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Find a person's profile across 350 social media sites
- f38zf5vdt 6y agoI think that anyone developing a social media app for the 2020s will need to make a conscious decision to not let users pick their own unique identifiers. You can't expect users to protect themselves, because you don't know what dangers might exist in the future for them that do not exist today. The other thing you can do is not allow your API to iterate over the set of all users by user-set identifier. It's an extreme flaw of the telephone numbering system. You would think by the 2020s we'd have learned to use a unique UUID designation for every user for any public facing APIs. If users want to link to it on their public pages, that would be on them.
- codetrotter 6y agoI think that the idea of not allowing users to pick their own identifiers is not compatible with how a lot of people use social media. It’s a heck of a lot easier for me to tell my GitHub username to someone, than it would be to tell them a random UUID like 3ffdf0d2-b9a5-4fff-9f38-75afae67dbea. Even a shorter random-looking username like the one that you have chosen as your HN username, is difficult to relate to for me and I suspect for a lot of people. And even if you made a human readable version that would hand out usernames like “magnificentwalrus”, it would be generating usernames that most users weren’t identifying with. As much as I like walruses I don’t have a personal connection to them, and any other random name is likely to fare the same. Sure you could let users generate names until they come across one that they do like, but mostly I think that would be a lot of hassle. And there is no guarantee for how long it takes before you find a good name that way. Perhaps even never, as adjective + noun or whatever else the site uses as rule for generating names might not be a rule that the user likes. Names matter a lot to a lot of people. Aside from this I think it’s also only a matter of time before similar services to the one in the OP show up but where instead of trying to cross-reference usernames it would work similar to Google Reverse Image Search, and would be able to link accounts across different social media platforms based on the facial features in the photos and/or videos that people post, even when the images and videos are not the same ones but are depicting the same person.
- jiofih 6y agoYou’re assuming that 1) the value of a username or URL is higher than the value of privacy 2) people use those for discovery. I’m sure 99% of social media connections happen via recommendation algorithms, friends-of-friends or search by name (not username), never directly typing a username or profile url.
- bt1a 6y agoYou're sure about that? I don't think so. There's tons of connections made from people transferring short, human-readable handles. Think business cards, word of mouth. e.g. I'm at (@) handle. That's much easier to lookup as opposed to searching for someone's name. It may even be a business that's not tied to the individual's name.
- laurent92 6y agoAll photos of the same mobile phone certainly have a unique fingerprint. Not only the EXIF, also the dead pixels and the unique pattern of low intensity pixels. If you want to protect user privacy, a unique identifier is not enough. If they posted a gay profile somewhere, a professional profile somewhere else, they will be forever linked.
- tonymet 6y agoUserids are only one of thousands of signals that can identify accounts
- kibwen 6y ago> I think that anyone developing a social media app for the 2020s will need to make a conscious decision to not let users pick their own unique identifiers. Completely agreed. If I were to ever set up a forum, I'd find whatever "adjective-adjective-noun" generator that Gfycat uses to generate their URLs and present new users with a list of 100 of these to choose from.
- mtnGoat 6y agoI’m not a fan. Kinda creepy.
- BannedQuick 6y agoWait until you find out how HackerNews harvests your data, uses services that use data lakes of bulk collection to confirm your identity, and sell what you generate without your permission.
- aww_dang 6y agoI'm still waiting to find out about that. Maybe you'd be kind enough to elaborate.
- BannedQuick 6y ago> Online Tracking and Do Not Track Signals: We and our third party service providers may use cookies or other tracking technologies to collect information about your browsing activities over time and across different websites following your use of the Site. Our Site currently does not respond to “Do Not Track” (“DNT”) signals and operates as described in this Privacy Policy whether or not a DNT signal is received. If we do respond to DNT signals in the future, we will update this Privacy Policy to describe how we do so. https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/ https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- babooska 6y agoWhy is it creepy?
- mtnGoat 6y agoIf you don’t know at this point, I can’t explain it to you.
- loveistheanswer 6y ago
- vmception 6y agoCycling usernames is one thing But remember to break your social graph on occasion with a new phone number and email address, and never sharing your number or stored contacts with the social media network. not that hard just something to be conscious of.
