Tamás Barta
BrianKrebsI'm pretty sure Mastodon is the first social network I've been on that didn't immediately ask me to betray all of the people in my address book.
I mean, think about this for just a sec: LinkedIn, Twitter, SnapChat, Instagram, the list goes on and on. The VERY first thing these platforms will do after you've installed the app and logged in is to ask you to share all of the information in your address book. Ever wonder how these social networks got so big so fast? It's remarkable how much of their growth is based on convincing everyone it's totally fine and normal to give away all of the contact information given to them by friends, family and acquaintances.
Jurjen Heeck 🍋@briankrebs The one & only reason I refuse to use or even install those apps on devices containing address information. I only have an Instagram app on a tablet with zero contacts.
.Even if you have never been registered on Facebook etc.: Facebook knows your mobile number and mail address because other people have already uploaded them.
You can delete your phone number/mail address from meta's database via the following website:
@fomm @jurjen_heeck @briankrebs is there one for LinkedIn? I purposely deleted my original LinkedIn account to get a fresh restart with no connections. When I created a new LinkedIn account and instructed it not to be found via email or phone, I was still located by people who had my contact info.
David Penfold 
@fomm @jurjen_heeck @briankrebs it seems to work for mobiles and landlines, but refuses to allow me to select email (FF on Android)
Eric Beaudry@fomm @jurjen_heeck @briankrebs is this trustable? Or is it only a new way to get more emails & phone numbers? I was just about to submit my phone number when that “internal skeptical me” got a hold of my thumb.
Jack Yan (甄爵恩)@fomm Thank you, that is immensely useful. I gave my cell number to my dentist (Lumino) a few years ago, as they insisted I could not use my land line, then found through their contractorʼs T&Cs (which I was never shown at the time) that my personal data had been sold. Itʼs a number no one outside of family and friends should have. This is a start in getting rid of it from databases.
skry@fomm @jurjen_heeck @briankrebs
This page isn't sending me the text message required before it will remove my phone number. Just one more disservice from FB.
Phil Landmeier@fomm @jurjen_heeck @briankrebs Um, ten years ago, Facebook stated that they never, ever delete anything. Deleting your account, which I did eleven years ago does nothing but de-activate the account. Nothing is deleted. Facebook said that its systems are designed in such a way that they are unable to actually delete anything, nor any mechanisms in place to enable them to determine what needed to be deleted.
Deletion is not a thing at Facebook.
Louis Ingenthron@jurjen_heeck With modern phones, you can just deny them the permission to access the data.
Callisto@jurjen_heeck @briankrebs Yup. I created an Insta account a few years ago to follow some local organizations, but never posted until they started letting you do that from the web.
J$@briankrebs This is exactly what turned my stomach immediately, and then strengthened my resolve. I’ve also made myself impopular by raising an eyebrow here and there when actual friends just started giving away my personal info without even as much as a single thought.
John GordonThere was a brief time that printed White Pages went digital and even national. That was mind blowing. I could see contact information for everyone in the US.
It only lasted a few months I think. Then gradually all White Pages went away.
So the process can reverse.
@jgordon @briankrebs Pretty sure the only reason they went away is because cell phones came on the scene and everyone with a cellphone got an unlisted number.
White pages died with landlines.
Francisca Sinn@briankrebs and how many people say “yes” to sharing that information without a thought.
Elias Mårtenson@fsinn @briankrebs I accidentally answered yes for LinkedIn. I wanted to see who in my adress book had linkedin accounts, but what happened instead was that they sent a contact request to every single person in my address book.
I think they got sued for that thing later.
joy larkin 🌺✨@briankrebs One thing about this ever persistent social graph building... I'm just more (or less) shocked by the number of long-ago exes who apparently still have my number in their contact lists.
dawnfry@joy
I keep some of these types of numbers in my phone so I know not to pick up if they call, and I have a heads-up before listening to any message they might leave.
I keep some of these types of numbers in my phone so I know not to pick up if they call, and I have a heads-up before listening to any message they might leave.
AardvarkSagus@briankrebs and that’s something I’ve not given any app the rights to.
Dr James J TeethI generally avoid apps unless they provide me a utility that isn’t available through a browser. And then the utility needs to be significant. Social media data mining of devices is a big driver of that.
Jernej Simončič �
Proxima CentauriMikko is here in spirit: @mikko the reality is that the Finnish elite and most of the European elite too aren't as bothered by Elon.
In here, Elon news isn't as well covered.
That said, they would jump ship like rats when the US Democratic party jump ships.
If US Democratic party elite for some reason finds their way to Mastodon rest of the world elite follows, they aren't that fond of Republican-only Twitter at that point.
Klaus Baldermann 📜
jo@briankrebs And that's the reason I don't use Signal. Doesn't matter how great the crypto is. The app part of it is shit.
(Not to mention relying on phone numbers for identifiers...)
(Not to mention relying on phone numbers for identifiers...)
corq@briankrebs @viss Cool, since we're all the last bastion of good examples, none of us use that tech at all, amirite?
