01/06/2004: 
Technologica
Vealpen Hacked!
or, LiveJournal is teh s uck (so is Friendstah)
from ISTS at Dartmouth
Social networks websites, such as LiveJournal.com and Tribe.net, have minimal protections to guard their users' highly personal online documents. LiveJournal sends user passwords in the clear, even though many people use the online forum to discuss such sensitive topics as suicide and problems at work with their friends. LiveJournal president Brad Fitzpatrick says his company plans to upgrade password protection, but adds that "site performance is our highest priority, and SSL is a pain." Although protecting a user's privacy is important, the security concerns also reflect the public's growing dependence on social reputation systems. An eBay user with a high rating or a forum participant with high karma has created a valuable reputation, which others rely on to judge the worth of information. Social networks provide a social defense system--rather than rely on technology for authentication, users know each other, and can authenticate each other through their social circle. For example, a member of Friendster can only contact another member through a shared acquaintance. However, such human intelligence methods cannot protect sites with little security.
How about this security solution? Don't post intensely personal and potentially incriminating things on the freakin internet.
3 Annotations Submitted
Tuesday the 6th of January, crazywriterinla noted:
on one of my bulletin boards there's a bunch of women who occasionally post stupid questions like "What do you do for a living" and stupid people will post their occupation and title and company they work for. Now, it would take a geenyus three seconds to piece together ANYTHING on them because...their city location is in their profile.
Serial Killer + Time on hands = someone who could have fun killing people dumb enough to post private info public.
And people get all testy when I don't tell them where I work. *shrugs*
Tuesday the 6th of January, rafuzo noted:
I think Prof Booty's security policy is a lot more effective and nuanced than most experts understand. Of course these sites are unsecured - they're designed that way. Duh.
Wednesday the 7th of January, vealpen noted:
for a larf, please check out my live journal, which is on the cutting edge of the live journal parody front:
Vealpen's LJ.
But seriously, I started this because I lived with two kids who never left the house and spent all their time on LJ, and this was intended as satire, but nobody on there gets it. These kids think technology would never hurt them- ever becuz they wuv their pooters. I saw one girl post her fucking phone number on there for chrissakes!
