: post #314

Last service that I remember asking me for the signup email password was ...wait for it ... MySpace! It was years ago, but it sounds a bit like a swan song pattern to my ears despite the lack of any rational connection... ...they should find a new WhatsApp or a Snapchat to buy ASAP because sooner or later they'll be too uncool for people to share the interesting content in their garden, so their humongous user base's…

What is a swan song pattern? Google thinks it's a quilting style.

They feel Facebook is about to pass on, so to speak.

That Facebook will cease to be. That it will expire and go to meet its maker (as its last user). That it's about to be stiff, bereft of life, resting in peace. That if it hadn't been propped up by the network effect, it'd be pushing up the daisies. That Facebook is about to kick the bucket, to shuffle off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and join the bleedin' choir invisible.

That Facebook will soon be an ex-social network.

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