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70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers

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Re: 70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers

#511

Post by escape_goat »

whimsicalism wrote: post #451
crispywalrus wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instagram doesn't claim to be a "free speech" platform. You have to only be mildly interested in it to see that it's all about "engagement" Parler explicitly claimed "free speech" as a goal

So because the owners claim the platform to be something other than it actually is, it is okay for this person to leak the Parler users' private images and videos?

So, because the owners (a) claim that Parler is a free speech platform when (b) actually it engages in extensive moderation to ensure ideological conformity in their posts, then (c) Parler is more of a propaganda weapon than a free speech platform. That was the point that was being made in the context of a number of erroneous references to Parler being unmoderated. One can debate whether the data leak was ethical, but one should not base one's position on a false understanding of what Parler is.

Re: 70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers

#512

Post by brigandish »

rob74 wrote: post #459
brigandish wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would you want to work for such a company, or have it on your resume in the future? Does top talent only work for giant ad networks that thrive through undermining privacy (and hence, free speech) while manipulating public discourse to the point where these companies hardly have any defenders left? I suppose so, money will easily trump other considerations, especially among the naive, ignorant or just plain venal.…

Free speech is one thing, building an echo chamber for lunatics is something completely different, at least in my book. In principle, we probably also agree that all people should be equal, but if you follow that principle to the end, you get Communism. That's why there is a need for supreme courts to interpret each country's constitution, which are basically just a list of simple principles that are acceptable to ev…

> building an echo chamber for lunatics is something completely different,

Perhaps it would've been better for Twitter to support free speech then and they'd (the Parler users in question) have remained a fringe voice completely overwhelmed by opposition on a mainstream platform.

Even then, the main problem I see driving all of this is the lack of competition, so I fully support building "echo chambers" if that means competition for platforms like Twitter that are actively working to create echo chambers that they control.

Edit: clarity

Re: 70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers

#513

Post by sn »

nkrisc wrote: post #118
stuckindider wrote: post #30

Where are the comments about how awful it is for people's private messages to be leaked? Or is this okay because the media told me these guys are the bad guys.

I'm not gonna lie: I find it very difficult to be upset by this when the site was a haven for people who want to mass executions for people like me. For me, the world is a little more complex than "privacy at all costs." It's hard to decide where to draw the line.

I also fall in the category of parler "was a haven for people who want mass executions for people like me."

I still think it's wrong to leak the data.

Many of these people use twitter and gmail too - does that justify a leak from those services? If not, why not?

There were and are legal means for law enforcement to access that data if they need to.

Re: 70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers

#514

Post by cbozeman »

mrzimmerman wrote: post #458
brigandish wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The threat is in giving the fascist terrorist 1% a microphone The problem with fascist terrorists is not their rhetoric, it's their violence. Allow them to speak their mind and you lower their need for violent action and everyone else gets to show that their ideas are horribly flawed. It's amusing to think that people seriously believe there are huge swathes of people just ripe to become neo-nazis because someone g…

You're purposefully being reductionist about this. People having their brains hit with racist or violent rhetoric over a long period of time will be changed by that. They human brain adapts to it's environment, expecting certain inputs and if it's receiving /pol light on Twitter then it starts to expect it. On top of that, it's only a matter of time before they're linked to one of the many .win site that sprang up af…

There's a huge degree of just outright horseshit here.

I've been browsing /pol/ for years, hell almost decades. Its a great place to go to get an idea of just how fringe certain elements of society are becoming. I was actually actively browsing when QAnon was making his posts there.

I thought they were just as ridiculous and far-fetched then as I do now. People become radicalized largely because some condition in their life is lacking. For every single successful mechanical engineer that joins ISIS, there's 99 out-of-work coal miners and factory workers who storm the American capital.

Most people who have everything in their life going great don't end up extremists.

Re: 70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers

#515

Post by whimsicalism »

escape_goat wrote: post #511
whimsicalism wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So because the owners claim the platform to be something other than it actually is, it is okay for this person to leak the Parler users' private images and videos?

