Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

X.com is gonna snitch you out to the public if you use a VPN

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 85 posts

Re: X.com is gonna snitch you out to the public if you use a VPN

#41

Post by bearjaws »

rcxdude wrote: post #12
cluckindan wrote: post #6

This is a good thing. Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-maga-influencers-accidenta... ”Dozens of major accounts masquerading as “America First” or “MAGA” proponents have been identified as originating in places such as Russia, India, and Nigeria. In one example, the account MAGANationX—with nearly 400,000 followers and a bio reading “Patriot Voice for We Th…

Such groups certainly have the resources to use residential proxies to fool such checks.

Just like all things, the easier you make it the more people will abuse it.

Now their hand is forced, and they will actually have to try and mask their location.

Re: X.com is gonna snitch you out to the public if you use a VPN

#42

Post by clanky »

HeinzStuckeIt wrote: post #21
cluckindan wrote: post #6

This is a good thing. Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-maga-influencers-accidenta... ”Dozens of major accounts masquerading as “America First” or “MAGA” proponents have been identified as originating in places such as Russia, India, and Nigeria. In one example, the account MAGANationX—with nearly 400,000 followers and a bio reading “Patriot Voice for We Th…

This has long been pretty obvious to anyone using Nitter on desktop. There, you can ctrl-click on usernames to open a new tab, and it is readily obvious from the account’s post history that the people behind so many “authentic American” accounts are not authentic Americans. They make little telltale mistakes in their English, they post single-mindedly about a particular topic like few real people (no matter how much…

It has become so common that now when one of them writes "colour" or something there is a meme reply of using a screenshot from "Inglorious Basterds" of the scene where an SS officer catches out a spy because he uses a non-typical (for Germans) hand gesture for the number 3.

Re: X.com is gonna snitch you out to the public if you use a VPN

#43

Post by locknitpicker »

cyanydeez wrote: post #2

Or theres a lot of people who like to troll and propagandize americans for nationalism and racism

> Or theres a lot of people who like to troll and propagandize americans for nationalism and racism

I think it's a more coordinated and professional operation that you are suggesting. The US and even western Europe in general has been constantly hammered by Russian bots and professional accounts spewing all sort of extremist and sensationalized content that is aligned with the Kremlin's agenda. It's not limited to Twitter too, as places such as Reddit's conservative subreddit is renowned for being mainly a Russian psyop with barely any US citizen posting there.

Re: X.com is gonna snitch you out to the public if you use a VPN

#44

Post by kevin_nisbet »

cluckindan wrote: post #6

This is a good thing. Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-maga-influencers-accidenta... ”Dozens of major accounts masquerading as “America First” or “MAGA” proponents have been identified as originating in places such as Russia, India, and Nigeria. In one example, the account MAGANationX—with nearly 400,000 followers and a bio reading “Patriot Voice for We Th…

I'm not as sure and would want to consider the angles a bit more.

I ponder how effective this would be against an adversary sufficiently motivated to look like they're not using a VPN. And then does it result in a false sense of trust, since a user thinks the system more reliably detects a VPN then it does. Or an adversary who has bypassed the system to then point to it to build additional trust.

Re: X.com is gonna snitch you out to the public if you use a VPN

#45

Post by clanky »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #40
clanky wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia doesn't control X moderation policies or algorithms. These accounts have gained the purchase they have because Silicon Valley and Elon Musk specifically now see it as advantageous to sow racial animus and division, and to scapegoat migrants for domestic problems which are in fact caused by elite looting. This is being done to strengthen the status quo regime, not undermine it.

I just pointed to evidence this was happening several years before Elon had anything to do with Twitter takeover, all the way back when Obama was still in office.

The fact that it existed in some nonzero quantity at some point before the choreographed Musk takeover does not contradict what I wrote in any way.

Re: X.com is gonna snitch you out to the public if you use a VPN

#46

Post by isodev »

cluckindan wrote: post #14
isodev wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a lot of effort to make them appear as if connecting from the USA without the use of VPN. Giving them a label based on their ... current proxy? ... is not a solution at all.

If it’s not a lot of effort, why aren’t they already doing that?

VPNs were already there, so why bother with a different approach. That's also something the whole "age verification", "let's protect the children from x" online is going to run into - the root cause of all that is not that there are means to access certain content in a certain way, it's the purpose and context in which the access takes place.

So for X to solve its authenticity issue... that's a tricky one. They want to allow "all opinions" and yet they want to limit the ones that aren't authentic. So how do you know if a post is authentic? What makes a person more or less "authentic"?

For me, it's really a fundamental issue of "this medium is not suitable to measure or label authenticity" (social media).

Re: X.com is gonna snitch you out to the public if you use a VPN

#48

Post by tecleandor »

webdevver wrote: post #15
cluckindan wrote: post #6

This is a good thing. Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-maga-influencers-accidenta... ”Dozens of major accounts masquerading as “America First” or “MAGA” proponents have been identified as originating in places such as Russia, India, and Nigeria. In one example, the account MAGANationX—with nearly 400,000 followers and a bio reading “Patriot Voice for We Th…

actually incredibly bullish for america. everybody wants to be american. nobody with agency is rooting for anything other than the US. seriously, if youre not topblasting the S&P, i dont know what to tell you. theres like the entire 2nd and 3rd world combined waiting for their paycheque to come in every month so they can spend it on the US. by 2100, we are gonna have a graveyard of langauges that nobody speaks anymor…

People in general don't talk about America because they want to be Americans. Some of them do it because they are worried about the effect that it could have in the rest of the world. Others because they have empathy about people suffering under the government (local or foreign). Others just because it's entertaining and sometimes stranger than fiction, like somebody that watches Netflix.

I'm so sorry that your circle isn't worried about what's happening around them. I'm happily surrounded by young and middle aged people that cares about their neighborhood, city, and national politics. I'd prefer that they didn't have to worry because everything was perfect, but this is what we have, and I'm happy that near me there's people with empathy and solidarity feelings.

Re: X.com is gonna snitch you out to the public if you use a VPN

#49

Post by mystraline »

_heimdall wrote: post #25
cluckindan wrote: post #6

This is a good thing. Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-maga-influencers-accidenta... ”Dozens of major accounts masquerading as “America First” or “MAGA” proponents have been identified as originating in places such as Russia, India, and Nigeria. In one example, the account MAGANationX—with nearly 400,000 followers and a bio reading “Patriot Voice for We Th…

Companies requiring that you use potentially poor privacy and security protocols isn't a good thing. Using a VPN doesn't make one a bot or a spammer.

Try telling that to: Discord, Microsoft, Facebook, Paypal, Google, or most any major US based service.

Your account will get pre-locked due to "reputational quality" immediately. Usually, they then demand photo ID, phone number or app, or some other onerous process.

If you need a VPN but dont want this "bad quality VPN smell", what you're looking for is a "residential IP VPN". Those look and smell like a Comcast IP, but are VPNs.

Re: X.com is gonna snitch you out to the public if you use a VPN

#50

Post by exogenousdata »

In a perfect world, I’d like the user to have a choice. And that way I could post things anonymously if I wanted. However there would still be the implication of posting anonymously.

In the states, I desperately want a state-verified ID system that I can use to post on social media. However I don’t want it to be mandated.

Post reply on HN