I finally succumbed and signed up for instagram two weeks ago.
I made my last login today and that was on the desktop, I'm not one for installing the facebook or insta's app on my phone.
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I made my last login today and that was on the desktop, I'm not one for installing the facebook or insta's app on my phone.
thegreenhand
Bluelight Crew
Yeah just having the app there makes you likely to check it. It’s like your fingers just move on their own
✿Dai₷y✿
Bluelighter
Specified
Ex-Bluelighter
it has been proven that cameras do not stop you all from watching me
Wilson Wilson
Bluelighter
You know what I find curious about Instagram (and FB apps in general) is how they will intentionally not use features in the OS that are designed to avoid giving apps too many permissions.
For example in Android, if you don't give Twitter permission to access your device's files, you can still tweet a photo from your gallery app. It works because even though Twitter doesn't have files access, there is an API where Android hands that one file over to a location Twitter has access to.
If you try to do this with Instagram, you cannot proceed without granting full access to your phone's filesystem. And when I say full access to the filesystem I mean what I say. Not just photos but literally any file on your phone is accessible.
Google is trying to fix this with a new feature called Scoped Storage which was meant to come with Android 10 but will now likely ship with Android 11 instead. This will mean that each app can only access its own folder, and the only way to access external files is through SAF, which is an API allowing the user to select a file which the OS then passes back to the app. This way Insta can get a photo you select but without having access to anything else on your system.
Alright this was just a nerdy tangent wasn't it? Fuck it, you guys all loved my tech privacy megathread so might find this interesting too.
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
i just use instagram from my computer, but set the user agent to iphone to post. i only use it for posting cool images that arise while i'm failing at my job, or the image analysis bits of it.
i am proud that i have never ever had a facebook app on my phone and never will, nor will i have insta. i don't have whatsapp and will never allow anything that is owner by facebook onto my phone. i also don't do banking on my phone cos of negative experiences i had while working as a technical consultant with major financial institutions. seeing how supposedly super secure software that has trillions of dollars of transactions going through it every day could just fall apart in minutes during performance testing has made me a bit cautious.
i am proud that i have never ever had a facebook app on my phone and never will, nor will i have insta. i don't have whatsapp and will never allow anything that is owner by facebook onto my phone. i also don't do banking on my phone cos of negative experiences i had while working as a technical consultant with major financial institutions. seeing how supposedly super secure software that has trillions of dollars of transactions going through it every day could just fall apart in minutes during performance testing has made me a bit cautious.
Wilson Wilson
Bluelighter
That's all very smart. When I used to be on FB I used an app called Tinfoil that just sandboxed the mobile website. Then I just deleted my account altogether for many reasons, privacy and distrust being a big one, but also the mental health effects of social media were a huge reason too. I've been so much less anxious since leaving FB, no joke.
A New, More Rigorous Study Confirms: The More You Use Facebook, the Worse You Feel
Research has long suggested that social media can be harmful to users’ wellbeing. But past studies have often failed to acknowledge people’s baseline sociability or social media usage levels. In a comprehensive new study, the authors examined the impact of Facebook usage on wellbeing over time...
hbr.org
FB is also creepy in how they do the "people you may know..." thing. So check this right, I made a new account a good few years ago. Someone popped up on the "people you might know" who I did indeed know... because I met them exactly twice, years and years ago. We texted for a bit but since then I not only changed my number, but I didn't even give FB access to my contacts. This person was not friends with anyone else I knew. We no longer lived in close proximity to each other (different cities hundreds of miles away, in fact). This was also before FB bought out WhatsApp, so it couldn't have been through that.
So... how the fuck did it know?
My best guess is that this person did upload their contacts to Facebook, including my old number, which would have been attached to my name. Facebook cross-referenced that number and name with others who had the same contact uploaded. Once I changed my number, I gave it out to my friends, and FB could tell that my number being changed on all those phones within a short period meant I changed my number. So they linked the old number to the new number. Thus anyone who has or did have that old number in their phone must have known me. Hence the connection was made.
Facebook refuses to actually detail how their algorithm works, but it makes cross-profile connections exactly like that, so it does follow through.
