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Discord just killed anonymity

michael-dev-tech.github.io

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Re: Discord just killed anonymity

#81

Post by CodeMage »

Aurornis wrote: post #61
echelon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You poor summer child. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEXINT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexpionage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vassall https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/how-no... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/nsa-tracking-online-po... https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/echoing-dirty-pa... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/nsa-files-live... It's such a successf…

> You poor summer child. Being condescending doesn't help your case. Link-bombing me with stories about Bitcoin scammers and South Korean telegram scams has nothing to do with your claim that politicians are using Discord to blackmail people about their porn habits. If state-level spy agencies wanted to spy on someone's porn habits, they do not need to kindly ask Discord to collect that person's ID.

> If state-level spy agencies wanted to spy on someone's porn habits, they do not need to kindly ask Discord to collect that person's ID.

The first time I ever had a conversation about privacy concerns with anyone was around 1999. I've been hearing this kind of argument ever since then. Meanwhile, the erosion of privacy since back then has been nothing short of staggering.

We're at the point where we have government using Palantir to target the people, yet somehow privacy concerns keep falling on deaf ears and keep producing the same old "government doesn't need this latest privacy-eroding change" knee-jerk non-argument.

No, they might not need it, strictly speaking, but it sure as hell comes in handy, not to mention that it shifts the Overton window and serves as a stepping stone for the next invasion of privacy.

Re: Discord just killed anonymity

#83

Post by RHSeeger »

digiown wrote: post #6

Discord has always had dark patterns which basically ban anonymity. If you aren't fingerprintable enough (using VPN, etc) they will force you to enter a phone number. They also encourage guild admins to require it, although it is technically a choice.

I've been blocked from joining the discord of some games I play because I refuse to enter a phone number.

Re: Discord just killed anonymity

#84

Post by cortesoft »

> If you're staying on Discord, enjoy the surveillance. For the rest of us: it's time to learn how to self-host.

Hmmm. I feel like self-hosting is the FASTEST way to lose your anonymity. Your self hosted service is MUCH more easily tied to your identity than some third party like discord.

Just imagine you set up a self-hosted forum where you want to discuss something you want to keep private, but the government is very interested and wants to know who you are talking to.

Well, now they know any IP address connecting to your forum is a person of interest. They don't need to decrypt anything to know you are talking to each other.

By using something unique, you are going to make yourself uniquely identifiable.

Re: Discord just killed anonymity

#85

Post by wolvoleo »

duskwuff wrote: post #74
wolvoleo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also quassel which solves the problem a bit like a bouncer but it's way more integrated, it just loads the scrollback on demand instead of just banging the latest 200 lines into my buffer when I connect. Solves the problem perfectly IMO and there's a really excellent android client.

It's still not server-side history, though - you can't join a channel and see what happened before you joined, or edit a message you've already sent. It's just a slightly cleaner implementation of an IRC bouncer.

Hmm no but that's usually a good thing. I've had some late night chats where I knew all the other people around and it would not be so cool if anyone else could just join and scroll back to it.

In fact this is the reason some irc networks blocked matrix bridges at first (they now have settings to disable this)

I'm not saying mainstream people should use IRC though. Matrix is better for that.

Re: Discord just killed anonymity

#86

Post by nnx »

bashington wrote: post #18

To access age-gated parts of Discord, you need to verify your age. This sounds reasonable. It's not much different to having your id card checked when purchasing alcohol. Actually it's better as you only have to do it once, not on each visit.

Hmm no, because in the case of purchasing alcohol the ID check is 1:1, in time and in space, it's ephemeral (unless the clerk has extreme photographic memory).

In the case of an online-based ID check, even with nice looking privacy terms, there is no guarantee that your ID won't be stored forever and/or re-analyzed many times cross-checking with other services, and worse leaked.

Re: Discord just killed anonymity

#87

Post by hnthrowaway6323 »

Discord doesn't care about user privacy nor user security and actively retaliates against people.

Their DPO ignored a PII leak I discovered and reported last year. Their dpo mail address just creates a zendesk ticket, I was able to view the ticket was locked and marked "solved" with no response a few days later.

So, I brought it to the Dutch DPA, who were very responsive, and on the same day as their "final update" email, my nearly-decade old Discord account was suddenly "suspended" hours later. The PII leak, which had been ongoing for over a year before my discovery at that point was suddenly stopped the same day. Funny how that works.

It took 5+ months for Discord's DPO and informal disputes team to finally get back to me after informing them of the retaliation, with irrelevant copy & paste templates giving me walk through guides on how to file a "trust and safety" ticket.

When filing a ticket with "trust and safety" under appeal categories I get an automated "please appeal your ban through the app! I am now closing this ticket" response and my ticket's locked once again. And of course, appealing through the app gives me a generic system error.

Re: Discord just killed anonymity

#88

Post by wolvoleo »

jonstaab wrote: post #49

If you're looking for an alternative, I'm building flotilla.social, a self-hostable chat app built on nostr, which uses cryptographic identities to prevent identity capture.

Nice, nostr is a way better setup than bluesky imo. The way you just roll your identity like you roll a bitcoin wallet. Love it. I'll keep an eye on your app.

Edit: it does look a little too corporate for me though with the 'book a demo' and the focus on my 'mission'. Doesn't really give hanging out with friends vibes. Just saying.

Re: Discord just killed anonymity

#89

Post by legitster »

duskwuff wrote: post #64
legitster wrote: post #34

https://discord.com/press-releases/discord-launches-teen-by-... > For the majority of adult users, we will be able to confirm your age group using information we already have. We use age prediction to determine, with high confidence, when a user is an adult. This allows many adults to access age-appropriate features without completing an explicit age check. > Facial scans never leave your device. Discord and our vend…

Even wilder - they're claiming to look at a user's activity on the platform - like what servers they're on, what games they play, and what hours they're active - and infer adulthood from that. No way that'd pass legal muster.

It seems like these systems would be very easy to reverse engineer. Pretend to be an old person on Discord (whatever that entails) long enough to get them off the case.

Re: Discord just killed anonymity

#90

Post by II2II »

Aurornis wrote: post #10

> Discord dropped the hammer: mandatory age verification for all users is rolling out next month. The era of anonymous gaming chats is officially over. This isn't really accurate. Age verification is not mandatory for all accounts. You will be able to join a Discord with your friends, chat, and do voice without age verification. Here's the exact list of what's restricted if you don't verify: > Content Filters: Discor…

I wonder if the people who write these articles realize that they are doing more damage to their cause than good? At best, their lies come off as hysteria. As worse, their lies come off as conspiratorial paranoia. Either way, they are outright ignoring that these polices are put into place to address a very real problem with the status quo while failing to communicate what the very real issues with these policies are (nevermind proposing better ways to address the problem).
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