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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

#611

Post by whimsicalism »

syops wrote: post #521
whimsicalism wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you've made no claims about Instagram enforcing only one political viewpoint. I think I've made pretty explicit claims about political moderation by Instagram. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of racism/sexism/etc. so I find it hard to mind, but as I've shown, they also moderate contested political claims, like stuff about Biden's crime bill, Hunter Biden, etc. Those are political issues, and I've provided eviden…

You haven't given any evidence that Instagram enforces only one viewpoint. And I'd be shocked if Instagram only pays for political posts from one side of the debate in American politics. That Instagram seeks to counter what it perceives of as false political claims has been convincingly made. That it does so to advance only one certain political agenda has not been made.

My evidence was attempting to show that "claims Instagram thinks are true" is an explicitly political category. By moderating away political claims that diverge from that category, IG is advancing a political agenda.

You're asking me to prove the much harder claim that IG has never taken moderation action against political beliefs on the other side of the political spectrum.

Of course, that is

a. an extremely hard claim to prove on an internet forum like this, because I'd have to have an index of all of IGs enforcement actions to prove that none of them met this criteria you've set up.

b. not even close to proven in the case of Parler by the original poster

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

#612

Post by amanaplanacanal »

brigandish wrote: post #344
ipsocannibal wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data, evidence? The threat is in giving the fascist terrorist 1% a microphone not that the other 99% happen to be listening. Parler was lax in policing that 1%.

> 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…

> Allow them to speak their mind and you lower their need for violent action

That may be true, or that may not be true. Has there been any research on this?

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

#613

Post by satysin »

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…

It makes so much sense when you think of Parler as a propaganda network and recruitment tool and not a "free speech" social network which is exactly how I described my experience with it in the mega thread yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25712762

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

#614

Post by greedo »

matt-attack wrote: post #424
rob74 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it's probably hard for a network like Parler to attract top talent. I mean, they explicitly advertised themselves as the "free speech social network" (i.e. "all hate speech welcome, we won't censor anyone except maybe Trump parody accounts") - would you want to work for such a company, or have it on your resume in the future?

So it’s now just a given that all of HN objects to the phrase “free speech” without limits? Seems like a pretty radical assumption and a pretty sad sign of the times if true. Note: this message has nothing to do with Parler and being right or left. Just about the phrase “free speech” and what it now connotes.

Free speech has always had limits...

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

#615

Post by BlueTemplar »

papaf wrote: post #450
BlueTemplar wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those 30% overwhelmingly live in the biggest cities. Not in the poor villages where the ethnic tensions started. (However, maybe Facebook indeed made things worse, once the Facebook-connected military got involved.)

Both internet and Facebook were available in rural areas. Described as an "internet revolution" at the time: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-f... The UN also said that Facebook played a "determining role" (see the Diplomat link).

Hmm, I guess it's my damn fault for staying too much on the tourist route and assuming things from appearances !

Charging phones from car batteries, damn !

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

#616

Post by monksy »

notyourwork wrote: post #401
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all in favor of getting rid of the leetcode interviews, but it's not an either-or one, coding competency is still the primary concern, security a secondary one. And I don't think an individual developer would have prevented this; this is an issue with the general security and monitoring policies at Parler. I mean how could they create millions of admin accounts and extract 70 TB of data without any alarm bells, f…

When I interview candidates and their solution encounters an unexpected condition I typically park the original question to temporarily discuss how to handle this exception. This and more generally their thoughts on how to handle other types of unexpected scenarios is an important part of delivering real world solutions. I'm shocked by the amount of engineers that don't have any thoughts on this topic.

The popular way of quizing developers during the interview has more about throwaway leetcode than experience.

What you're digging for is about their experience. To me, what you're finding comes at no shock. The industry has been punishing people with experience and willing to show it for years.

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

#617

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

swalsh wrote: post #34

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

Doubtful, all the links were publicly accessible. I believe the researcher just crawled the "video.parler.com" domain after finding out they used sequential IDs.

Allegedly Parler didn't scrub exif data from any media, including all of their "verification" materials including Drivers Licenses and Passports.

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

#618

Post by sangnoir »

surge wrote: post #516
prof-dr-ir wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Now that this is public, they're going to burn everything connected to it and it may ruin ongoing investigations.

There is no way a non-tech savvy person can foil the federal government agency in this way - an agency which will likely have all the logs from Amazon (in addition to the data dump from this particular hack, and cached data from Parler follower's devices which will be duly imaged). In reality, any such amateur cleanup activity will be brought forward as further evidence of guilt (or as an additional charge).

I am tech savvy, and I am not foolish enough to think can possibly hide information from a nation-state, should one choose to turn it's Sauron's-eye-like gaze on me. Hell, I don't even stand a chance against a VC-funded security firm with <10 people that's worth its salt.

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

#619

Post by chipotle_coyote »

brigandish wrote: post #307
rob74 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it's probably hard for a network like Parler to attract top talent. I mean, they explicitly advertised themselves as the "free speech social network" (i.e. "all hate speech welcome, we won't censor anyone except maybe Trump parody accounts") - would you want to work for such a company, or have it on your resume in the future?

> 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.…

> The sad fact is your comment exposes how difficult it is for anyone in the tech industry to hold a sincere conviction that free speech is a good thing

Twitter occasionally labels disputed/debunked political claims as such (but still lets them be published) and, after literally years of doing little more than that, finally took actions to ban a half-dozen high-profile accounts that kept pushing such claims after they arguably literally lead to an armed insurrection. Parler was literally designed with suppression of political viewpoints they disagree with in mind from the start. It should be crystal clear which of those networks "values free speech" to a higher degree.

So, no, your implicit claim that it's sad that top talent wouldn't work for Parler because that would demonstrate their commitment to free speech is silly at best and disingenuous at worst. Parler has demonstrably less commitment to free speech than Twitter does.

I'll be blunt: my sincere conviction is that "if you moderate anything it means you are not for free speech" is not a viable operational principle. It's a rhetorical device. Trolls -- alt-right or otherwise -- have always claimed that moderation suppresses their free speech. If you listen to them, you are running a forum for trolls, whether or not that is your intent. It is not Parler's publicly claimed intent to be doing so, but -- even based on the content on their site, let alone their ideologically-driven moderation which, again, goes far beyond anything Twitter, Facebook, et. al, have actually done -- it is painfully obvious it is their actual intent.

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

#620

Post by jjk166 »

_bpkv wrote: post #292
dieortin wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re referring to world war 2, axis engineers were in no way “mediocre”.

Systems can be complicated and even the smallest detail can be dangerously revealing to a scrutinizing eye. "Allied intelligence noticed each captured tank had a unique serial number. With careful observation, the Allies were able to determine the serial numbers had a pattern denoting the order of tank production. Using this data, the Allies created a mathematical model to determine the rate of German tank production…

This and similar stories should really be interpreted more as british intelligence being brilliant than the germans being dumb. It's almost scary how many times the allies produced paradigm-shifting hacks in record time throughout the war.
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