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Find a person's profile across 350 social media sites

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Re: Find a person's profile across 350 social media sites

#61

Post by ttt0 »

uh_uh wrote: post #22
pca006132 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is not a problem with the tool, this is a problem with those platforms. Even if this tool is not published, bad actors can still make their own tools. I think we should rather demand the platforms to enforce better measures against this kind of usage, rather than blaming this tool.

Maybe we should do both. I take an issue with the argument that bad actors can make their own tools. Bad actors can also build their own nuclear weapons, genetically engineer their own deadly diseases but there's certainly value in not making this any easier. If you take the time, money and effort away from bad actors by forcing them to reinvent the wheel, that's a good thing. Granted, this logic can't be viably appl…

Tools like this are trivial to make and it's trivial to do it manually using Google. I don't see any point in getting angry about the existence of tools like that, as it's beyond anyone's power to stop people from doxxing each other.

Re: Find a person's profile across 350 social media sites

#62

Post by dleslie »

4eor0 wrote: post #58
dleslie wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology has no rights; it is a logical abstraction describing the works of humans. I like to think that humans have an inherint right to engage in creative work that pleases them.

Police sure seem pleased thumping skulls. Anything we can do to make it easier for them.

Maybe your country should worry less about the technology and more about the people using it. You clearly have a personelle problem.

Re: Find a person's profile across 350 social media sites

#63

Post by jiofih »

codetrotter wrote: post #25
f38zf5vdt wrote: post #9

I think that anyone developing a social media app for the 2020s will need to make a conscious decision to not let users pick their own unique identifiers. You can't expect users to protect themselves, because you don't know what dangers might exist in the future for them that do not exist today. The other thing you can do is not allow your API to iterate over the set of all users by user-set identifier. It's an extre…

I think that the idea of not allowing users to pick their own identifiers is not compatible with how a lot of people use social media. It’s a heck of a lot easier for me to tell my GitHub username to someone, than it would be to tell them a random UUID like 3ffdf0d2-b9a5-4fff-9f38-75afae67dbea. Even a shorter random-looking username like the one that you have chosen as your HN username, is difficult to relate to for…

You’re assuming that 1) the value of a username or URL is higher than the value of privacy 2) people use those for discovery. I’m sure 99% of social media connections happen via recommendation algorithms, friends-of-friends or search by name (not username), never directly typing a username or profile url.

Re: Find a person's profile across 350 social media sites

#64

Post by spoonjim »

reaperducer wrote: post #43
majkinetor wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is invalid thinking. Bad actors can make such tool themselves (if they can't, they are not really that good) and have incentive to do that, so non existence will only slow them down. I don't care about analyzing other people for any purpose so I don't. Having this tool readily available lets me analyze myself and people I care about to protect them from bad actors and educate them in the process.

This is invalid thinking. I'm not familiar with the phrase "invalid thinking." Can you elaborate on how a person's thoughts can be invalid?

It’s a hamfisted attempt to assert the correctness of one’s argument by fiat. It’s the grown-up “are not / am too!”

Re: Find a person's profile across 350 social media sites

#65

Post by lmz »

pca006132 wrote: post #15
alex_young wrote: post #5

> This project is "currently used by some law enforcement agencies in countries where resources are limited". Pretty troubling statement. Does this tool help repressive governments track people across accounts? That’s sure what it looks like.

But this is not a problem with the tool, this is a problem with those platforms. Even if this tool is not published, bad actors can still make their own tools. I think we should rather demand the platforms to enforce better measures against this kind of usage, rather than blaming this tool.

Yup. Not sure how this is different from any of the security tools / exploits used to break into networks.

Re: Find a person's profile across 350 social media sites

#67

Post by MattGaiser »

ttt0 wrote: post #61
uh_uh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should do both. I take an issue with the argument that bad actors can make their own tools. Bad actors can also build their own nuclear weapons, genetically engineer their own deadly diseases but there's certainly value in not making this any easier. If you take the time, money and effort away from bad actors by forcing them to reinvent the wheel, that's a good thing. Granted, this logic can't be viably appl…

Tools like this are trivial to make and it's trivial to do it manually using Google. I don't see any point in getting angry about the existence of tools like that, as it's beyond anyone's power to stop people from doxxing each other.

I did something similar to this for a hackathon in university. Obviously not as sophisticated as this, but the concept is trivial. If you know enough about the command line to install it, you can build it.

Re: Find a person's profile across 350 social media sites

#68

Post by bt1a »

jiofih wrote: post #63
codetrotter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the idea of not allowing users to pick their own identifiers is not compatible with how a lot of people use social media. It’s a heck of a lot easier for me to tell my GitHub username to someone, than it would be to tell them a random UUID like 3ffdf0d2-b9a5-4fff-9f38-75afae67dbea. Even a shorter random-looking username like the one that you have chosen as your HN username, is difficult to relate to for…

You’re assuming that 1) the value of a username or URL is higher than the value of privacy 2) people use those for discovery. I’m sure 99% of social media connections happen via recommendation algorithms, friends-of-friends or search by name (not username), never directly typing a username or profile url.

You're sure about that? I don't think so. There's tons of connections made from people transferring short, human-readable handles. Think business cards, word of mouth. e.g. I'm at (@) handle. That's much easier to lookup as opposed to searching for someone's name. It may even be a business that's not tied to the individual's name.

Re: Find a person's profile across 350 social media sites

#69

Post by Ensorceled »

majkinetor wrote: post #57
reaperducer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is invalid thinking. I'm not familiar with the phrase "invalid thinking." Can you elaborate on how a person's thoughts can be invalid?

You are being overly literal I guess, there is nothing to explain. Invalid line of thought sounds good ? Try DDG next time.

The sentence was unnecessary to both your point and any argument in general. Why did you include it? Why are you defending it's inclusion? Why are you now saying "google it"?

Re: Find a person's profile across 350 social media sites

#70

Post by tantalor »

majkinetor wrote: post #21
cirno wrote: post #18

> API, CLI & Web App for analyzing & finding a person's profile across +300 social media websites > could help in investigating profiles related to suspicious or malicious activities such as cyberbullying, cybergrooming, cyberstalking, and spreading misinformation. It will much more likely be used to aid cyberbullying and cyberstalking. Those types love digging for more information by finding their targets' profiles…

Exactly. BUT, this may bring awareness to regular folks. You can also use it to remove your own stuff from said networks because people do not catalogue their online activity and it can be hard to remove your digital footprint.

I'd pay for a service that would do this,

1. Find my digital footprints on social media

2. Compare that to my desired level of public activity, e.g., do not share photos of me

3. Provide tools to delete, scrub, send takedowns, etc.

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