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Because you completely missed the point. It doesn't matter why Yelp keeps that "feature". It's irrelevant, because his position is that there is no situation wh

Because you completely missed the point. It doesn't matter why Yelp keeps that "feature". It's irrelevant, because his position is that there is no situation where giving a login and password of any sort, but especially e-mail, makes any sense at all. You said that Atwood should have spent time thinking instead of just ranting, but then you kind of did the same thing.... And that's not to mention giving the "they're a company, anything goes" and "it was the only way back then" excuses; those are meaningless.

rglullis 18y ago
It may make no sense to you, to me or to any tech-savvy user. But it does make sense to those who use the damn feature. No one is forced to use that. If they are using it, it's because they think it might benefit them in some way. The same goes for websites that do such thing. They know that some users might be annoyed by such "feature", but the amount of new users that will be exposed is much higher, so they keep doing it. What I find hard to believe is that the ones that complain about these kinds of mechanisms don't understand that themselves are not part of the target of said mechanism. Instead of simply ignoring it, they feel "victims" of it. And I'd like to know where I said "anything goes". If that was the case, I would say that scammers are right to do what they do because they never forced the users to give sensitive data. What I did say is that, if a webservice wanted to provide a way for the user to (semi-)automatically invite people in his contact list, the only way to do that required email and the password. Better now?
- DougBTX 18y ago
  Sure it makes sense to them, they don't know what they are doing. What I find hard to believe is that the ones that complain about these kinds of mechanisms don't understand that themselves are not part of the target of said mechanism. These mechanisms are prominently shown to all users of the web site who want to import contacts, whether they are technical or not. There isn't a banner above them which says, "this feature is aimed only at people who don't understand the security implications." Making money by teaching someone to compromise their security is a morally bad thing to do, whether that person knows they are being taught to put themselves at risk or not.
  - rglullis 18y ago
    I'm sorry, but I just disagree. I don't see any wrongdoing in this, provided they do what they actually state they do. If they take your password and do nasty things with it, than it's a whole other story. There isn't a banner above them which says, "this feature is aimed only at people who don't understand the security implications." If you do understand the security implications, then the banner is irrelevant! Also, they are not saying that you must use the feature either, are they? What happened to freewill? Does everyone think that you are supposed to consume every feature of the service just because it's free and it's there? And to say they are "teaching to compromise security" is a gross dramatization. They are not teaching anything at all.
- BrandonM 18y ago
  The real point is that there are now APIs to get at people's contacts, and several sites still do not use them. That is the issue, and there isn't really an excuse for it. I agree that some time ago, it may have been a (dubious-yet-) reasonable feature. Now it's just irresponsible.
andr 18y ago
I'm sure Yelp's logfiles show that enough people think the opposite.
- tptacek 18y ago
  Yes, and so do the logfiles of any phishing site.

rglullis 18y ago

It may make no sense to you, to me or to any tech-savvy user. But it does make sense to those who use the damn feature. No one is forced to use that. If they are using it, it's because they think it might benefit them in some way. The same goes for websites that do such thing. They know that some users might be annoyed by such "feature", but the amount of new users that will be exposed is much higher, so they keep doing it. What I find hard to believe is that the ones that complain about these kinds of mechanisms don't understand that themselves are not part of the target of said mechanism. Instead of simply ignoring it, they feel "victims" of it. And I'd like to know where I said "anything goes". If that was the case, I would say that scammers are right to do what they do because they never forced the users to give sensitive data. What I did say is that, if a webservice wanted to provide a way for the user to (semi-)automatically invite people in his contact list, the only way to do that required email and the password. Better now?

DougBTX 18y ago
Sure it makes sense to them, they don't know what they are doing. What I find hard to believe is that the ones that complain about these kinds of mechanisms don't understand that themselves are not part of the target of said mechanism. These mechanisms are prominently shown to all users of the web site who want to import contacts, whether they are technical or not. There isn't a banner above them which says, "this feature is aimed only at people who don't understand the security implications." Making money by teaching someone to compromise their security is a morally bad thing to do, whether that person knows they are being taught to put themselves at risk or not.
- rglullis 18y ago
  I'm sorry, but I just disagree. I don't see any wrongdoing in this, provided they do what they actually state they do. If they take your password and do nasty things with it, than it's a whole other story. There isn't a banner above them which says, "this feature is aimed only at people who don't understand the security implications." If you do understand the security implications, then the banner is irrelevant! Also, they are not saying that you must use the feature either, are they? What happened to freewill? Does everyone think that you are supposed to consume every feature of the service just because it's free and it's there? And to say they are "teaching to compromise security" is a gross dramatization. They are not teaching anything at all.
BrandonM 18y ago
The real point is that there are now APIs to get at people's contacts, and several sites still do not use them. That is the issue, and there isn't really an excuse for it. I agree that some time ago, it may have been a (dubious-yet-) reasonable feature. Now it's just irresponsible.

andr 18y ago

I'm sure Yelp's logfiles show that enough people think the opposite.

tptacek 18y ago
Yes, and so do the logfiles of any phishing site.