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Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

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Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#391

Post by semi-extrinsic »

pja wrote: post #365
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> banking accounts How would they do this? Access to my bank account requires a password I never use for any other service, and a physical non-internet-connected 2FA token I keep on my person.

Using other information they have acquired they would phone the bank’s customer service line, convince them that they were you & gain control of the account. How hard this is depends on the bank. The fact that you have a strong password & two factor authentication is irrelevant.

I guess it's plausible that they could phone my bank and convince them they were me, even though the bank asks several control questions like "what was the amount on your recent bill to Company X?". But assume they've gotten past that, how do they then "gain control of my account"? If they ask for a new 2fa chip or a new debit card, that gets sent to my address by registered letter, so I have to go to the local post office and present photo ID to get it. I don't have any other ways of accessing my account than by internet bank or debit card.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#392

Post by wtf_is_up »

enraged_camel wrote: post #260
arcseco wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exact same thing could be said about the people celebrating the DNC and Hillary's race to the White house on reddit. An obviously flawed actor with few redeeming qualities, yet still held in high regard in the minds of people on r/politics. The only difference I see on the left side of the divide is lack of humour (which tends to invite trolling).

I don't want to get into a political argument, especially with someone who thinks Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are even remotely comparable. And I say that as someone with a deep dislike of Hillary. Interesting that you think the left side lacks humor. Last time I checked, all parody shows on TV were liberal. What is the right-wing equivalent of SNL?

>implying late night shows are funny

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#393

Post by freeflight »

ahartman00 wrote: post #341
freeflight wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that in the meat space people consciously chose to socialize with alike people, that's why you called them "friends" and why only "liberal talking points" were discussed. On social media, this happens on a less conscious level because with every choice you make some algorithm slowly "personalizes" everything you get to see a little bit more, thus it increases surfacing things/people that you are more lik…

"Keep in mind that in the meat space people consciously chose to socialize with alike people" "some algorithm slowly "personalizes" everything you get to see a little bit more" You're right, I wish I would have wrote: they are not exclusively being funneled. That being said, they are still friending alike people, and not liking stuff which is diverse. I realize I am sort of victim blaming here :( Basically I have see…

Not blaming the Internet here, rather social media. Pre-social media this didn't really exist in such a crass way. 20 years ago it was kind of a novel thing to "meet" another human online. Most people didn't really care about the other person's political beliefs or whatnot, it was already enough to have found somebody else who was also on this weird Internet thing and shared the enthusiasm for it.

I remember thinking back then: This is the thing! This is what's gonna unite humanity across all kinds of borders as people can't be discriminated against based on superficial attributes like age, skin color or political beliefs. After all, back then we didn't have "social media profiles" and most people still cared about their privacy so barely anybody blast out their personal details for the whole world to see, sadly that didn't become a reality.

Instead, it feels like we are in the exact opposite place, what a sad turn of events.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#394

Post by [deleted] »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #237
pdeuchler wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth noting that criminal harassment via the internet is largely a failing of law enforcement, not a failing of the infrastructure of the internet or a sudden arrival of a new species of really mean humans. There are some privacy/free speech issues down this road, but by and large LE have abdicated their responsibilities in this area. And while it's a different discussion all together, I think examining why con…

> LE have abdicated their responsibilities in this area. On the contrary. One of my side-projects is involved with the running an Internet-to-PSTN wake-up-call service. The service is free-to-use in the US (because domestic calling is so cheap) which also means it gets used by criminal-harassers who send wake-up calls at 4am to their targets (we do aggressively rate-limit which helps mitigate these issues). We are fr…

[deleted]

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#395

Post by Edmond »

dredmorbius wrote: post #374
pcmaffey wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that identity is the basis for most trolling, I'd say identity is a poor proxy for trust. Despite what Facebook and the CIA / NSA may want us to believe, there's no evidence that a lack of anonymity/privacy leads to greater accountability.

I'd argue that it's reputation , the prevalance of impunity with present systems, and the problem of introducing consequence for misbehaviour, which is the core. These can be changed without requiring full identification and disclosure. And there's a very long history of principled (and some unprincipled) pseudonymous discussion.

Co-Sign 100% ....in fact anonymous identities is part of the service we're offering:

https://www.cipheredtrust.com/doc/#anonymized-identities

It is the perfect balance between privacy and accountability.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#396

Post by k1t »

kazinator wrote: post #218
bhntr3 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the meaning has shifted. It used to be that if people knew you were trolling, you weren't a good troll. Now a troll is just an asshole on the internet.