- ape4 6y agoDon't use the Facebook app
- pruski 6y agoStoring contact list by any service should be illegal. You might try to not share your data, but if anyone has you on their contact list, it’s out of your hands
- vmception 6y agoWhich is why you also dont tell the service your phone number or reuse an email address
- pruski 6y agoNew email per every service you want to use? It shouldn’t be this complicated
- vmception 6y agono. new email for the same service to make a new account, even after deleting your old account. a lot of people dont know how or why they get the same suggestions of people and dont want that.
- reaperducer 6y agoSign In With Apple does exactly this — generates a fake e-mail address for each account, so the data harvesters never get your real one.
- laurent92 6y ago
- alex_young 6y ago> This project is "currently used by some law enforcement agencies in countries where resources are limited". Pretty troubling statement. Does this tool help repressive governments track people across accounts? That’s sure what it looks like.
- narak 6y agoAny openly available tool can be used by anyone for any purpose. The idea that we can pick and choose is ridiculous, and with the exception of rare cases, avoidance of building generally useful tools for the chance that bad actors will also use them is a losing proposition.
- orasis 6y agoBuilding a tool is an ethical choice. Technology has no inherent right to exist. This is a bad project.
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoAnyone who has capacity to harm you, luke governments, alreafy has tools and a fat budget.
- majkinetor 6y agoThis is invalid thinking. Bad actors can make such tool themselves (if they can't, they are not really that good) and have incentive to do that, so non existence will only slow them down. I don't care about analyzing other people for any purpose so I don't. Having this tool readily available lets me analyze myself and people I care about to protect them from bad actors and educate them in the process.
- reaperducer 6y agoThis is invalid thinking. I'm not familiar with the phrase "invalid thinking." Can you elaborate on how a person's thoughts can be invalid?
- cwwc 6y agoAlso... helps find where you’re visible, then eliminate it.
- peter_d_sherman 6y agoHmmm... I like this idea! It's sort of like a "social media site" (if the broadest possible definition of one is permitted!) that "aggregates all other social media sites"... (how meta!)... But, I like this idea a lot! If I were creating such a thing -- I'd add the ability for a person (once their identity is verified) to remove their results from one or more social media sites. That is, standard opt-in and opt-out. This would permit the shown functionalities for people that desire such functionalities, while also preserving opt-out, aka, "the right to be forgotten" -- for other people that desired that, specifically...
- A12-B 6y agoI am really glad i don't have public social media
- woutr_be 6y agoIronically, this tool also includes HN. "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id={username}",
- volume 6y agowait, that would be coincidence. It would be ironic if it were a social media site for privacy experts.
- f38zf5vdt 6y agoThere is no 21st century option to refuse public social media. As observed with Clearview AI, if you end up in someone's photo on a social media website you will be inadvertently added to a social and location-based graph. I believe Facebook does this internally, so if you have any friends or relatives using Facebook who uploads a picture of you, no matter how old, your social graph is present there. And try as you may, so long as you have a phone number you will end up in someone's harvested contacts list.
- fortran77 6y agoAnd yet, here you are.
- cirno 6y ago> API, CLI & Web App for analyzing & finding a person's profile across +300 social media websites > could help in investigating profiles related to suspicious or malicious activities such as cyberbullying, cybergrooming, cyberstalking, and spreading misinformation. It will much more likely be used to aid cyberbullying and cyberstalking. Those types love digging for more information by finding their targets' profiles on other social media sites. Those types of trolls are much more adept at using randomized usernames, disposable e-mail addresses, and VPN clients because they know what they're doing is potentially illegal.
- majkinetor 6y agoExactly. BUT, this may bring awareness to regular folks. You can also use it to remove your own stuff from said networks because people do not catalogue their online activity and it can be hard to remove your digital footprint.
- tantalor 6y agoI'd pay for a service that would do this, 1. Find my digital footprints on social media 2. Compare that to my desired level of public activity, e.g., do not share photos of me 3. Provide tools to delete, scrub, send takedowns, etc.
- fossuser 6y agoThere’s privacy duck and delete me, but they’re mostly focused on the scammier public data collection sites where it’s harder to remove your information.
- rolph 6y ago4. template an online persona, and cede it across the web, create footprints use SEO type methods to promote a desired public image.
- badsectoracula 6y ago4. Hope they don't keep their own backup copies for later use :-P
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y agoCool. Won't need it for me, though. Just Google "ChrisMarshallNY." Most of them are placeholders, though. This is really where I participate. I do little bit on Facebook, and almost nothing on Twitter.