So, because the owners (a) claim that Parler is a free speech platform when (b) actually it engages in extensive moderation to ensure ideological conformity in their posts, then (c) Parler is more of a propaganda weapon than a free speech platform. That was the point that was being made in the context of a number of erroneous references to Parler being unmoderated. One can debate whether the data leak was ethical, bu…

Fair enough, although I'll note that this condition (a) was tacked on after the similarities to IG were pointed out.

I guess the point I was trying to make is whether or not Parler is moderated to me seems irrelevant to the permissibility of this action.

Re: 70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers

#516

Post by surge »

prof-dr-ir wrote: post #195
ForHackernews wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, they have not publicly released any data dumps from this (yet? Maybe they're planing to). If I were sitting on a dataset like this, I'd probably try to share it with the authorities like the FBI and selected journalists who I feel would behave responsibly.

Sorry but no 'security researcher' is supposed to be gathering such a massive dataset in the first place. The moment you use a vulnerability to download any private information, even as proof of concept, you are on very thin ice - both legally and (in my view) ethically. If I were twitter user @donk_enby I would be very worried about an imminent visit by law enforcement.

It's also likely doing this as screwed up active investigations. Someone might have felt safe "deleting" messages on Parlor. Now that this is public, they're going to burn everything connected to it and it may ruin ongoing investigations. There's a reason Twitter keeps a lot of accounts active, they act as honey pots for law enforcement who can watch them.

These hackers aren't the heroes they pretend to be.

Re: 70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers

#517

Post by surge »

chmod775 wrote: post #219
jedimastert wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand if an actual researcher leaks data they're still a researcher; they might be a bad person, but that's orthogonal. I would disagree. To me at least, the difference between researcher and hacker is what you do with the knowledge you have.

Hacker and researcher are not mutually exclusive. A researcher seeks knowledge, a hacker seeks ways to apply knowledge to overcome obstacles, which includes seeking required knowledge and is knowledge itself. The more interesting question is in what capacity someone was acting, if it wasn't both. Anything else is like trying to find the difference between an employee and a pilot, as if they're mutually exclusive thin…

malicious hacker/researcher

Re: 70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers

#518

Post by nilkn »

evgen wrote: post #433
nilkn wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're not going to investigate all 4+ million Parler accounts to distinguish between those involved and those not. Many folks here are just assuming everyone on Parler was a terrorist or complicit in what happened. The poster's name and phone number are now lumped in with everyone else's. All we can hope is they made the effort to use fake information.

No one will be judged for having an account, because a lot of people were signed up just to monitor and watch. It is trivial to claim that you only signed up for that reason and to expect the claim to stick. If you happened to be frequently posting the chronicles of the elders of zion or talking about how you wanted to pursue an ammo box solution to a ballot box loss then you are going to have a lot more explaining t…

I definitely hope that your analysis here is the prevailing one.

Re: 70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers

#519

Post by jeromegv »

liminal wrote: post #420

I see a number of people here describing Parler as "unmoderated", but it turns out they do have extensive moderation [1] that they use to ensure ideological conformity in their posts. Then the most active users were paid for their content too [2]. This really makes it more of a propaganda weapon than a free speech platform. [1] https://twitter.com/donk_enby/status/1347939939120533506 [2] https://twitter.com/donk_enby…

CEO mentioned on Kara Swisher podcast that he felt he had zero responsibility for the content on this platform. So this moderation is mostly a PR point.

Re: 70TB of Parler users’ messages, videos, and posts leaked by security researchers

#520

Post by diebeforei485 »

swalsh wrote: post #34

Could these "Researchers" be prosecuted under CFAA? Purposely accessing information known to be private? EDIT: accidently wrote DMCA

Possibly. Automatically creating fake user accounts[1] likely falls into that category.

I'm not in favor of vigilante justice. I hope some of these people do sued under the CFAA. If all they wanted to do was archive public posts, there are ways to do that that don't involve programmatically creating fake accounts.

[1] https://archive.is/Dupjk

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