6 ms·

The thing that everybody expected to happen, happened. At least the kids are safe. Why were these images not encrypted, and why were they retained for longer t

The thing that everybody expected to happen, happened. At least the kids are safe. Why were these images not encrypted, and why were they retained for longer than was necessary?

miohtama 1y ago
Why the files were asked in the first place?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
naldb 1y ago
Encrypted? Encrypted how? How would the employees tasked with age verification access them if they were encrypted?
- jvanderbot 1y ago
  By decrypting them with a hardware token or passphrase or memorized password or timeboxed token of another kind. But honestly just delete them ASAP, that's the issue
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    And if all the employees have access to this hardware token or passphrase or memorized password or timeboxed token of some kind, does that actually prevent a hack, or does it just let you bullet point "encrypted"? The main thing encryption prevents is someone that steals a physical device getting access to the data inside. It doesn't do much about unauthorized access to live servers.
    - awesome_dude 1y ago
      I mean, this is the problem for all companies with sensitive data (ensuring that "ex" employees no longer have access to <stuff>). Generally it's done via accessing some 3rd party secret storage system where employees need to verify themselves to get access (eg. Vault, or AWS secrets or what have you)
      - Dylan16807 1y ago
        Do you think this breach had anything to do with ex-employees retaining access? That also sounds like solving the wrong problem.
        awesome_dude 1y ago
        I mean this is posted on this page too. z> nomilk 8 minutes ago | prev | next [–] > The hacker claims an outsourced worker was compromised through a $500 bribe Also interesting: > The hacker claims government IDs were just sitting there for months or even years... I have spoken to people familiar with Discord's Age Verification system, and they said after some period of time Discord will delete (the copies of IDs), but they should be deleting them the second they're done Source (pinned comment, and 7m20s respectively): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnuyT8FgSpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnuyT8FgSpA reply
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - vehementi 1y ago
      Check out Defense in Depth as a security concept
      - Dylan16807 1y ago
        It's not defense in depth, it's defense against a different threat entirely. You want to have encryption, but I doubt their encryption or lack thereof has anything to do with this attack. Do we even have evidence the data wasn't encrypted?. If someone gets access to a ticketing system they shouldn't have, talking about encryption is about as useful as talking about seatbelts. Important for general safety but irrelevant to the problem at hand.
Barrin92 1y ago
>and why were they retained for longer than was necessary? it's stated in the article. In most cases they weren't, the data breach only affected people who disputed the result of their age verification. Of course in principle Discord or any third party should never need any photographic identity themselves to begin with if countries would bother to implement a proper trusted identity system where the data stays with an authority and they simply sign off on requests. Like in South Korea or the eID features you have on most European national ID cards.
- whatever1 1y ago
  So they process 70k disputes per day? If not, why 70k ids were stolen? It’s a flawed design. No reason to retain the personal info for more than the processing time. Aka the duration of the dispute process itself (not the queue of disputes). The principal engineer who signed it off should go to jail.
  - debo_ 1y ago
    It's not 70k per day. A dispute takes longer than a day; this was their entire ongoing dispute queue.
    - whatever1 1y ago
      So they were retaining data that they were not actively processing. They were just waiting to be processed. Aka, the system design was wrong. The buck has to stop somewhere. Somebody signed it off.
      - debo_ 1y ago
        I'm not sure how you're coming to that conclusion. If, for example, the id verification says "your id appears to be fake" and the user disputes it, what happens next? A dispute usually has several back-and-forth steps where one party is waiting for the other to respond.
        1y ago
raggi 1y ago
> At least the kids are safe. Are they any safer? Roadblocks rarely stopped me as a kid. These kinds of impediments most often resulted in me strategically moving what I was doing to somewhere out of sight of the gatekeepers, most often resulting in less safety. Where do most kids learn to play with fire in modern society? in very very dangerous places.
- yieldcrv 1y ago
  that was sarcasm, a satire on the situation and ostensible purpose of burdening everyone with this
- drdeadringer 1y ago
  This reminds me of a small but fond memory of mine. One of my friends in high school, up from elementary, was slightly a troublemaker. But not terribly so. One day, we found ourselves sitting at the same lunch table. He occasionally smoked, I did not (I still don't). This meant that he had a lighter and I at the time did not (I now carry a lighter with me at all times for unrelated reasons). He made a comment about how good orange peels smelled when you burned them. I leaned into this comment with curiosity and personal ignorance on the matter. He said yeah and then looked around made the shush shush signal and leaned in, and invited me to do the same. He took an orange peel and brushed it across his opened lighter flame. Nobody caught us, and I smelled firsthand What he was talking about. Nobody got into trouble over this innocent demonstration. But for sure as hell you would have gone into trouble for this uncensioned demonstration of fire usage.
  - beezlewax 1y ago
    Out of curiosity why do you carry a lighter always?
    - drdeadringer 1y ago
      It started, funny enough, out of seeing the very first Doctor who episode from the 1960s, where the doctor and crew land on prehistoric Earth and primitive man is having trouble making fire, and the doctor has to figure a way on how to encourage humans to create fire on their own. My own deal evolved from there into I should always probably have a lighter in case I need to light something of flame, not in a pyromaniac way, but in the way of, "does anybody have a lighter?" Type of way. Somebody leaving to light a candle, start a campfire, need to light a smoke, whatever. Or even to melt the ends of a nylon rope to hedge against unraveling. This has oddly come in handy more often than one would think.
subscribed 1y ago
How does it make kids any safer? My kids had a honest conversation with me about possible Wikipedia ban and VPNs maybe a week in. Their classmates were already using it.
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45552348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45552348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45552382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45552382

