Thursday, June 23, 2022
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
Monday, June 20, 2022
Saturday, June 18, 2022
Thursday, June 16, 2022
New best story on Hacker News: Tell HN: Triplebyte is, yet again, making user profiles public without consent
Tell HN: Triplebyte is, yet again, making user profiles public without consent
550 by teraflop | 98 comments on Hacker News.
Triplebyte (YC S15) is a tech recruiting company that operates by getting developers to take skill tests, and then using the results to match them with employers. Back in 2020, they got in a lot of hot water by suddenly announcing that user profiles -- which had been collected with assurances that the data wouldn't be shared without consent -- would be made public, unless you opted out within a week[1]. This provoked a lot of backlash, especially since the CEO seemed totally oblivious to the privacy concerns[2]. After a lot of angry comments, he publicly apologized and reversed course[3]. Then in 2021, some users started once again being notified that their profiles were automatically being made public[4]. This time, it was explained away as an "oversight" related to the fact that previously, opt-outs weren't permanent but had a hidden expiration time. Triplebyte once again apologized and promised that it wouldn't happen again, and many people seemed satisfied with the "transparency and candidness" of their response. Now it's 2022, and yesterday I got a recruiting email from a company that found me via the Triplebyte account I created back in 2019. When I logged in to check, sure enough, my profile was set to "publicly visible" and "open to new opportunities". I was pretty sure I had never made those changes, but just in case I was misremembering, I contacted Triplebyte support to find out what was going on. Today I got this response: "I was able to do some digging on to why this must have happened, It looks like before we did our last update to the platform you did not have the profile visibility set to indefinitely so the profile was turned on. Since then we have made a privacy chance once you set the profile to off there is not reset time frame it will remain off until you turn it on." (Unlike the user in [4], I never got any kind of notification that this automatic change was being made.) So despite their explicit promises, Triplebyte did not actually go back and fix the privacy settings for users who had them silently changed by the previous "dark pattern". This is a heads-up to anyone else who has a Triplebyte account and might be affected by the same issue. [1]: https://ift.tt/LcxtFpI [2]: https://ift.tt/0IQyN9e [3]: https://ift.tt/ZSABipu [4]: https://ift.tt/0U5lQFA
550 by teraflop | 98 comments on Hacker News.
Triplebyte (YC S15) is a tech recruiting company that operates by getting developers to take skill tests, and then using the results to match them with employers. Back in 2020, they got in a lot of hot water by suddenly announcing that user profiles -- which had been collected with assurances that the data wouldn't be shared without consent -- would be made public, unless you opted out within a week[1]. This provoked a lot of backlash, especially since the CEO seemed totally oblivious to the privacy concerns[2]. After a lot of angry comments, he publicly apologized and reversed course[3]. Then in 2021, some users started once again being notified that their profiles were automatically being made public[4]. This time, it was explained away as an "oversight" related to the fact that previously, opt-outs weren't permanent but had a hidden expiration time. Triplebyte once again apologized and promised that it wouldn't happen again, and many people seemed satisfied with the "transparency and candidness" of their response. Now it's 2022, and yesterday I got a recruiting email from a company that found me via the Triplebyte account I created back in 2019. When I logged in to check, sure enough, my profile was set to "publicly visible" and "open to new opportunities". I was pretty sure I had never made those changes, but just in case I was misremembering, I contacted Triplebyte support to find out what was going on. Today I got this response: "I was able to do some digging on to why this must have happened, It looks like before we did our last update to the platform you did not have the profile visibility set to indefinitely so the profile was turned on. Since then we have made a privacy chance once you set the profile to off there is not reset time frame it will remain off until you turn it on." (Unlike the user in [4], I never got any kind of notification that this automatic change was being made.) So despite their explicit promises, Triplebyte did not actually go back and fix the privacy settings for users who had them silently changed by the previous "dark pattern". This is a heads-up to anyone else who has a Triplebyte account and might be affected by the same issue. [1]: https://ift.tt/LcxtFpI [2]: https://ift.tt/0IQyN9e [3]: https://ift.tt/ZSABipu [4]: https://ift.tt/0U5lQFA
New best story on Hacker News: Tell HN: Banned from LinkedIn for Reporting Wickr Drug Spam
Tell HN: Banned from LinkedIn for Reporting Wickr Drug Spam
510 by silent_speech | 157 comments on Hacker News.
