Name: Anonymous 2013-12-13 17:42
This has passed ridicule and crossed into the domain of the absurd.
Twitter (the company that specializes in the publishing of 140 character prose, if case you haven't been @following the latest #trends) provides two account modes: public and private. In the public mode, anyone read your beautiful SMS-talk-ridden prose and interact with you (for example by 'retweeting' your posts to other people, which is very much like forwarding emails), while in private mode those privileges are restricted to only a select few (whom you get to pick). Oblivious to the implications, however, most people choose to create a public profile and use it to post, well, everything that happens to them, including the things that would normally only be told to a dear friend over a beer or glass of wine. Information is power, and this is no exception: literally anyone can read their 'tweets' (Twitter posts) and use all of that information against them, from spammers to identity thieves to stalkers (both governmental and non-profit) to trolls. You would think that people would then quickly learn to create several profiles for the various facets of their life, each set to public or private accordingly? Wrong! Instead they rely on the site's 'Block' function.
Now think about it; 'blocking' a specific individual from a public anonymously-accessible resource is, by definition, impossible. The said individual can simply create and use another account or, if the blocking is IP-based, use a proxy.
This hasn't stopped a large numbr of twittr usrs from screaming out in horror when the company decided that the 'Block' function would stop trying to do things that are information-theoretically impossible, and only do what it is actually effective for: removing the blockee's posts from the sight of the blocker.
I entirely agree with the excellent argument that most spammers and stalkers are stricken with idiocy (not unlike their victims) and they were actually deterred by the previous 'stronger' blocking policy, but it seems that in the aftermath of this storm in a teacup most twitter users remain blissfully unaware of how identity thieves and trolls can still easily 'get' to their victims.
To exemplify: a lot of people were mentioning the situation in which Alice postsdumb shit things, Mallory sees Alice's posts, and retweets (forwards) them to all of Mallory's friends so they can have a good laugh. Apparently the 'blocking' function was effective against this since most Mallory's don't know how or can't be bothered to run multiple browser instances in parallel and manually copy Alice's dumb shit posts from one browser (not logged in) and paste it in the other browser (logged in).
This 'attack' is actually a lot stronger; if Alice has a 'private' account but adds random people to the list of people who can read her posts, Mallory can easily create another account, use it to be 'friendly' with Alice until Alice gives Mallory access to her posts, and then retweet whatever Alice posts using the original (and unconnected) account. I believe the reason why this doesn't happen a lot more is because Alice'sdumb shit posts are inane and stupid (in the image of their author), and almost never worth the trouble of professional trolls.
Of course, if Mallory is an identity thief instead of a troll, Alice won't even know something is wrong until it is too late.
Fortunately for the company (as well as identity thieves and trolls), most twitter users lack the intelligence to reason about the consequences of exposing their private information to strangers or even to the entire world. Three cheers to idiocy!
http://stephguthrie.com/2013/12/12/restoretheblock/
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23RestoreTheBlock&src=hash
Twitter (the company that specializes in the publishing of 140 character prose, if case you haven't been @following the latest #trends) provides two account modes: public and private. In the public mode, anyone read your beautiful SMS-talk-ridden prose and interact with you (for example by 'retweeting' your posts to other people, which is very much like forwarding emails), while in private mode those privileges are restricted to only a select few (whom you get to pick). Oblivious to the implications, however, most people choose to create a public profile and use it to post, well, everything that happens to them, including the things that would normally only be told to a dear friend over a beer or glass of wine. Information is power, and this is no exception: literally anyone can read their 'tweets' (Twitter posts) and use all of that information against them, from spammers to identity thieves to stalkers (both governmental and non-profit) to trolls. You would think that people would then quickly learn to create several profiles for the various facets of their life, each set to public or private accordingly? Wrong! Instead they rely on the site's 'Block' function.
Now think about it; 'blocking' a specific individual from a public anonymously-accessible resource is, by definition, impossible. The said individual can simply create and use another account or, if the blocking is IP-based, use a proxy.
This hasn't stopped a large numbr of twittr usrs from screaming out in horror when the company decided that the 'Block' function would stop trying to do things that are information-theoretically impossible, and only do what it is actually effective for: removing the blockee's posts from the sight of the blocker.
I entirely agree with the excellent argument that most spammers and stalkers are stricken with idiocy (not unlike their victims) and they were actually deterred by the previous 'stronger' blocking policy, but it seems that in the aftermath of this storm in a teacup most twitter users remain blissfully unaware of how identity thieves and trolls can still easily 'get' to their victims.
To exemplify: a lot of people were mentioning the situation in which Alice posts
This 'attack' is actually a lot stronger; if Alice has a 'private' account but adds random people to the list of people who can read her posts, Mallory can easily create another account, use it to be 'friendly' with Alice until Alice gives Mallory access to her posts, and then retweet whatever Alice posts using the original (and unconnected) account. I believe the reason why this doesn't happen a lot more is because Alice's
Of course, if Mallory is an identity thief instead of a troll, Alice won't even know something is wrong until it is too late.
Fortunately for the company (as well as identity thieves and trolls), most twitter users lack the intelligence to reason about the consequences of exposing their private information to strangers or even to the entire world. Three cheers to idiocy!
http://stephguthrie.com/2013/12/12/restoretheblock/
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23RestoreTheBlock&src=hash