Disqus - Latest Comments for Itafroma

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

kly3 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:47:29 -0000

Understood, but my point stands. Allow people to make lists that are public. That can be done on any blog anywhere. I could create a douchebag list on my blog and put you on that list (not that I think you are :). Everyone in the world could see that I put you on that list. That would be no different than a public twitter list system.

Again, the critical difference, as you pointed out (and I agree is the really big failure here) is the inability for required consent to place on profile.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:41:36 -0000

My argument centers around the lists showing up on my profile without my consent, not that people are talking about me without my consent. Remove the lists from being attached to me (via my profile), and there is not much of an issue: @replies and blog lists are attached to the people who created them, not the person they're about. My profile, on any service, should be my domain alone.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:23:33 -0000

My argument distinguishes between saying things in your own space, that is, if you wanted to call me a jerk on your own Twitter profile, I have no problem with it. The difference between that use case and lists is that the lists show up on my profile, meaning it crossed from your name being attached to the comment about me (and you taking all the responsibility for saying it) to your comment being attached to my name, largely anonymously, without my consent.

I don't deny that there are other services that act largely in the same way, and I'd say that any time that happens, without proper controls like the ones I outlined, it's wrong.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:18:36 -0000

Indeed. The sex industry (and other repugnant types, as you call it) is the use case that sparked me to think more on this and eventually write this post. Let's say there's a person who buys some porn online or something like that. They've already given up their email address in that transaction, which is then used to find that person on Twitter. So far, it's no different than what's occurring now: they get followed by a sex peddler bot, and that's that. Who's following a person doesn't really matter. Now, with lists, that bot can classify that person as (likes-sex-act-that-really-shouldnt-be-made-public, or bought-this-porno-were-trying-to-get-other-people-to-buy) and thus what was once private becomes embarrassingly public.

That level of transparency may be great for public figures, but seems wrong for private people. Then there's also libel and irrelevant spam, as I talked about in my post. My main point is that Twitter is allowing others to modify your profile and how your profile talks about you (that is, it's allowing others to classify you publicly) without your consent. That's something it didn't allow before, and it's something that should be thought about before diving head first in.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:10:14 -0000

Well that didn't take long, did it?

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:09:44 -0000

That's a great point, Christopher. You've given me a lot to think about with your comments, I really appreciate it.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:07:23 -0000

From the hundreds of retweets and comments I've received, and from the largely positive feedback I've gotten, this is obviously a conversation a large group of Twitter users want to have. To throw this back at you, you worry so much about this blog post that my blog might not be the best place for you. And I say that with not a trace of sarcasm, judgement or bitchiness, I say that with sincerity and hope to help.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

JessicaGottlieb — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:06:59 -0000

The more I use the lists, the more I find that they are exactly the opposite of what your fears are. I can listen more intently to smaller groups. My best lists are private, so the spam you worry about (I still don't understand why) is a non issue.

I sense that this is going in circles, and that you worry so much about privacy, spam and intrusions that social media might not be the best place for you. And I say that with not a trace of sarcasm, judgement or bitchiness, I say that with sincerity and the hope to help.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

twitter-38714762 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:49:35 -0000

One last small point. I agree with the thousands on tech-lists being a "problem".

However, I have a "simple" solution for that, the same one I use currently for links. I only will explore lists of people I already know and trust, just like I only explore links from people I know and trust (and I never pass on a link I haven't verified is valid, contains useful into, etc.). If one starts from one's own web-of-trust and builds out slowly, life will be mostly safe. And, that's definitely the introvert in me talking, because that's our general approach to life.

I think in the twitter world, you are forced to use third party sources (and have to decide which third party sources one trusts). So, I'm sure that getting on mashable's list of tech gurus will be highly prized status, because it will confer almost instant stardom.

However, I myself will look to see if there aren't smaller lists from people I know with more tightly focused topics--I already found one (a cloud researcher I know listed his cloud resources and I found other researchers I respected on it), so I made that list my FollowFriday for the week--and even it was a little long. I'd like lists of 10-20 people ideally, as those are the amount I can absorb in a week. If I add too many new friends, I find I don't really follow all of them, which for me defeats the two way part of the conversation.

Oh, well, so much for it being one small point--it started as such....

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

twitter-38714762 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:29:19 -0000

Thank you. Your point about changing behavior is very valid and since I don't get any twitter traffic on my phone didn't realize the issue. However, one slowly is going to have to change the behavior anyway. I'm sure the spammers are going to discover the @ trick--in fact, I'm sure they have given some of the @ mail directed at me. So, being able to privatize @ is an important issue by itself. But, still the list service certainly may speed that process up. Hopefully, the twitter folks will realize that consent is important and incorporate it (into not only lists, and @ messages, but all their future offerings). To me one of the advantages of twitter is that is primarily an opt-in model. They've already established a good precedent for that. You (mostlyh) have to follow to receive info, and if you make your page private, you have to consent to people hearing from you. Thus, the system allows opt-in behavior on both sides. That is a good thing. Getting them to expand that policy is a better thing.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:59:07 -0000

I tried to respond about the spam issue in my other comment, but that's a good point about #FollowFriday, and thinking about it, lists and FollowFriday both point to a behavior that I'm not sure is welcome or necessary in the natural evolution of communication. That is, there's a minority of people who have an idea that everyone, whether they consent to it or not, ought to be part of a global conversation, and these tools allow us to prod and push them into the conversation regardless of their consent.