- Dirlewanger 6y agoI wonder how this compares to FullContact, a company built on doing this very thing.
- anticensor 6y agoThe difference is social-analyzer is free and open source.
- sriram_sun 6y agoI want one like this, but one that goes out and deletes my account from the sites I specify.
- naringas 6y agothis is the kind of tool that I assumen every intelligence agency in the world already has implemented as a service for their 'agents'
- runawaybottle 6y agoYou know how sometimes people ask on HN ‘how can I use software to make world better?’, well, you just asked the opposite question. Don’t make shit like this. I could do it too, but I’m not gonna.
- postalrat 6y agoI'm sure politely asking people not to do something that benefits them will surely work.
- runawaybottle 6y agoShame has its own way.
- offtop5 6y agoAnother reason to stop using social media. Everything you've ever posted can be used against you. Plus your more likely to make friends / meet partners in this place called real life.
- MauroIksem 6y agoI'm so sick of morons open sourcing abuse tools under the guise of "helping". This tool will be misused to abuse and harass more than anything else. Making these tools available to masses is dangerous.
- syoc 6y agoWhat are "abuse tools"? Trying to suppress knowledge is never the answer. That would mean that only those in the know can either protect themselves or exploit others. The "never put information about yourself on the internet" mantra from before social media needs a comeback and it will not happen if no one shines a light on how easy it is to track people online.
- picardythird 6y ago> Trying to suppress knowledge is never the answer Right, if only cutting edge nuclear/bio/chemical/cyber technology was a github repo away.
- sweetheart 6y agoOkay, but assuming thats true, there are ways to make it clear to someone how easy it is to track them online without enabling people to actually do that tracking themselves so easily.
- mdoms 6y agoSo if I put up a website at doxsyoc.com with your email address, phone numbers, home address, credit card details, social security number, daily schedule, bank statements and employment information you would presumably not try to have it removed because "Trying to suppress knowledge is never the answer".
- 40four 6y agoI think you chose a weak interpretation of what they said to make your point. I don’t think that’s what they meant. We’re talking about a tool here that attempts to aggregate all of a particular person’s social medial accounts. Social media is public. Everyone knows this, your are saying things and posting things with the expectation that everyone will be able to see them. What you said is something totally different. Doxing someone’s private information is heinous. Nobody is arguing that is okay. I think the parent comment made a good point. If tech can allow a tool like this to be possible, I think it is arguably better that everyone have access to it, instead of just bad actors keeping it to themselves.
- alangibson 6y agoThere are 350 social media sites?
- bombcar 6y agoIt looks like "anything with a username where you can do something" is counted as a social media site.
- williesleg 6y agoBrilliant! I'm gonna find me a girlfriend for sure now!
- 0df8dkdf 6y agoIt is projects like this makes people dont' want to be on any public social media. It is creepy.
- postalrat 6y agoCreepy like watching open heart surgery?
- itronitron 6y agono, it's creepy like finding people that are scheduled for open heart surgery
- samstave 6y agoIt would be wonderful if this could be used to DELETE my account across any of these sites
- sweetheart 6y agoJust because you _can_ do something, doesn't mean you should.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Vosporos 6y agoWhat the fuck
- violetgarden 6y agoI’m surprised by the backlash regarding this tool. Well, I guess surprised is the wrong word. I get that it is creepy. There are lots of websites that do this very thing like whatsmyname.app. I personally like running my username through tools like this and aggregating my digital presence. When I was younger, I signed up for lots of sites that were the cool, new thing. Checking myself years later, I am shocked by the wide berth I left. Fitness accounts. Accounts from that time I was getting into studying chess. I’m the type of person who is always on to the next hobby. I go 100% in on something, then pop to the next thing. It was a big wake up call to me looking back seeing how much presence I left. Many accounts are so old I can’t even get into them anymore to clean up what’s out there. Tools like this can be used for good. That said, I totally understand the cyber stalking/bullying concerns. I am also astounded by the cyber sleuth types. In the documentary, Don’t F* with Cats, people spent 100s of hours carefully walking through streets in Google Maps to match a location to a photo they had of a guy who killed a cat on YouTube. It seems to me where there’s a will, there’s a way. It’s scary, and unfortunately a lot of tools we can use to protect ourselves are the same tools that can be used against us. Look at cyber security in general. A black hat and a white hat are people with the same skills, but ethics draw a line between them.
