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"Frienditto" Bandittos?
A number of my friends on LJ have alerted others to the stupidities being committed by this particular group. Apparently they sleazily acquire (taking advantage of many LJ-users' naivete) passwords to accounts which permits them to display friends-only posts.
Now, while *I* have never made a restricted post, nor can I imagine making one, but for those who trusted that their private posts would remain private, this is a deliberate and offensive violation of privacy.
Apparently some of the Frienditto users have also been going around mocking various LJ users' private posts and doing similar things to posts against the frienditto "service". I ran across a couple of examples. Pretty sad -- I'd guess high school lusers with nothing better to do than be assholes.
Frienditto seems to be connected to something else called "LJ Drama", but I have no idea what THAT is.
Now, while *I* have never made a restricted post, nor can I imagine making one, but for those who trusted that their private posts would remain private, this is a deliberate and offensive violation of privacy.
Apparently some of the Frienditto users have also been going around mocking various LJ users' private posts and doing similar things to posts against the frienditto "service". I ran across a couple of examples. Pretty sad -- I'd guess high school lusers with nothing better to do than be assholes.
Frienditto seems to be connected to something else called "LJ Drama", but I have no idea what THAT is.
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I haven't looked into it past that. Their "terms of service" are somewhat revealing if you read carefully. Such as having the address that you are supposed to send complaints about your stuff being posted without permission be "legalthreats@..." and then later referring to such complaints as legal threats.
Basically, they are taking advantage of naive users and the fact that the prolonged LJ outage a few weeks back has folks trying to find ways to preserve their LJ stuff.
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Really nothing to see here, and the fact that people are getting so worked up over something that provides no new capability at all is indicative of how many clueless people one can find on LJ. There is an argument to be made that LJ users shouldn't have to understand computer security just to protect things from being viewed, but this is more in the way of getting up to make a sandwich because you though your RV's cruise control would keep it on the road. :)
Information cannot be simultaneously shared and kept private. (Can you tell this is one of my favorite rants?)
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Cutting and pasting takes more work and also requires more work to put the info out there without revealing who is doing it.
With Frienditto, it's as easy as "logging in" and pasting a url.
And it sells itself as a way to "archive" your LJ (or did) so there's a "misleading people" factor there too.
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Anyway, the point is that once you've put something out on the internet that *anyone* else at all can access, you've lost any guarantee of privacy. Anyway, this is just a kneejerk reaction to the "OMG! Frienditto destroys privacy!" posts I've seen. The only thing I find objectionable about it is that you could potentially lose your account to it, since you have to give it a username/password. Personally, I wouldn't use it no matter what I wanted to archive, for that reason.
Not quite true.
This may be a reasonable view for those of us experienced online, but for a VERY large number of people it is NOT. They view the difference between the public and private sections as something on the order of the difference between a conference panel discussion and a private phone call with friends. For them, looking at private journal entries without actually being invited to (i.e., being put on the Friends list) is the equivalent of breaking into their houses and opening their diaries, or putting a tap on their phone.
Re: Not quite true.
I think all this is good for society, but there are going to be a lot of screaming fits before the lessons have sunk in.
Re: Not quite true.
Re: Not quite true.
More importantly, however, I don't see any way of stopping this short of something that massively retards technology (not just the growth thereof), and even something as drastic as banning the development of new computer technology would only slow the change.
We live in interesting times, to paraphrase the oft-mentioned curse, and they're growing more interesting by the year. Just wait until molecular machinery, and the prospect of wholesale duplication of any structure at all, rather than mere data. Coming in the next few decades to an Everywhere near you!
Re: Not quite true.
randallsquared
2005-03-06 04:19 (link) Select
I completely disagree. :) It's precisely to the degree that one doesn't have freedom that one needs secrecy. In fact, I would expect that as it becomes clear that anyone can find out about anyone else breaking the law, either the law will be relaxed, or the whole pretense of equality under the law will break, and we'll have a "correction", as the financial market people say.
This is a fine philosophy, for nonhumans -- just as pure Objectivism or pure Marxism was. But people -- real people -- have secrets. Many of these secrets may be utterly trivial from the point of view of other people, but they will be very important to the individual. Lack of freedom to say or write or do things privately has a tremendous number of negative consequences, not the least of which being that YOUR way of doing things becomes directly open to public scrutiny, and thus open to accusation under ANYONE'S standards. Your mistakes or ill-thought out actions become fair game for any young punk who thinks it's a good idea to embarrass someone.
Unless you truly foresee a society that includes human beings who have no concept of shame, petty jealousies, hatreds, and never make mistakes or do things they regret, this is the kind of change to be greatly feared.
More importantly, however, I don't see any way of stopping this short of something that massively retards technology (not just the growth thereof), and even something as drastic as banning the development of new computer technology would only slow the change.
It's a problem, yes. Partially it may be resolved by technology -- turning the one side against the other, so to speak -- and partially by revising custom and law to make the penalties for violating privacy worse. Your freedom STOPS at my life, and vice versa.
We live in interesting times, to paraphrase the oft-mentioned curse, and they're growing more interesting by the year. Just wait until molecular machinery, and the prospect of wholesale duplication of any structure at all, rather than mere data. Coming in the next few decades to an Everywhere near you!
Depends on what you mean by "few decades" and I'm not sure the actual will live up to the fictional guesses.
Re: Not quite true.
I think you may be reading into what I said something that isn't there.
But people -- real people -- have secrets. Many of these secrets may be utterly trivial from the point of view of other people, but they will be very important to the individual.
And keeping them won't be a problem. All you have to do is *want* to keep the secret, and technology can help you. It's only when you stop keeping the secret that other people become able to disseminate it. This is exactly the same as it's always been in principle; it's just easier now, and will get far more so. A person to whom you entrusted a secret has always been able to repeat it to someone else, and now they can do so with better fidelity and ease. So what needs to change is the idea that you can simultaneously give away secrets (but Kiesha would NEVER tell!) and keep them, but this has *always* been a bad idea, which is why there are sayings like "Three can keep a secret if two are dead". It's just going to be more obvious now.
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Glad I don't qualify.
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