It's probably the Burkean conservative in me, but I think it's something that we ought to step back from and decide, as a whole, whether those people are right. I'm not convinced that they are, and would hope Twitter and other social media companies would try to capture how most people want to communicate (or as you put it, if enough people speak out about it, Twitter will behave we want). Facebook, for all its apparent faults, I think got that concept, much to the dismay of a lot of people.

As I said in the other comment, maybe these are two philosophies that are irreconcilable, but I would hope that they're not, as that smart companies like Twitter can take the time to find how to satisfy both rather than implement a feature that alienates one.

Regarding one-way communication of Twitter, I'm not sure I buy that either. The standard use has always been two way, and I don't see how lists change that at all: you can't broadcast to lists.

Finally, there's something appealing about the democratization of lists, but as an outsider to a particular field, let's say if I was an outsider to technology, I have no idea what list, of the thousands of "tech people" and variant lists out there, I'm supposed to follow. Maybe that's functional: to force people to rely on a separate, third party source to identify the best list, but I go back to my wish that Twitter had and has an opportunity to progress this concept and they didn't.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:45:51 -0000

Hey Christopher, thanks a lot for your comments, it gave me a lot to think about. One of the things email spam did was force people to change their email behaviors in how they categorize or store email messages: you couldn't just get all messages sent to an email address, you had to do some sort of filtering to make sure the unwanted stuff didn't come to you. I'm sure that's generally "the way it is" for most people, but to me, that's broken.

The spam problem on Twitter reflects that fall from grace: I can't use Twitter the way I want to not because of a technical problem, but because unscrupulous people have (or in the case of Twitter Lists, I argue will) use it in a way that forces me to use it in a way that protects me from spamming. You mention that @ replies aren't that big of a deal because they go into a separate mentions folder, but that's one way people handle mentions. For example, I get @ mentions via iPhone push notifications and via growl messages: they come to me and alert me so I make sure I respond to legitimate people who are trying to get ahold of me via Twtter.

With the rise of @ mention spam, I can't do that anymore, or if I do, I'm a sucker because of all the @ mention spam and who want to sift through spam? I have to change my behavior, or someone has to come out with essentially a spam filter for Twitter.

There's an argument to be made, and I think most people have accepted it, that technology is just a series of behavior modifications: you're always going to have to change how you think and how you act in order to use the latest technology. To me, that's a fundamentally broken concept: technology works for us, not the other way around. I believe Twitter has the opportunity to improve upon this facet of communication, and the way they did it implements it more or less the same way it's been implemented for the better part of a century.

I do like the idea of @ replies only getting to you if you've subscribed to a person: other companies have been floating that around for asynchronous connections (FriendFeed, a while back, was thinking of allowing an option to prevent people commenting on your feed unless they were subscribed to you), but Twitter doing that would be a really great thing.

Obviously, putting those sorts of barriers up flies directly in the face of a free and open internet where anyone can say anything to anyone else, or find information freely (like you being able to find and interact with other security workers freely). I'm not sure how to reconcile the two seemingly incompatible philosophies of creating a world based on trust and creating a world where everything is Free.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

twitter-38714762 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:06:31 -0000

As I said in my other comment, I work for Intel as a network security researcher, but these opinions are mine and not Intel's.

So, you're suggesting someone will use a twitter list to put you in a demographic category and from that list choose to spam you through another avenue, say email. Unless someone has very tight demographic categories that give high sales rates that isn't going to be cost effective. The point is lists don't give spammers a new way to send you unsolicited messages. At best they give them better ways to find certain target audiences. However, there are lists being sold (very cheaply mind you) that give better data on demographics that are known to be interesting.

Your comment about targeting influencers may have some relevance. I am here on twitter because Intel hopes I will find interesting security workers to interact with. Can I use lists to find such tweeps? Yes, that looks a little easier. Can I send them unsolicited messages? Well, no. I can follow them and hope they follow me back. I can tweet or RT interesting security information and hope they read it, either directly or by someone RT'g me. But, I can't actually spam them. There is no way through twitter to send them an unsolicited message--yes an @ message goes to their mentions folder, but they still have to read it and doing just a little of that will get me blocked and barred from twitter. Can I get an email address from a twitter name? Maybe, but not directly from twitter. So, if you have an issue about spam on twitter, make @ messages opt-out-able, so people can't send you info unless you follow them. That's a better way to stop twitter spam directed at you.

