Instagram Asking For Your Government Issued Photo IDs Now, Too(idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com) |
Instagram Asking For Your Government Issued Photo IDs Now, Too(idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com) |
For FB's, they have to excuse from making an open source client side pre-upload number-removing tool.
Same for anyone who uses it.
The most difficult elements would probably be faking the font, and post-processing it to ensure the text looked real (pixel-perfect accuracy and color for text would be a dead giveaway of computer generation).
http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatic...
I'm not a lawyer, nor a law enforcement officer, nor a prosecutor, nor a judge.
While agree that something to allow you to use a website shouldn't be a serious criminal offence it's easy to imagine that it could be painted as such: unauthorised access to website services after a clear warning; fake id instruments; etc etc etc.
Graph search and its creepy implications were then nothing I needed to find personally objectionable anymore.
I no longer have to complain about the other sleazy, move-the-goalposts, amoral aspects of Facebook Instagram.
This latest one, I have to say, should not be surprising to anybody.
DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT if you don't like it. You will still have friends, I promise :-)
Before you file for account deletion, you might want to do two things:
1) use http://www.picknzip.com/ to download the pictures of you from other people (I have a couple that I liked that I can use for other profile pics, etc.). (The other photos in my facebook albums that I uploaded myself, I already have elsewhere.)
2) associate your facebook account with a yahoo email address. You can download all the contact information of your facebook friends that way (I don't know if this still works, but it did last year)
This is, AFAIK, the only way to export your facebook friends' data
3) go to your full friends list, scroll down until the infinite scrolling loads the whole list. copy and paste this in an email to yourself.
These three steps should ensure that you don't "lose" any data about your friends on facebook, and will allow you to email them later.
Yes, you still will have friends, but you will lose friends, connections with businesses, and other abilities. I swore off facebook for one year after having been on it since...I don't know...maybe 2004 or 2005ish?
The modern Facebook account has everything from a person's college girlfriend, to the pictures of their first born. Yes it has some mundane things like what you ate for lunch, it also has messages from you and your friends debating over the Affordable Health Care Act. For a lot of people, it isn't just flipping a switch. You will not speak as often to that person that now lives on a different coast even though you both have each other's email.
Then there are the things that impact you even though you're still friends with people. For example, invites to events like Halloween parties are often sent by things like Facebook, so even though you see those people once or twice a week, you still become the asshole that has to be filled in while everyone else is already up to speed already.
Then you have local businesses and chains that only have their hours and specials on Facebook (or at least their Facebook account is the only one they actively maintain) Old Chicago in my area is an example. They have a national website, but the specials that change every Tuesday night are only posted to their Facebook page.
Nothing convinced me to invest in Facebook more than quitting Facebook.
[1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/imacros-for-f...
Yet here you are...
Additionally, apart from writing in PHP, there must be tons of technical fun and deep problems to solve that makes FB fairly unique.
And also, I'm not really sure how unethical it'd be to work for them, even if you felt they were wrong. Unless you're bringing some rare 4-sigma value to FB, it's likely they'd just get someone else. Might as well be you, where you have a chance to influence things.
Must be nice to have it wrapped up all tidy like.
I'm sure your frinds rather be working for some project that would make the world better (hey Linux, I'm at you!:) But, still, they have to pay bills.
That's life. Don't like it? Change it.
Mike Krieger (Instagram co-founder) here. Just wanted to offer some clarification since there's some speculation about the reason & scope for the verification mentioned in the article.
When we receive evidence of a violation of our site policies, we respond. This isn't a recent change, but the way we've run our community from the beginning. In some specific cases, for verification purposes, we request that people upload a government issued ID in response. This is the case for a very small percentage of accounts, and doesn't affect most Instagram users. The ID is used only for account verification, and not retained permanently.
Hope that helps clarify things a bit.
Verification of what?
Do you ask to cover the license number/address as well, the way Facebook.com does? If yes, doesn't it make it trivially easy to send a fake picture of a license your way?
Mike, how can you be a "software engineer" and make a statement like that?
Yes, it helps. Now I'm even more convinced how corrupt your company is.