- smusamashah 6y agowhatsmyname.app is a nice tool. I didn't even remember most of these accounts. Can get rid of them if I want now.
- hammock 6y agoForgive me for being so dumb despite being on this website for so long. How do I download and install this program from github (macbook, no dev tools or terminal or anything on my computer)?
- anonu 6y agoYou're going to need to get comfortable in the terminal if you want to run this code. You'll need python, git, and nodejs for starters
- 6y ago
- hammock 6y agoForgive me for being so dumb despite being on this website for so long. How do I download and install this program from github (macbook, no dev tools or terminal or anything on my computer)?
- rahimnathwani 6y ago1. Install docker desktop 2. Download the zip file from the repo and unzip 3. Open a terminal windows and cd to the folder containing the README 4. Type docker-compose up (Not tested. Just based on what's in the repo.)
- hammock 6y agoThank you
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 6y agoRegarding the criticism: How is it different from any pentesting tool, portscanner, meta search engine, shodan.io (which you could use to try to find unprotected babycams and whatnot), et cetera, on principle? I know it's creepy, but obviously this is portraying a serious and widespread flaw in how we treat privacy on the net, and for that flaw to be fixed, proclaiming the tool as evil doesn't do it, and actually is counter productive?
- anticensor 6y ago> shodan.io (which you could use to try to find unprotected babycams and whatnot) Unlike shodan, this can be run locally, making doxing trivial, and with little to no consequences when done seldom enough.
- jsilence 6y agoWould love to have a tool that monitors hashtags over 300+ SM sites. Any recommendation?
- fireattack 6y agoOk, since we're on this topic.. why can't we delete our old submissions/comments or the account itself on HN? HN probably is the only "social media" sites I use that you can't do that. This can't be good for users' privacy or "right to be forgotten".
- 19h 6y agoIIRC you can just email the admins (check the FAQ) and they’ll help you out.
- BlueGh0st 6y ago>just email the admins If this were any other website, it'd be decried as a dark pattern
- OrderlyTiamat 6y agoI would like to point out that in my experience the hn admins respond much faster and friendlier than I had ever expected. I think in this case it is very nice thar "just email the admins" leads to experience like that, although I have no idea how they manage that for a site at this scale.
- fireattack 6y agoBeing inconvenient can be a dark pattern on its own, not necessarily needs them to ignore your request. Like, if I email them and say "hey, I want to remove these 340 comments I made out of 2000", and I do it every other day, would they still be as responsive? Even if they do, collecting and emailing all these links is still a big hassle compared to just clicking "delete" as I go through my own timeline like other social media platforms.
- kowlo 6y agoI’ve read their excuses on why, but I think it’s ridiculous.
- jimbob45 6y agoFor anyone curious, I found the Python (first) method to be the easiest way to get this up and running. Also it hit a few false positives for my (not the one you see me using now) username. Edit: Also you can't Ctrl-C to kill it midway through running so don't fat-finger it if you don't want to waste 30 seconds waiting for it to finish.
- ehwhyreally 6y agoso a ripoff of sherlock?
- aninuth 6y agoParticularly noteworthy findings: HackerRank (the coding challenge/interview platform) allows viewing profiles even without logging in - While it doesn't show things you do for specific employers, still not something I realized the site was doing and could have ramifications if you use it to play around. 7Cups, the online therapy/talkspace site, allows viewing profiles even without logging in. Far more dangerous and worrisome than a lot of the other sites on here because of stigma around mental health; it's easy for me to imagine an employer or insurance salesman running a username through here and finding out that a candidate has been (likely) dealing with MH issues. Tinder(!) lets allows viewing a user's public pictures despite not being logged in - seems like a not great privacy measure - not sure how resistant this is to crawlers and the like but a tad bit concerning.
- sbmthakur 6y agolodash is there in the package.json. Why do a separate npm install for it?
- scarlac 6y agoEnough people have voiced their opinion on this tool but I just tried it. The results were underwhelming. It fails to find obvious links between sites, makes completely incorrect correlations while claiming 100% matches, and has no way of figuring out if it's the same person. The "useful" features seem to be username generator based on your original input, e.g. you input "john doe" and it suggests usernames like "jdoe", "johndoe", etc.