Note, I don't deal here with your other points, and I think your consent point is valid, just not for this reason.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:28:19 -0000

Twitter doesn't exist in a bubble, and spammers don't use just Twitter to spam people. Lists are analogous to concepts that exist in other communication media that have been exploited by spammers to great success. When trying to make a cold sale, the most important part is to close quickly so you can move onto the next prospect: one way to do that is to play the law of large numbers, and spam tons of people indiscriminately in hopes that there's a certain percentage that convert. You can increase that conversion ratio by knowing more about the prospect, but finding information to create a buy-in takes time.

With lists, that information becomes trivial to obtain: that's true not just for Twitter lists, but for email lists, phone lists, and professional lists. The danger with any targeted list is that it's inconvenient to unrealistic to get your name removed from them. Twitter had (and still has) an opportunity to improve upon this heinous sales tool and provide convenient and non-drastic ways for people on those lists to get out of it, but it didn't. That sucks, it's misguided, and should give anyone who hates the crap they've gone through with communication media before Twitter cause for concern.

The method by which someone spams you isn't interesting to what I'm arguing. All unsolicited messages are bad, whether they're DMs, @replies, or other means.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

TwitterImage — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:07:37 -0000

And yet you didn't answer my question. Just how is this spam going to be sent to you? In my experience spammers make use of hash tags for the most part and they fill the trending topics with their garbage. The other way is to send tweets to multiple @ names which is already being done. So as I said, except for the fact that the @ reply spam may be more targeted if they target a list, I doubt it's going to increase because of lists. The only thing this might make easier is to target the recipients a bit better but there's no reason why lists need to alleviate the problem and I seriously doubt they will ad to it.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:46:02 -0000

The second point you made, that lists are attached to a person's profile is not true, is just mistaken. You've repeated the point about blocking to opt-out of lists, without considering or acknowledging that I know that it is a possibility and that I have provided reasons why i think it's not the solution. I'm more than happy to discuss factually accurate points, or points that have considered and address the entire conversation that's already taken place.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:36:25 -0000

I don't discriminate between unsolicited pitches or messages that are irrelevant to my interests and unsolicited pitches or messages that happen to intersect with my interests (or at least my interests as defined by someone else). Both are unwelcome forms of spam, and Twitter lists do nothing to help alleviate that problem, and actually make it easier for more people to do it.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

JessicaGottlieb — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:32:12 -0000

I've done an enormous amount of fact checking, as I've had lists for a while. I've blocked a few users who had me on lists I didn't want to be on and that stopped the whole problem.

I'm sorry to be a little harsh on your home court, but lists are far from dangerous.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

TwitterImage — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:27:46 -0000

How is it that you think spammers will target you on Twitter? They can't send you a spam DM unless you follow them and they already send tons of @ reply spam tweets. I get several @ reply spam messages a day already where spammers just ad 3 @ names to each tweet and send hundreds or thousands of them before their accounts are suspended. Following your logic, the only difference now might be that those @ reply spams might actually be for something that is appropriate.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:23:29 -0000

It's more lucrative, and provides a lower barrier to entry, if the lists are targeted: which is why email and phone lists are so valuable. With lists of things that are attached to a demographic, someone who wouldn't normally be apt to regular spammer techniques (like, say, a pitchman or a salesman) can come in and produce essentially the same result for the recipient. It's like the keyword following that's rampant on Twitter now, but now, you have people telling you exactly who to target.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

TwitterImage — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:18:54 -0000

Spammers do target everyone indiscriminately and don't do leg work. Why do you think women get emails about penis enlargement? ;)

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:18:27 -0000

I've responded with what I think about blocking being the only action I can take within Twitter to opt-out, but to your point about making a list private: I can't, as a member of a list, make that list private. Only the list creator can.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:10:55 -0000

The lists take the leg work out for spammers: instead of having to figure out what a person's interests are, or spamming everyone indiscriminately, they just need to look at a high authority figure's categorization scheme. Let's say Robert Scoble has an "influencers of tech" list: a spammer (or heck, a guy looking to make cold pitches for whatever thing he's peddling) just got a great list for free and without having to do anything. The people on that list don't have an option other than ask Scoble to remove them and hope he does it in a timely manner, or block Scoble. Both are not the most ideal situation. It's akin to people selling email or phone lists: it was wrong then, and it's still wrong now.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:56:14 -0000

1. I can't control which lists, public or private, I've been placed on. The public ones affect me.
2. I suggest you check again. Every profile has a link to the lists that person has been placed on.
3. Please read my update, and the discussions I linked to. I discussed, in detail, how boneheaded blocking a person is to solve this problem.

Before making accusations of things being off base, I suggest you do some fact checking.

Re: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use | Mark.

Itafroma — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:59:26 -0000

I think simple measures like that could fix lists and bring Twitter back to the same risk level it was before they were rolled out: I don't understand why basic countermeasures like that weren't put into place, or how it got past so many intelligent people.