The thing that everybody expected to happen, happened. At least the kids are safe. Why were these images not encrypted, and why were they retained for longer than was necessary?

miohtama 1y ago

Why the files were asked in the first place?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

naldb 1y ago

Encrypted? Encrypted how? How would the employees tasked with age verification access them if they were encrypted?

jvanderbot 1y ago
By decrypting them with a hardware token or passphrase or memorized password or timeboxed token of another kind. But honestly just delete them ASAP, that's the issue
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  And if all the employees have access to this hardware token or passphrase or memorized password or timeboxed token of some kind, does that actually prevent a hack, or does it just let you bullet point "encrypted"? The main thing encryption prevents is someone that steals a physical device getting access to the data inside. It doesn't do much about unauthorized access to live servers.
  - awesome_dude 1y ago
    I mean, this is the problem for all companies with sensitive data (ensuring that "ex" employees no longer have access to <stuff>). Generally it's done via accessing some 3rd party secret storage system where employees need to verify themselves to get access (eg. Vault, or AWS secrets or what have you)
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      Do you think this breach had anything to do with ex-employees retaining access? That also sounds like solving the wrong problem.
      - awesome_dude 1y ago
        I mean this is posted on this page too. z> nomilk 8 minutes ago | prev | next [–] > The hacker claims an outsourced worker was compromised through a $500 bribe Also interesting: > The hacker claims government IDs were just sitting there for months or even years... I have spoken to people familiar with Discord's Age Verification system, and they said after some period of time Discord will delete (the copies of IDs), but they should be deleting them the second they're done Source (pinned comment, and 7m20s respectively): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnuyT8FgSpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnuyT8FgSpA reply
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - vehementi 1y ago
    Check out Defense in Depth as a security concept
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      It's not defense in depth, it's defense against a different threat entirely. You want to have encryption, but I doubt their encryption or lack thereof has anything to do with this attack. Do we even have evidence the data wasn't encrypted?. If someone gets access to a ticketing system they shouldn't have, talking about encryption is about as useful as talking about seatbelts. Important for general safety but irrelevant to the problem at hand.

Barrin92 1y ago

>and why were they retained for longer than was necessary? it's stated in the article. In most cases they weren't, the data breach only affected people who disputed the result of their age verification. Of course in principle Discord or any third party should never need any photographic identity themselves to begin with if countries would bother to implement a proper trusted identity system where the data stays with an authority and they simply sign off on requests. Like in South Korea or the eID features you have on most European national ID cards.

whatever1 1y ago
So they process 70k disputes per day? If not, why 70k ids were stolen? It’s a flawed design. No reason to retain the personal info for more than the processing time. Aka the duration of the dispute process itself (not the queue of disputes). The principal engineer who signed it off should go to jail.
- debo_ 1y ago
  It's not 70k per day. A dispute takes longer than a day; this was their entire ongoing dispute queue.
  - whatever1 1y ago
    So they were retaining data that they were not actively processing. They were just waiting to be processed. Aka, the system design was wrong. The buck has to stop somewhere. Somebody signed it off.
    - debo_ 1y ago
      I'm not sure how you're coming to that conclusion. If, for example, the id verification says "your id appears to be fake" and the user disputes it, what happens next? A dispute usually has several back-and-forth steps where one party is waiting for the other to respond.
      - 1y ago

raggi 1y ago

> At least the kids are safe. Are they any safer? Roadblocks rarely stopped me as a kid. These kinds of impediments most often resulted in me strategically moving what I was doing to somewhere out of sight of the gatekeepers, most often resulting in less safety. Where do most kids learn to play with fire in modern society? in very very dangerous places.

yieldcrv 1y ago
that was sarcasm, a satire on the situation and ostensible purpose of burdening everyone with this
drdeadringer 1y ago
This reminds me of a small but fond memory of mine. One of my friends in high school, up from elementary, was slightly a troublemaker. But not terribly so. One day, we found ourselves sitting at the same lunch table. He occasionally smoked, I did not (I still don't). This meant that he had a lighter and I at the time did not (I now carry a lighter with me at all times for unrelated reasons). He made a comment about how good orange peels smelled when you burned them. I leaned into this comment with curiosity and personal ignorance on the matter. He said yeah and then looked around made the shush shush signal and leaned in, and invited me to do the same. He took an orange peel and brushed it across his opened lighter flame. Nobody caught us, and I smelled firsthand What he was talking about. Nobody got into trouble over this innocent demonstration. But for sure as hell you would have gone into trouble for this uncensioned demonstration of fire usage.
- beezlewax 1y ago
  Out of curiosity why do you carry a lighter always?
  - drdeadringer 1y ago
    It started, funny enough, out of seeing the very first Doctor who episode from the 1960s, where the doctor and crew land on prehistoric Earth and primitive man is having trouble making fire, and the doctor has to figure a way on how to encourage humans to create fire on their own. My own deal evolved from there into I should always probably have a lighter in case I need to light something of flame, not in a pyromaniac way, but in the way of, "does anybody have a lighter?" Type of way. Somebody leaving to light a candle, start a campfire, need to light a smoke, whatever. Or even to melt the ends of a nylon rope to hedge against unraveling. This has oddly come in handy more often than one would think.

subscribed 1y ago

How does it make kids any safer? My kids had a honest conversation with me about possible Wikipedia ban and VPNs maybe a week in. Their classmates were already using it.

Dylan16807 1y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45552348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45552348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45552382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45552382