4 ms·

> “It’s our job to make sure people feel safe and in control,” he says. So people just have to feel 'safe and in control,' rather than making sure they are act

> “It’s our job to make sure people feel safe and in control,” he says. So people just have to feel 'safe and in control,' rather than making sure they are actually safe and/or in control? It sounds like an admission that the whole anonymity thing is just a marketing gimmick: as long as you have a name like "Secret" and make people feel like they're safe, they'll share whether or not they have strong security at all.

krapp 12y ago
> It sounds like an admission that the whole anonymity thing is just a marketing gimmick: Post Snowden, there's an obvious market for "secure" and "anonymous" apps and startups, and the appearance of security is usually cheaper, quicker to implement and less annoying for end users than the real thing. Having a bug bounty is nice and obviously security is hard even when you do try, but even that can be used to give the appearance about being aggressive about security while still making sure their network is just broken enough to return whatever value there is in being 'social' (which is usually antithetical to being secure or anonymous.)
higherpurpose 12y ago
All such proprietary "anonymous" or "private/self-destructing" apps are guilty of this. By far the worst offender is Facebook's "anonymous login". But at least Facebook has a well deserved bad enough reputation by now that not too many people fall for that one. Secret, on the other hand, sounds like it could be truly anonymous - even if it's far from it.
void-star 12y ago
There's a term for that. It's called "having a false sense of security".
Gracana 12y ago
I think you're really reaching to find that meaning in Byttow's words.
- bitJericho 12y ago
  Hey if my ex can do it... But more seriously, if there are bugs that can reveal the poster's identify in the first place, then it's not anonymous. It's very easy to make your servers not record any identifying information along with the text or pic. It's also easily possible to strip any exif data from an image. Clearly for usefulness/monetary value, the identity of the poster is being recorded.
  - roc 12y ago
    The identity of the poster is recorded as a core conceit of the system. The app/network is explicitly for sharing secrets between friends. It has to record and store who the secrets came from, in order to determine who their friends are and thus which users to show it to. Before you even sign up it's quite clear that there can't be anything anonymous about this at all. It delivers plausible-deniability at best. Their claims may be fuzzy. People may not be paying too much attention when they sign-up or use it. But they're quite clearly not trying to make an actually anonymous secret sharing site.
ryandrake 12y ago
You'll find this kind of wording a lot from companies. It's a sneaky way to make it sound like you're actually doing something to fix a problem, while technically being truthful by saying that it's basically just P.R. "Social Network A wants users to feel like they control their privacy settings." "Online Store B believes shoppers should feel like their credit card information is secure." "Cable Company C's service goal is for customers to feel like their support issues are being addressed."
- crpatino 12y ago
  Maybe I have grown overly cynical over the years, but I was not aware that this kind of thing still works on most people. I pretty much sed 's/feel like/not/' as an habit without noticing.

krapp 12y ago

> It sounds like an admission that the whole anonymity thing is just a marketing gimmick: Post Snowden, there's an obvious market for "secure" and "anonymous" apps and startups, and the appearance of security is usually cheaper, quicker to implement and less annoying for end users than the real thing. Having a bug bounty is nice and obviously security is hard even when you do try, but even that can be used to give the appearance about being aggressive about security while still making sure their network is just broken enough to return whatever value there is in being 'social' (which is usually antithetical to being secure or anonymous.)

higherpurpose 12y ago

All such proprietary "anonymous" or "private/self-destructing" apps are guilty of this. By far the worst offender is Facebook's "anonymous login". But at least Facebook has a well deserved bad enough reputation by now that not too many people fall for that one. Secret, on the other hand, sounds like it could be truly anonymous - even if it's far from it.

void-star 12y ago

There's a term for that. It's called "having a false sense of security".

Gracana 12y ago

I think you're really reaching to find that meaning in Byttow's words.

bitJericho 12y ago
Hey if my ex can do it... But more seriously, if there are bugs that can reveal the poster's identify in the first place, then it's not anonymous. It's very easy to make your servers not record any identifying information along with the text or pic. It's also easily possible to strip any exif data from an image. Clearly for usefulness/monetary value, the identity of the poster is being recorded.
- roc 12y ago
  The identity of the poster is recorded as a core conceit of the system. The app/network is explicitly for sharing secrets between friends. It has to record and store who the secrets came from, in order to determine who their friends are and thus which users to show it to. Before you even sign up it's quite clear that there can't be anything anonymous about this at all. It delivers plausible-deniability at best. Their claims may be fuzzy. People may not be paying too much attention when they sign-up or use it. But they're quite clearly not trying to make an actually anonymous secret sharing site.

ryandrake 12y ago

You'll find this kind of wording a lot from companies. It's a sneaky way to make it sound like you're actually doing something to fix a problem, while technically being truthful by saying that it's basically just P.R. "Social Network A wants users to feel like they control their privacy settings." "Online Store B believes shoppers should feel like their credit card information is secure." "Cable Company C's service goal is for customers to feel like their support issues are being addressed."

crpatino 12y ago
Maybe I have grown overly cynical over the years, but I was not aware that this kind of thing still works on most people. I pretty much sed 's/feel like/not/' as an habit without noticing.