Some of the newbies don't understand that "troll" refers to "trolling" as in "fishing troller": evoking the metaphor of casting a net to collect responses like fish. They imagine "troll" as a metaphor invoking the humanoid creature from Scandinavian folklore, which, in the Three Billy Goats Gruff story, is a nasty, unpleasant, violent creature who wants to eat everyone who crosses his bridge: https://en.wikipedia.org…

(Disclaimer: Not a fisherman)

There is no such thing as a "fishing troller".

I assume you are thinking of a "fishing trawler" which catches fish by trawling.

Trawling: to fish (the sea, an area of sea, etc) using a trawl-net. Trawl(-net): a large bag-shaped net with a wide mouth, used for catching fish at sea.

That said, to troll is also a method of fishing, but involving a baited trailing line rather than a net.

Personally I have always interpreted 'troll' (the noun) in the mythical under-bridge-dweller sense, and 'trolling' in the 'to stroll or saunter' sense. That is, the troll has emerged from his bridge and is now strolling around looking for victims.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#398

Post by DanBC »

k1t wrote: post #396
kazinator wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the newbies don't understand that "troll" refers to "trolling" as in "fishing troller": evoking the metaphor of casting a net to collect responses like fish. They imagine "troll" as a metaphor invoking the humanoid creature from Scandinavian folklore, which, in the Three Billy Goats Gruff story, is a nasty, unpleasant, violent creature who wants to eat everyone who crosses his bridge: https://en.wikipedia.org…

(Disclaimer: Not a fisherman) There is no such thing as a "fishing troller". I assume you are thinking of a "fishing trawler" which catches fish by trawling. Trawling: to fish (the sea, an area of sea, etc) using a trawl-net. Trawl(-net): a large bag-shaped net with a wide mouth, used for catching fish at sea. That said, to troll is also a method of fishing, but involving a baited trailing line rather than a net. Per…

Here's an example from 1994 that uses it in the fishing sense: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.scuba/PuZh2Hck_C...

> > The shop told me that Dacor and Scubapro have good reputations for > > stocking spare parts for all their products, no matter how old. > > This does cause their prices to run a little higher.

> (Gosh--this looks like a troll for a flame-war. I couldn't help > but visualize myself standing in a used car lot.)

Here it's pretty clear that it's being used in the sense of someone dropping a lure, a bit of tasty bait.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#399

Post by jjnoakes »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #237
pdeuchler wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth noting that criminal harassment via the internet is largely a failing of law enforcement, not a failing of the infrastructure of the internet or a sudden arrival of a new species of really mean humans. There are some privacy/free speech issues down this road, but by and large LE have abdicated their responsibilities in this area. And while it's a different discussion all together, I think examining why con…

> LE have abdicated their responsibilities in this area. On the contrary. One of my side-projects is involved with the running an Internet-to-PSTN wake-up-call service. The service is free-to-use in the US (because domestic calling is so cheap) which also means it gets used by criminal-harassers who send wake-up calls at 4am to their targets (we do aggressively rate-limit which helps mitigate these issues). We are fr…

If that were my business I'd charge $.01 to a credit card per call. A bit harder to hide anonymously then.

Or even charge a one-time $1 to sign up, and then free wake-up calls for the life of the account.

Re: Trolls are winning the internet, technologists say

#400

Post by dang »

Mendenhall wrote: post #361
dang wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like your account is teetering on the edge of using HN primarily to argue about politics and ideology. That's not what this site is for, and we ban accounts that use it this way—we have to, in order to preserve the intended use of the site, which is stories and conversation that gratify intellectual curiosity.

Hmm this kind of surprises me, but do what you feel is best. I am not attached to ideology or politics. The post you responded to was me wanting to find out where respondees would want to draw the line on what is harrassment and what is open discourse online. I think this is extremely on topic, relevent and devoid of ideology. As far as arguing I dont see it in my posts. I usually make one comment then read responses…

When I look at your account history, it's mostly civil, but it does look like you're (bordering on) commenting primarily on political issues. The key word here is 'primarily': that's our present criterion for whether the site is being abused or used as intended. I realize the reason for that takes some explaining, so let me try again.

HN is for stories and conversations that gratify intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). That implies a wide range of things that are interesting just because they're interesting. We want people to comment here because their "oh!" circuitry gets activated—not their "burning issue" circuitry. (I'm using that word metaphorically.) It's not primarily a question of the topics since these things overlap, but of the spirit of the discussion.

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