Facebook and Twitter Are Too Big to Allow Fake Users

xxx

"Facebook, unlike Twitter, has a strict policy against multiple personal accounts and pseudonyms -- which it doesn't enforce"

Facebook and Twitter Are Too Big to Allow Fake Users

Since I have pseudonymous accounts of both Facebook and Twitter, I know that neither of them enforce this rule because, apart from any ethical considerations, they can’t. If I create a Twitter account as Lord Tantamount Horseposture, who are Twitter to say that it isn’t my name (especially in the UK, where it is a freeborn Englishman’s right to call himself whatever he pleases).

Forcing women fleeing domestic violence, political dissidents and people with beliefs different from their employers’ to post under their “real” names gets us nowhere, as a moment’s thought about the topic will reveal.

xxx

"Social networks should be obliged to ban anonymous accounts. "

Facebook and Twitter Are Too Big to Allow Fake Users

If anything they should be forced to ban verified accounts, since I for one couldn’t care less about what Russell Brand or any other sleb thinks about absolutely anything at all, but that’s a different point. The author has stumbled across what I labelled some time ago as the “Clinton Paradox”. I chose this name after Hilary Clinton gave a speech that I reasonably paraphrase as “we want free speech on the internet, except for people we disagree with”.

Comments

There is no excuse for not taking cards

So we went to the pub. For lunch. Seven of us. Say £20 per head. £100+ quid. Say £50 quid gross for the pub. Colleague goes to order food and drinks and pay at the bar. Apologetic barmaid comes over to explain that their “card machine” is down, so she can only accept cash. Under normal circumstances I would have simply walked out, feeling it wholly inappropriate to reward such a poorly managed establishment and, as a functioning actor in a capitalist economy, done my duty to depress their lunchtime takings. Here’s what we wanted to say: This is absurd. This is 2016 not 1916. Your card machine is down? Well, so what! Are you seriously telling me that mein host has no mobile phone number capable of registering for PingIt or PayM? That none of the staff or the pub itself have a PayPal account that I can send the money to? That neither the owners nor managers not contingency planners thought to tuck an iZettle behind the bar to use when the clunky and expensive GPRS terminal fails for o...

Financial Cryptography: Corda Day - a new force

Forum friend Ian Grigg, who I always take very seriously indeed on any such topic, wrote about Corda on his blog and concluded with a powerful statement. Bitcoin told the users it wanted an unstoppable currency - sure, works for a small group but not for the mass market. Ethereum told their users they need an unstoppable machine - which worked how spectacularly with the DAO? Not. What. We. Wanted. Corda is the only game in town because it's the only one that asked the users. It's that simple. From Financial Cryptography: Corda Day - a new force xxx It seems to me, however, what Ian is pointing to as the greatest strength of their approach is also the greatest weakness. A staple feature of unimaginative management consultants presentations about innovation is some variation on the statement by Henry Ford that if you had asked users what they wanted, they would have asked for faster horses coupled with some variation on the statement by Steve jobs that it was pointless ask...

We could fix mobile security, you know. We don't, but we could

Earlier in the week I blogged about mobile banking security , and I said that in design terms it is best to assume that the internet is in the hands of your enemies. In case you think I was exaggerating… The thieves also provided “free” wireless connections in public places to secretly mine users’ personal information. From Gone in minutes: Chinese cybertheft gangs mine smartphones for bank card data | South China Morning Post Personally, I always use an SSL VPN when connected by wifi (even at home!) but I doubt that most people would ever go to this trouble or take the time to configure a VPN and such like. Anyway, the point is that the internet isn’t secure. And actually SMS isn’t much better, which is why it shouldn’t really be used for securing anything as important as home banking. The report also described how gangs stole mobile security codes – which banks automatically send to card holders’ registered mobile phones to verify online transactions – by using either a Trojan...

Snippets

Search This Blog