There's a good article about it here:
How Facebook Figures Out Everyone You've Ever Met
In real life, in the natural course of conversation, it is not uncommon to talk about a person you may know. You meet someone and say, “I’m from
gizmodo.com
See now this is why my anxiety levels are down since quitting that shitty site.
Interesting side note, did you know that both WhatsApp co-creators left Facebook shortly after the buyout, apologised for betraying their users, and Brian Acton in particular has told the public to "#DeleteFacebook" multiple times after donating $50 million to the Signal Foundation which he now co-manages with the founder. Signal is private and secure WhatsApp competitor which I've been using for a long long time, it's the best around.
Signal Messenger: Speak Freely
Say "hello" to a different messaging experience. An unexpected focus on privacy, combined with all of the features you expect.
www.signal.org
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
thanks for the articles, will take a look after work. i mostly use facebook to find out about antivaxxers, and now covidiots. though according to my buddhist learnings, righteous indignation is not a positive emotion so its not wise for me to actively seek it out. this year i've increased my fb posts from an annual merry christmas to 3 showing the kitten's progress so maybe i should cut down again lol. i'm not surprised you've been less anxious. i went through a phase during the election where i would have the same argument 3 times a week til i got deleted. i've got deleted by a couple of people since the start of lockdown for asking them for evidence of their claims, that just makes me chuckle, but arguments about politics make my blood boil.
it is really creepy. my SO doesn't have facebook but when we were at uni people would tag him in photos. it fucking created an empty profile for him!!! its also suggested people that i do know but through really dodgy connections, which is a bit worrying.
it is really creepy. my SO doesn't have facebook but when we were at uni people would tag him in photos. it fucking created an empty profile for him!!! its also suggested people that i do know but through really dodgy connections, which is a bit worrying.
Wilson Wilson
Bluelighter
Same here on Twitter, was just stressing me the fuck out. And yeah people who block you the moment you ask for evidence of their claims are hilarious. But glad to not be addicted to that parasite anymore either. It's weird I only started using Twitter after the lockdown to try and keep up with everything, which quickly turned into spending way too much time on there and arguing with everyone very quickly. When I say they engineer these things to be addictive I ain't joking.
Yes FB creates "ghost profiles" for everyone. They deny this, but they made a cockup that proves they do it (it's mentioned in the second article I linked). I'm not sure how differently things are done after the GDPR though, curiously my suggestions for who to add on IG got a lot more generic right after the GDPR came into force. I'm sure the data is all still there, but they can't use it the same way anymore.
And yeah the dodgy connections thing is very common, specific examples are mentioned in that article, the extent they go to just to be creepy is insane.
I only once installed the facebook app because I couldn't access the internet by any other means.
The amount of permissions that one doesn't want and how quickly it drains your battery makes you wonder you're being watched by big brother.
✿Dai₷y✿
Bluelighter
I keep in touch with many bluelighters who continue bl on Facebook, wouldn't have been able to eithout it.
It's a good reason to have it, idc about fb itself at all though.
It's a good reason to have it, idc about fb itself at all though.
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
whoa @Wilson Wilson I just read that article!!! nuts! also glad that through my total inability to keep hold of a mobile phone and not smash it at the time, i went through a couple of different numbers while i was doing sex work, as apart from that period, i've had the same mobile number forever!! i have still had clients manage to contact me on facebook though.
Wilson Wilson
Bluelighter
The Facebook Android app sucks up so much data you wouldn't believe. Have you ever got a "person you might know..." for someone who literally just phoned you? Yeah, that's because FB's app uploads your call logs constantly.
Here's another fun fact. If you give FB location access, it will start trying to link you to people you are physically near. Usually not random people you pass in the street, but the algorithm will look at how long you spend with someone, and if you're near them for say 10 minutes it'll make a connection and you both get suggested as friends.
They use the same thing for ads. If you're in a street with a certain shop in it, that shop's ad can pop up on your phone because of your location.
It is literally spyware. If a Chinese app did even half the shit Facebook does the media would be going mental over it. They're going mental over TikTok already which doesn't even require very many permissions. Facebook is a billion times worse than TikTok.