Until now-ish (or the near future), FB had no way of verifying that, or forcing me to!
Push for real identities is beneficial to both - government and social networks. First get more control over their citizens, second more ad revenue.
I tried to explain what I was using the account for to their account reps, but they wouldn't unlock it unless I sent them the ID scans. I can't believe that there is not a bigger uproar about a non-governmental, for-profit asking for government issued ID, in electronic format no less, that relies on the unwitting user to hide pertinent data prior to scanning it.
Fucking ridiculous if you ask me. Instagram should be equally ashamed of themselves.
With business customers, even if we ask for ID to confirm larger contracts, they'll send everything. Full IDs, credit card scans, etc. Technical customers regularly just email root passwords to financially-valuable systems when they have the slightest problem.
Also, try this: run an ad on Craigslist offering $500 a day for whatever. Ask for personal info and photos. You'll be deluged with people ready to hand every detail over without second thought.
Most Facebook users have already given their name, birthday and profile photo. For most users they wouldn't be giving anything else than those pieces of information on a ID card.
Now, that doesn't get into the secondary requests as the article states, but it certainly isn't "entrusting a copy of their ID to a third party."
Agree. Scanning a drivers license over the internet seems ...
At some point you have to start attributing actions to malice.
People, get off Facebook. I'm in college and haven't touched it in 11 months. I'm doing just fine. Nobody needs it.
Reference: http://torrentfreak.com/court-throws-out-109-of-110-alleged-...
Follow the money. Always.
I will say that social networks like Facebook have introduced some interesting dynamics and engagement that could have not existed otherwise such as Caine's Arcade.
I think we're all waiting for the social network we all want and pay the $10-$12/year for privacy, transparency and complete ownership over our data.
I'm currently working on distributed systems/networks which could form the basis of a 'social graph' but there are questions about how to make it profitable (hence self-sustaining). Getting people onto a network is only part of the problem.
I trust FB to spell correctly and use the right apostrophe. Very interesting set of responses here though.
It can never be a valid ID, because they are never involved in the certification and registration process of your "official" existence.
Don't worry, they'll get there.
On the other, at least it's still a reset option. That might sound silly at first, but I lost access to an old MS Live account that I had foolishly left on auto-login on my Xbox for years and eventually lost access to the old Hotmail account (yeah, I made this account a long time ago) it was tied to. No amount of offering to show that I was the credit card holder for the hundreds of dollars in games or anything would convince them it was my account.
For the people to whom their Instagram account is really important, this might be a nice option (even if it is rather invasive).
> They see it as an underage Facebook.
I meant the underage kids, not Facebook itself. I wouldn't say Instagram solicits kids, just that there are lot of them on there.
I am tempted to join instagram just so i can upload a picture of ian lavender - "Don't tel Him Pike"
Also, do you block their widgets on other sites/pages?
Not that I disagree with the "Big Brother" concerns that this "Ihre Papiere, bitte." activity raises.
P.S. Aside from government(s), of what value is a proven identity to commercial interests? Being able to prove that you/they are targeting exactly who they want.
Hmm... Amongst other things, I understand that process servers are already attemtping to use FB as a accepted means of delivery. And I've read that debt collectors are using accounts having profile pictures of bikini clad young women, in order to successfully "friend" those they wish to hound.
All sorts of value to "proven" identities...
The main issue is that the cost barrier stops people from signing up just to try it out, in in that sense that app.net really ought to have a 'free' tier. Even if it was particularly restive, it would let their users get a feel for it before paying.
It really is a dream as far as intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA and their less public counterparts) go. It used to be ridiculously hard to find the info about how to reach a person, or which buttons to push. Now, almost everyone offers it freely about themselves, and the few who don't get ratted on by their friends.
Validating identity might be a by product. But it's not anything that's hard to do anyway.
If anybody knows a way to get that, let me know.
Now, this is not an attempt to defend Facebook's actions here or in their other recent efforts. I am merely providing another point of evidence to support MichaelGG's point that Facebook is not flat-out evil, and provide a reason someone might want to work for them despite their recent behavior.
