cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14399569
Discord Users Are Being Tracked Through Data-Scraping Site
Internet-scraping outfit Spy.pet claims to have harvested more than four billion public messages made by nearly 620 million users on more than 14,000 Discord chat servers – and is selling access to this trove.
The website presents the data it’s collected in several ways. Each known user has a profile, which contains all known aliases, pronouns, connected accounts to other platforms such as Steam and GitHub, Discord servers joined, and public messages. If you wanted to quite literally spy on a Discord user or users, Spy.pet lets you do that, for a fee.
I would love to move off discord to matrix, but I fear I would quickly run into the issue that most of my group already is in Discord and would move apps just for one person.
Totally relatable. Thats why we have chat bridges. You can use matrix with your matrix friends and have your friends talk to you over a bridge. This also helps them move because they wont lose anyone either. My bridge works for months without fail now.
I think tchncs.de runs bridges. Consider joining their matrix.
While true, in the context of this news about discord being scraped, a bridge would not prevent the scraping, and would allow the matrix data (if the bridge is two-way) to also be scraped (which, come to think of it, if they can scrape discord, there’s every reason to believe they can scrape matrix as well).
You‘re not totally wrong, but mostly.
Scraping discord can happen in infinitely many ways. From the proprietary bots (which you dont have in matrix) to the proprietary backend (which you dont have in matrix) to the frontend, which could be scraped by joining room after room with a bot or federating with a ton of servers and getting their public rooms, since everything else is encrypted or not visible for non invited people.
Yes, your data on both is visible but in matrix you have a ton more control over it than ok discord.
Saying discord is basically the same as matrix is showing that someone doesnt understand how chat software works.
They didn’t say discord is basically the same as matrix though…
They said the problem is the same for both platforms in this context, which is true. Public posts can be scraped.
Good to know!
How is Matrix safer? I haven’t looked at the service yet.
Depends on your perspective I guess. For one, your data lays on your home server first and you actually have encrypted rooms if you want.
Somebody is definitely going to say that you can absolutely scrape matrix since it is federated which is correct. But you can make a private matrix server too if you want.
All in all, having no ads, no paywalls, control over your data, freedom in customization, e2ee, no way to ban you from your server or ban your server from the service.
I could probably find more but those are the most obvious imo.
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This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Discord constantly turns everything you do into a URL, images you link in a private chat, you can just share their URL, everything is public access. They already had a scandal like this in like 2019.
A guy used precisely the same pixel crop I made from a piece of artwork I used for my private copypaste server on Discord to try to creep me out in 2021, tried to convince me he was a fed after me (didn’t work), I just kept explaining to him why Ukraine was going to lose until he gave up. He was just so mad he couldn’t get me to stop posting in a public server about geopolitics haha.
:/ I usually don’t do stuff like this but it was special case spur of the moment hope the gdpr request is success
I’m so confused tbqh but i haven’t had coffee yet
I mean I rarely post sensitive images or any images online really, it was just kinda special occasion to post this in what looked like a very safe space and now I have to fill this request based on European law article 17 ‘the right to be forgotten’
Oh yes exactly the way that regulators try to hide corporate investors behind these fig leaves like spending 5 minutes clicking switches to protect sensitive data otherwise whoops! we sold the location of a mother trying to escape stalking from her ex-husband! Whoops, we gave away all the personal information of these schoolchildren to anyone who could find it! Well, we gotta make a living somehow!
Matrix isn’t ready, but I love it.
I can’t order my channels the way I want!
Thats a frontend issue, not a matrix issue.