It made the news recently that Wickr (Amazon owned E2EE chat app) is full of illegal imagery. I read about this on my LinkedIn feed then decided to search for "Wickr" there to see who else was talking about this. The search returned dozens of spam messages offering drugs in Asia and the US with information to contact on Wickr for price. I reported these drug spam posts to LinkedIn - which is supposedly an anonymous report. Next day I got a flood of reports on my own comments (nothing to do with that topic), so many I didn't bother to appeal as I had other things to do. Few hours later my account was down. Seems that for retaliation the drug network decided to find me out and use their accounts to subvert LinkedIn's policy and ensure I can't stop their spam. They have new spam up now while my account is gone. No good deed goes unpunished I guess.
510 by silent_speech | 157 comments on Hacker News.
It made the news recently that Wickr (Amazon owned E2EE chat app) is full of illegal imagery. I read about this on my LinkedIn feed then decided to search for "Wickr" there to see who else was talking about this. The search returned dozens of spam messages offering drugs in Asia and the US with information to contact on Wickr for price. I reported these drug spam posts to LinkedIn - which is supposedly an anonymous report. Next day I got a flood of reports on my own comments (nothing to do with that topic), so many I didn't bother to appeal as I had other things to do. Few hours later my account was down. Seems that for retaliation the drug network decided to find me out and use their accounts to subvert LinkedIn's policy and ensure I can't stop their spam. They have new spam up now while my account is gone. No good deed goes unpunished I guess.
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
New best story on Hacker News: Thank HN: Five months ago, I was feeling like a loser, now I am opposite
Thank HN: Five months ago, I was feeling like a loser, now I am opposite
529 by ac2022 | 211 comments on Hacker News.
I posted this a few months ago: https://ift.tt/7e5Z0S3 I thought I hated programming and was ready to quit or even divorce my wife. I was not able to have a normal conversation with anyone. I was burned out but I thought I was having midlife crisis. My wife wanted to buy a big house and I kept blaming her for the stress. My job was easy and I had a lot of control over my time, work location, etc. I didn't think it could be the job that was causing me feel depressed. What I didn't realize while my work gave me freedom on work schedule, it didn't give me any real freedom to make important decisions. We were checkmark driven company. I was forced to do a lot of compliance and security related tasks which added zero benefit to our service. After my post, I decided that I either move into management at my last company or get a new job. I worked longer hours and spent all my free time doing LeetCode. LeetCode was hard and pointless. But I was motivated and was able to solve most easy and medium question in 30 mins. However, that was not good enough for FAANGs. I applied to some smaller companies and got a few offers. I picked one really great Series D startup. I believe in their mission and I have freedom to make real decisions here. I got a decent bump in my salary but not really FAANG TC. However, more importantly, work is 1000 times more exciting. I feel alive again. Wife and I are not fighting anymore. I work longer hours but have more energy at the end of day. I just want to thank everyone that responded to my post and tell everyone that if you find your work or life unfulfilling, change your job now!
529 by ac2022 | 211 comments on Hacker News.
I posted this a few months ago: https://ift.tt/7e5Z0S3 I thought I hated programming and was ready to quit or even divorce my wife. I was not able to have a normal conversation with anyone. I was burned out but I thought I was having midlife crisis. My wife wanted to buy a big house and I kept blaming her for the stress. My job was easy and I had a lot of control over my time, work location, etc. I didn't think it could be the job that was causing me feel depressed. What I didn't realize while my work gave me freedom on work schedule, it didn't give me any real freedom to make important decisions. We were checkmark driven company. I was forced to do a lot of compliance and security related tasks which added zero benefit to our service. After my post, I decided that I either move into management at my last company or get a new job. I worked longer hours and spent all my free time doing LeetCode. LeetCode was hard and pointless. But I was motivated and was able to solve most easy and medium question in 30 mins. However, that was not good enough for FAANGs. I applied to some smaller companies and got a few offers. I picked one really great Series D startup. I believe in their mission and I have freedom to make real decisions here. I got a decent bump in my salary but not really FAANG TC. However, more importantly, work is 1000 times more exciting. I feel alive again. Wife and I are not fighting anymore. I work longer hours but have more energy at the end of day. I just want to thank everyone that responded to my post and tell everyone that if you find your work or life unfulfilling, change your job now!