Guess it's okay as long as it's good old American spying rather than those evil commies though right?
It is fucking crazy yeah. My escort mates got the same thing, johns popping up on FB suggestions, even though they used burner phones for their work.
Wilson Wilson
Bluelighter
Same. They can still approximate your location using your IP address anyway, but it's very vague and often inaccurate, and obviously you can always use a VPN to hide your IP. In any case they're getting much less data on you than they would from the actual GPS for sure.
thegreenhand
Bluelight Crew
It's a shame how little the general public cares about their privacy.
www.vice.com
This bill extended the patriot act to be even worse than it already is. I don't want corporations looking at my data but I especially don't want my government doing so. One could argue that you agree to use a private companies website and therefore have no right to complain (but who really reads the terms of service and they definitely stretch the things stated in them anyways) but a government doing so is just inexcusable
Senate Votes to Allow FBI to Look at Your Web Browsing History Without a Warrant
Lawmakers voted down a measure that would prevent law enforcement from spying on Americans’ internet habits.
www.vice.com
LoginNotSecure
Bluelighter
People should not be afraid of their government, government should be afraid of their people.
Wilson Wilson
Bluelighter
It's a shame how little the general public cares about their privacy.
This bill extended the patriot act to be even worse than it already is. I don't want corporations looking at my data but I especially don't want my government doing so. One could argue that you agree to use a private companies website and therefore have no right to complain (but who really reads the terms of service and they definitely stretch the things stated in them anyways) but a government doing so is just inexcusableSenate Votes to Allow FBI to Look at Your Web Browsing History Without a Warrant
Lawmakers voted down a measure that would prevent law enforcement from spying on Americans’ internet habits.
The situation in Australia is even worse. Over there, not only are there government mandated backdoors, but the government can compel a private individual to backdoor their employer's systems, including their commercial products, and slap a gag order on them. If you resist you get locked up. Orwell is spinning in his grave.
Australia's Encryption-Busting Law Could Impact Global Privacy
Australia has passed a law that would require companies to weaken their encryption, a move that could reverberate globally.
This is one of many reasons I believe the future of the internet will be decentralisation. The tech exists now, it just needs to mature. For decentralised encrypted communications for example you have Matrix/Riot. There you can run your own end-to-end encrypted private chats, or have public rooms like IRC or Discord, using open source software from a server you control.
What will really change the game is a fully decentralised peer-to-peer internet. This would be literally impossible for the government to control, which is why the RIAA couldn't take down BitTorrent. Again the tech exists but needs to mature.
As I get better at programming I'm going to make serious contributions to these projects.
I think technology like this is the only way to truly protect your privacy. The legal environment will continue to get worse and worse around the world. I have great respect for organisations like the EFF who fight this, ultimately the fact is if you have a system where it is possible for the government to backdoor central points of authority, they will do it either by passing a law or just illegally in secret (hello, NSA).
The only way to ensure privacy is to make sure that you have a system designed specifically to resist government intervention in the first place. If everything is peer-to-peer and end-to-end encrypted, and the underlying platform is open source, it becomes very difficult for the government to backdoor anything. I cannot say impossible, but very difficult. Likely the gov would turn to trading in zero-days to target individuals, just as they do when hacking phones right now, but this still prevents the existence of a dragnet. Stockpiling zero-days isn't easy or cheap either. If you were a clever hacker with an exploit chain that could gain remote persistent root access to just a regular Android phone you could sell it for $2,500,000.
"State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people’."
pinkpapaver
Bluelighter
Yes . I need to know more tech . Track n trace is a strange one . I think Hancock just got his cheque yday for selling test kits and track and trace apps , hard to hide the money joy whe. You have it . Like he’d win the pools
pinkpapaver
Bluelighter
I think they are , that’s why they scared them into staying at home ... and I saw the level of security at Tory conference in 2018 , some job that was , operation Pelkin . Well done fibber Magee , he win a load of new security contracts for them types with the Brighton bomb , and he’s now a popular well paid talking head in the bbc .
Imagine all the bedroom radicalisation going on right now ! Spooky . Thank duck I will not be sitting thru teacher training prevent shite and safe guarding and keep clear if covid this September