2xfo@briankrebs I shared my contact details with LinkedIn once because I didn't realize they had scrapped that from me somehow and those people weren't already on the service. I felt pretty used when I realized it sent them invites on my behalf.
I never allowed a service to do that again. I care about the privacy of my contacts as much as my own. (I mean, I guess it's still my privacy too.)
Robbie Coleman@briankrebs it's also the feature that I believe was responsible for Facebook's ability to take the lead from MySpace in late 2009.
Kohan Ikin@briankrebs You can add Viber to that list! I blocked it from accessing my Android contacts, and yet within seconds of providing my number (and no other details yet, not even name or photo, hadn't finished signup), I started getting Viber messages from old friends who have my number.
Viber insists they don't upload numbers and that what I describe couldn't have happened. Never figured who to report that privacy breach to... but it wouldn't get anywhere anyway, right?
Grant Denkinson@briankrebs Indeed. I'd never want to do that without explicit permission from every single person and I'm not likely to ever want to ask that. Feels like some apps are not helpful but tripwires to do something bad by accident. They shouldn't be and my operating system should help protect from such leaks by disabling the capability. I do want my contacts manager to let me try to contact someone via a service.
OldHound@briankrebs I don’t think I’ve ever shared my contacts with any platform. It’s one thing for me to consent to give some of my personal information to these patrons, but completely another if I sell out family and friends without router consent. 🤷🏻♂️
Sam Gross@briankrebs the big weird is that everyone acts like it’s *their* data to share when it really is *mine*
nantucketlit@briankrebs Your post prompted me to delete my Instagram account, which I haven't used in several months. Then I was reminded Facebook makes it almost impossible to delete accounts.
I deleted my LinkedIn a couple years ago.
Michael@briankrebs Smells like a story that media outlets should be digging into. Society needs to understand the depravity.
alisonborealis@briankrebs
This was the point where I stopped using Facebook.
When their mobile app made it mandatory to connect with my contact list and messages, I deleted it.
Nobody gets my address book. I wish others were as careful.
This was the point where I stopped using Facebook.
When their mobile app made it mandatory to connect with my contact list and messages, I deleted it.
Nobody gets my address book. I wish others were as careful.
Darwin Woodka@alisonborealis @briankrebs Same. I'll use FB on my desktop but never on my phone. No contact sharing on the phone to any app, ever.And FB likes to stalk people WAY too much, so using it on your phone shares your location info as well.
Loukas (They/Them) 🏳️⚧️@briankrebs now I'm imagining how signing up with all the others is like being a member of the French resistance captured by the Gestapo.
WE WANT NAMES
teledyn 𓂀Senate Committee: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the infosec.exchange?"
Viss@briankrebs i appreciate the phrasing here
Reduxe@briankrebs and check your add blocker... There's nothing for it to do...
Andrei KucharavyIt is one of maybe 5 websites for which I did not have to adjust my uMatrix flags. Because it's all first-party.
Jona 🐳@reduxe @briankrebs @aardvark Indeed. I finally left Twitter after they killed my ad-free portal Twitterrific.
Andres@reduxe @briankrebs The poor thing is getting bored. 😢
Theodrake@reduxe @briankrebs I use the Firefox vpn addon to block apps sending data. Neither mastodon app has had any data blocked.
I Thought I Saw A 2 
@Theodrake @reduxe @briankrebs I'm using #elk in #firefox and this is both #ghostery and #adguard extensions showing 0 blocked items for a Mastodon page 🙂
Geoff Green@briankrebs yes, I had to take an extra step to betray them!
I Am the Fly Eagles Fly@briankrebs Obviously it’s doing it all wrong! lol
GrayGooGirl 🏳️🌈@briankrebs
No profit motive means no need for never ending userbase growth. It's a beautiful thing antithetical to what we've come to expect of social media.
No profit motive means no need for never ending userbase growth. It's a beautiful thing antithetical to what we've come to expect of social media.
Jay Taylor@briankrebs True. But, Mastodon is the first social network I've joined where none of my friends IRL have accounts.
Woodrow Douglass@jaytaylor @briankrebs me too... It's the first social network that is free from my friends stupid politics. I'm just here for the CS papers and cat pictures.
Mauve Rose@bigfishrunning: Thanks for reminding me that I need to post more cat (or any other critter that crosses my path) pictures.
Oblomov@jaytaylor
that's easy to solve: tell your friends IRL to make an account without giving away their contact information to parasitic third parties!
@jaytaylor @briankrebs I have a few who signed up but they seem to have gone silent. Guess it wasn't providing them enough entertainment or something.
author_is_ShrikeTron🔠💉x5@jaytaylor @briankrebs It's not a huge negative if one doesn't have "friends" IRL, 😅.
paulmwatson@jaytaylor that makes me feel very old (nobody IRL I knew had a Twitter account when I joined)
Norbert Kowallik@jaytaylor @briankrebs on the plus side.. you have real Friends
Pete@briankrebs I hadn’t even noticed, but you’re right. On the other hand, if we’re feeling nostalgic we can always copy paste it in to some request headers or something.