I try to do this when I buy an RIAA-published album or watch a Hollywood film. I make sure I donate an equivalent amount to civil-liberties orgs (EFF, ALA, and others) during that year.
"Carbon credits," basically.
Climate change is the primary challenge for the next few generations, and once we move on from 'debate' we see that there are a wealth of opportunities in mitigation, reduction of CO2 output and coping with the impact. Just ask Elon Musk.
It wouldn't surprise me if some startup starts trading conscience futures!
It reminds me of a friend of mine whose wife works for the TSA at the airport. Honestly, I have zero respect for her, but hey, at least she can pay her mortgage right?
While Facebook isn't on the same level as working for the TSA, it is definitely a company that appears to be run by people of questionable moral character, and I would absolutely not want to be associated with them.
2nd ¶: your friend loves her, and she helps him to lift the weight. Who are you to question that?
3rd ¶: thank god your parents are such great persons.
That's irrelevant though. Is morality relative to your current financial situation? Is it ok to do wrong in order to make money?
There are plenty of jobs available. People just want to be picky about what jobs they take. If a person justifies a salary because other jobs are "beneath them" or they don't provide the standard of living they desire, that person has compromised themselves.
I have done many things in my past of which I am not proud, but I try every day to keep that list from getting longer. The only way the world will improve is if we all become more conscious of our actions and their consequences. Any other course is selfishness.
Your comment's actually a pretty good illustration of the effect the grandparent is (probably) talking about.
Permalink For Great Justice: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1990/to
That a group of nonprofits and academic institutions all colluded over a decade or three to make money in a very roundabout way for groups they don't have any direct involvement with?
-or-
That a group of oil industry types, in a nod to the junk science used by big tobacco for years, colluded over a decade or three in an attempt to discredit something that will directly impact their bottom lines in a bad way?
Follow the money. Hell, follow human nature.
That's what has actually happened a few gazillion times throughout human history, unlike either of the other two scenarios you posit.
The best thing we can do is force the climate scientists to make specific predictions, then look back in a few decades and evaluate those predictions. Predictive power isn't everything, it's the only thing.
So far, the predictive power of the vaunted "scientific consensus" has been mixed. Personally, I'm not as satisfied with the quality of the models or the data as I would like to be, given the magnitude of the changes to global economics that are being demanded on the basis of those models and data.
Let's go back even further, to 1900... http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1900/to The upward trend in temperature is clear, the question then becomes why it is happening. What is your theory on this?
I don't have one, but what is your theory on this?
http://i.imgur.com/5hPqZQh.png
Now, here's the whole 12-hour graph, rather than just a three minute excerpt from the very end:
http://i.imgur.com/npSuZd9.png
Whatever your theory was, does it still hold up?
For the record, my theory is that "average global surface temperature" has a nonlinear response to various known and unknown forcings.
[1] http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2151
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pa...
The usual metaphor is a drunk person looking for his lost car keys. He meanders around under the streetlight because that's the only place where he can see where he's going. He won't stray very far from the lamp post, but his direction at any given time has little or no correlation to either his past or future behavior.
It's easy to fool yourself into thinking you understand what's going on based on recent historical behavior, but in reality, the presence of random-walk noise means that it's impossible to infer anything about long-term trends or short-term biases by looking at short-term trends. In climate science, even a hundred thousand years' worth of data is still a "short term" record. We need better data, we need better models, and most important, we need to give ourselves time to evaluate them on the basis of their predictive power.
Based on my own experience watching random-walk processes in real time, someone who expects me to take action based on the last 100 years of data from a multi-billion year timeframe is just going to get laughed at. I've spent so much time fooling myself (that's my software, and my cesium standard) that I probably am erring on the side of too much skepticism.
Show me a critical analysis of the data that wasn't commissioned by or sponsored by the energy industry or any organization or person connected to it.
Extraordinary claims may or may not require extraordinary proof -- at least one famous environmentalist said so, anyway -- but extraordinary demands most certainly do.
Rubbish. Are you seriously telling me that nobody has done critical analysis of the data who wasn't associated with the energy industry?
