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Eh, depends on how you look at it. "Public" is a pretty vague term. Something might be public in the sense that anyone can come and view, but it can also be pub

by ysavir 1y ago

Eh, depends on how you look at it. "Public" is a pretty vague term. Something might be public in the sense that anyone can come and view, but it can also be public in the sense that anyone can join and participate, but you still must be a joined member to participate (and that participation can be revoked, etc). Twitter and Reddit are the former, publicly visible communications avenues. Discord is ultimately a private communication channel where anyone can join, but must be joined, to participate. Unlike Reddit and Twitter, Discord was never meant to be a space where your contributions are intended to be publicly viewable. People forget that while Discord is oftentimes used as a replacement for forums, it is actually the spiritual successor to IRC, AIM, and similar chat services, where the data is typically ephemeral. Message history in these services is still a fairly recent addition, and what we're seeing now is the consequence of that data being available. Some people think that availability of historical data inherently puts it in the same camp as forums, Reddit, and Twitter, but I don't share that view. Discord data is still intended for present members of the given servers, not the public at large, even if anyone in the public space is able to become a present member. The distinction there is a meaningful one.

pavel_lishin 1y ago
> Message history in these services is still a fairly recent addition Is it? Discord's been around for a decade; as far as I'm aware, it's always had message history, unlike IRC. > Some people think that availability of historical data inherently puts it in the same camp as forums, Reddit, and Twitter, but I don't share that view. Discord data is still intended for present members of the given servers, not the public at large, even if anyone in the public space is able to become a present member. The distinction there is a meaningful one. I definitely agree with this, although the fact that anyone joining can scroll back does sort of mean it's available to anyone who wants to look for it - it's just difficult to do so.
- ysavir 1y ago
  > Is it? Discord's been around for a decade; as far as I'm aware, it's always had message history, unlike IRC. Almost a decade, yeah. And Slack had similar functionality in the few years before Discord arrived. But chat services have been around since, what, the late 80s or early 90s? Services like Discord are still the new kid on the block. Now we're seeing it being taken advantage of (or at least the first instance of someone publicly and proudly taking advantage of it), prompting curiosity of what comes next: Will this disregard for privacy simply become the default expectation, will people shift to more private spaces less susceptible to abuse, or privacy regulations protecting people?
lolinder 1y ago
> it is actually the spiritual successor to IRC, AIM, and similar chat services, where the data is typically ephemeral I can't speak for AIM, but I've never assumed IRC was ephemeral. Most IRC servers had and have numerous people idling in the channel with their client just archiving everything that happened. Many of those archives ended up published on the internet and that usually surprised no one. Discord is even worse because it does the archiving for you and grants new users immediate access to the entire archive. As a rule, each and every recipient of every message that you send has the option to archive or forward that message. That's a simple fact of information flow that everyone in the modern world must wrap their heads around. In this case, when you send a message to Discord you're transitively sending it to everyone who is currently or ever will be on a given server. That has always been true, and that fact has been exploited ever since Discord came about. All these researchers have done is expose the kind of archiving was always possible and always happening.
- ysavir 1y ago
  Sure, but there's a massive difference between an actor joining a chat and maintaining indefinitely, constant access to it vs an actor joining a chat and having access to the full history automatically. > All these researchers have done is expose the kind of archiving was always possible and always happening. What they've done is brought forward another instance of "this is why we can't have nice things". A useful feature being used in unintended ways without regard for ethics and privacy. The authors of this paper did not have respect for people's data and privacy. They did the bare minimum to make the claim they took privacy measures, regardless of whether the claim is true or not. I guess that's enough for them.
  - lolinder 1y ago
    You're not getting it: this is already happening everywhere. There is no private data on public Discord servers. Never has been. All these researchers have done is admit to doing what many less well-meaning people and organizations are already doing on a regular basis. If that admission leads to more people realizing that public Discord servers are public, then the researchers have done everyone a service. Blaming the researchers in this case is like blaming LockPickingLawyer for locks being pickable. The bad guys were already picking the locks before he started his channel, all he did was shine a light on just how bad most locks are.

by ysavir 1y ago

pavel_lishin 1y ago

> Message history in these services is still a fairly recent addition Is it? Discord's been around for a decade; as far as I'm aware, it's always had message history, unlike IRC. > Some people think that availability of historical data inherently puts it in the same camp as forums, Reddit, and Twitter, but I don't share that view. Discord data is still intended for present members of the given servers, not the public at large, even if anyone in the public space is able to become a present member. The distinction there is a meaningful one. I definitely agree with this, although the fact that anyone joining can scroll back does sort of mean it's available to anyone who wants to look for it - it's just difficult to do so.

ysavir 1y ago
> Is it? Discord's been around for a decade; as far as I'm aware, it's always had message history, unlike IRC. Almost a decade, yeah. And Slack had similar functionality in the few years before Discord arrived. But chat services have been around since, what, the late 80s or early 90s? Services like Discord are still the new kid on the block. Now we're seeing it being taken advantage of (or at least the first instance of someone publicly and proudly taking advantage of it), prompting curiosity of what comes next: Will this disregard for privacy simply become the default expectation, will people shift to more private spaces less susceptible to abuse, or privacy regulations protecting people?

lolinder 1y ago

> it is actually the spiritual successor to IRC, AIM, and similar chat services, where the data is typically ephemeral I can't speak for AIM, but I've never assumed IRC was ephemeral. Most IRC servers had and have numerous people idling in the channel with their client just archiving everything that happened. Many of those archives ended up published on the internet and that usually surprised no one. Discord is even worse because it does the archiving for you and grants new users immediate access to the entire archive. As a rule, each and every recipient of every message that you send has the option to archive or forward that message. That's a simple fact of information flow that everyone in the modern world must wrap their heads around. In this case, when you send a message to Discord you're transitively sending it to everyone who is currently or ever will be on a given server. That has always been true, and that fact has been exploited ever since Discord came about. All these researchers have done is expose the kind of archiving was always possible and always happening.

ysavir 1y ago
Sure, but there's a massive difference between an actor joining a chat and maintaining indefinitely, constant access to it vs an actor joining a chat and having access to the full history automatically. > All these researchers have done is expose the kind of archiving was always possible and always happening. What they've done is brought forward another instance of "this is why we can't have nice things". A useful feature being used in unintended ways without regard for ethics and privacy. The authors of this paper did not have respect for people's data and privacy. They did the bare minimum to make the claim they took privacy measures, regardless of whether the claim is true or not. I guess that's enough for them.
- lolinder 1y ago
  You're not getting it: this is already happening everywhere. There is no private data on public Discord servers. Never has been. All these researchers have done is admit to doing what many less well-meaning people and organizations are already doing on a regular basis. If that admission leads to more people realizing that public Discord servers are public, then the researchers have done everyone a service. Blaming the researchers in this case is like blaming LockPickingLawyer for locks being pickable. The bad guys were already picking the locks before he started his channel, all he did was shine a light on just how bad most locks are.