Hacker News: envy2

New comment by envy2 in "Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO"

envy2 — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:22:35 +0000

This. There should be no intermediary liability protections for any paid or monetised content: as soon as a platform is either charging for placement or paying the creator, they should be treated as a publisher and held responsible.

New comment by envy2 in "Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees"

envy2 — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 15:47:16 +0000

This is exactly what Trump and Musk would want, privatization of what should be (and were) government services.

No one — and I mean no one — should profit from the provision of what should be core government services, like tax filing or health care.

New comment by envy2 in "TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users"

envy2 — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 00:03:58 +0000

No. But they could ban American companies from providing services directly to that French publisher (e.g., a US company couldn't print books for or sell paper to that French publisher). However, a US law could not stop me from legally reading a copy I owned, or from selling or giving that copy to someone else within the US...

The First Amendment case would be much clearer if this was actually about banning access to TikTok (it's not: TikTok self-blocked US users, Amazon/Oracle shut off servers, and app stores stopped distributing to US users). TikTok could choose to operate their service (like many other Chinese companies) using only non-US infra and without relying on American companies to distribute their app; indeed, the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, hosted entirely from Chinese servers, continued to work just fine.

This case is also a reminder of why the iOS App Store is so bad for rights: at least on Android, you could sideload a 'banned' app; Google can comply with the law and US users can still download TikTok. On iOS, you don't have that option.

New comment by envy2 in "FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared"

envy2 — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 23:40:57 +0000

You are significantly overestimating the level of recordkeeping by random sellers of used and/or ultra-cheap phones. Manufacturers, major retailers, and carriers may keep this information, but bodegas and street vendors certainly do not.

New comment by envy2 in "Porn restrictions are leading to a VPN boom"

envy2 — Sun, 07 Apr 2024 00:02:20 +0000

Let's be realistic. Porn, the subject of this discussion, is not illegal in the US; this is about age verification laws that apply to the website operators, who then self-block users from particular states. No one is going after Cloudflare for this information as there is no crime committed by the user.

Given Cloudflare's logging policy (https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/privacy/public-dns...) and data disclosure practices, the only way US authorities would get anything worthwhile is if they had a specific individual target and a valid legal process. Cloudflare, like most of the big tech companies, is actually very good on this front; they have robust processes and are transparent (https://cf-assets.www.cloudflare.com/slt3lc6tev37/Q1INAiyBub...) about the limited cases in which they do hand over any user data.

(I don't work at Cloudflare, but do work on these issues for another big US tech company.)

New comment by envy2 in "CIA: All Foreign Governments"

envy2 — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 21:15:41 +0000

No. This is driven by a huge reliance on foreign migrant labor, which is overwhelmingly male.

New comment by envy2 in "Mom's Google Account Banned and Can't Talk to a Human"

envy2 — Sun, 08 Oct 2023 00:01:56 +0000

And how many 60+ year olds know how to do that?

Don't forget using private browsing / incognito mode; cookies will link your accounts immediately irrespective of VPN/SMS use.

Oh, and credit card + billing address, if the goal is to sign up for a paid YouTube TV subscription again.

New comment by envy2 in "Mom's Google Account Banned and Can't Talk to a Human"

envy2 — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 23:54:12 +0000

Sorry to hear. As someone who works for a non-Google Big Tech company, you will get nowhere on this trying to work with Google (or any other Big Tech) support.

If you believe your mom (and anyone using her account) definitely did not violate the T&Cs, the only thing that might realistically get a response is either [1] a personal contact who trusts you at Google escalating internally for re-review; or [2] reaching out to your state AG / consumer protection office.

That said, there's usually a very high bar for fully disabling accounts like this — either repeated violations or very severe violations (like child sexual abuse or terrorism). Might be good to figure out what the granddaughter has been up to...

New comment by envy2 in "Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy"

envy2 — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:18:02 +0000

Yes, ad-supported social apps collect a ton of data. But the Apple privacy widget list is just a catch-all since people can post anything and Meta uses post content for ad targeting.

Have you gone through Apple's onboarding flow recently? The process of creating an Apple ID and setting up an iPhone is pretty similar, and has similar click-wrap terms to allow endless data use, including [1], [2], [3], [4], and [5].

Apple has done a very good job of marketing privacy. But they engage in pretty much all of the same practices they call others out for.

Also, Threads didn't launch in Europe because of DMA data separation requirements between products. It has nothing to do with the invasiveness of the data collected per se as is implied here [6].

[1] https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/pdfs/apple-privacy-polic... [2] https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-id/ [3] https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/iOS16_iPadOS16.pdf [4] https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/ [5] https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/icloud/

[6] https://www.theverge.com/23789754/threads-meta-twitter-eu-dm...

New comment by envy2 in "NSO group iPhone zero-click, zero-day exploit captured in the wild"

envy2 — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 21:51:42 +0000

Yes.

New comment by envy2 in "NSO group iPhone zero-click, zero-day exploit captured in the wild"

envy2 — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 20:49:38 +0000

Would be nice if either CitizenLab or Apple had published some IOCs...

Meta introduces CM3leon, a more efficient image generation model

envy2 — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 13:40:32 +0000

Article URL: https://ai.meta.com/blog/generative-ai-text-images-cm3leon/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36723886

Points: 37

# Comments: 3

FTC Proposes Blanket Prohibition Preventing Facebook from Monetizing Youth Data

envy2 — Wed, 03 May 2023 18:17:04 +0000

Article URL: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/05/ftc-proposes-blanket-prohibition-preventing-facebook-monetizing-youth-data

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35805762

Points: 36

# Comments: 15

New comment by envy2 in "GitHub Copilot X – Sign up for technical preview"

envy2 — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 14:34:46 +0000

I think this is just a standard API access prompt. The GitHub Next page clearly indicates it is (C) GitHub Inc and the blog post makes GitHub's control clear.

New comment by envy2 in "I've locked myself out of my digital life"

envy2 — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 20:11:06 +0000

> You don't know if the place you are storing it is doing so in plain text, storing a decryption key right next to it, etc.

Any service that is storing passwords in plain text is probably not implementing 2FA in an safe way, either.

About CompuServe

envy2 — Wed, 11 May 2022 00:46:15 +0000

Article URL: https://www.compuserve.com/home/about.jsp

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31334536

Points: 15

# Comments: 14

WhatsApp launches end-to-end encrypted chat backups

envy2 — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 18:24:14 +0000

Article URL: https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/end-to-end-encrypted-backups-on-whatsapp/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28867999

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by envy2 in "Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31"

envy2 — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 20:55:46 +0000

Deleting a FB account is already trivial.

Instructions here (essentially, press "Permanently Delete Account" in settings and put in your password to confirm): https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674

New comment by envy2 in "Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin"

envy2 — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 15:08:26 +0000

Companies shouldn't put themselves in this position: they should simply refuse to have a local presence or local employees in authoritarian-leaning countries.

New comment by envy2 in "Benzene detected in many sunscreen products"

envy2 — Wed, 26 May 2021 18:44:13 +0000

I know aloe vera is often said to be useful in clearing benzene and formaldehyde from the air as a houseplant: perhaps this is being picked up from the environment, rather than any production issue per se?