Timeline for Privacy of software-generated links to questions and answers
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
32 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:58 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://mathoverflow.net/ with https://mathoverflow.net/
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| Mar 17, 2017 at 10:13 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://meta.mathoverflow.net/ with https://meta.mathoverflow.net/
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| Mar 20, 2015 at 21:02 | comment | added | user9072 | @FanZheng as said in my very personal opinion the naming of the feature and the format of the URL was clear enough to raise awareness and to then find out what is happening. | |
| Mar 20, 2015 at 20:33 | comment | added | Fan Zheng | @quid so by documented you mean explained in another meta post? I guess only a handful of users ever went to that post to check it out before you gave that link, and only a handful of users will check out this post to know about the privacy leakage. I was expecting it to be explained in the FAQ. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 18:18 | comment | added | user9072 | @EricWofsey personally I do not find this feature overly relevant, yet I really cannot follow any claims of unethical surveillance or even spying either (which is my main point). As said, IMO, this is rather non-issue, also as there is little plausible risk. But I certainly support activities to improve it. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 17:57 | comment | added | Eric Wofsey | @quid: Fair enough, but I find it obnoxious that the only obvious way to get a link to an answer is to "share" it (yes, there are others, but it is substantially less obvious how to find them). Personally, I find the promotion of "sharing" as the default way to link to a MO post to be rather incongruous with our academic tone. But maybe I'm just a cranky old man who gets annoyed by social media. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 17:43 | comment | added | user9072 | @DmitriPavlov the point in my last comment was not to reiterate that one might or might not infer that there is a possibility the URL is trackable from the word "share" being used. But rather to give my understanding (or rather guess) why the design is as it is. The point is to provide this functionality for the badges to work. Whether this is documented enough or something else would be more useful, is orthogonal. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 17:36 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @quid: I'd say that “share” simply implies some kind of posting to Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. I'd not say that “share” implies that the resulting link will contain any personal information, apart from the information already contained in the identity of the poster on a social network. Perhaps we could organize another poll about this, but in my opinion the above poll already makes it clear enough that the majority does not think about “share” in the way you described. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 17:19 | comment | added | user9072 | @EricWofsey Your last question might be based on a false premise. In my understanding, the very point of "share" is to provide a way of generating a personalized link, so that users can get some credit (via the badge) for advertising the site. The intent is to encourage advertising the site by giving credit for doing so. I do not think SE cares specifically about data they get from it. What kind of data to what end would that be? I agree that the mouse-over text is not optimal. And feature-req on MSE to separate "link" and "share" | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 13:31 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @EricWofsey: Yes, I agree with all your points. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 13:14 | comment | added | Eric Wofsey | @DmitriPavlov: As a minor technical point, your proposed URL wouldn't work, since names do not uniquely identify users (of course, this is trivial to fix). In any case, regardless of how transparent the URL is, I don't see a compelling motivation to identify the referrer by default at all. Yes, responsible users can notice and use an anonymous link, but why should we force them to do so at all? Is the data that SE gets from this really worth jeopardizing the privacy of careless users? | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 12:47 | comment | added | Eric Wofsey | @quid: You seem to disagree, but I think that a reasonable person copying a URL from the "share" button (whose mouseover text says merely "short permalink to this answer") might not even think of the fact that the link could somehow identify them if the URL does not appear to. I also don't think it's trivial to figure out what that number means if you don't recognize your user id (which, I imagine, many if not most MO users do not). | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 12:46 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @quid: I think there is a huge difference between a URL like mathoverflow.net/a/198099/402 and a (potential) URL like mathoverflow.net/a/198099/dmitri-pavlov. The latter URL makes it clear that the link is under surveillance and the former URL does not. The numerical user ID is not displayed “all the time” as you claim and few people know what their number is. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 12:38 | comment | added | user9072 | @EricWofsey the UserID as displayed to the user all the time is appended in clear to the URL. To me this is really about the most transparent way to make an URL identifying. What do you propose? I didn't claim it's self-explanatory just from the URL. What I did claim is that if one wants to check whether the URL contains identfying data then this is transparent. And, the structure of the URL is not hard to understand. The world in which this is transparent is a world in which people make some basic effort to check if a link they paste soemwhere is in a suitable form for the given context. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 8:42 | comment | added | Eric Wofsey | I find the last sentence of this answer totally ridiculous; in what world is the meaning of the number 402 at a URL like mathoverflow.net/a/198099/402 "transparent"? | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 0:56 | comment | added | user9072 | And here the information is completely explicit meta.mathoverflow.net/questions/1253/… " [...] and using the "Share" button to get a unique link to post on the high traffic site reddit." | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 0:46 | comment | added | user9072 | @DmitriPavlov the description of the badge reads (my emph) "Shared a link to a question that was visited by 25 unique IP addresses. This badge can be awarded multiple times." The button one presses to get the link is named "share" The connection seems pretty obvious to me. (Were by "obvious" is mean it is obvious that it is this link that is used for the badge; if somebody does not know the badge, that's a different story. But you claimed the badge did not specify the manner.) | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 0:26 | comment | added | user9072 | @ToddTrimble well it is a person, a juridical one. :-) I have nothing at all against documenting this better; just note that it was I that left the comment on François's answer mentioned in my post. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 0:13 | comment | added | Todd Trimble Mod | The harshness ("spying", "unethical" etc.) is, as far as I can see, directed primarily at a corporation, which I do not regard as a person. :-) I'm not sure why one would take offense particularly, but if we put that aside (or choose to dismiss it as overdramatic), then one is still left with a reasonable point, and that's what I think we should focus on. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 0:07 | comment | added | user9072 | @ToddTrimble I think the claims made in OP are a lot more harsh, and completely uncalled for. An intent of spying is suggested while it seems clear that the intent is to encourage users to promote the site via having a means to reward them for doing so. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 0:04 | comment | added | Todd Trimble Mod | quid, let's try to de-personalize this a bit ("first and foremost you that is to blame" addressed to Dmitri or to unwitting linkers seems pretty harsh). We don't have to get dramatic, but let's agree it makes sense to make this information much more visible. I don't believe Dmitri's scenario with the referee is all that contrived; in fact it's embarrassingly easy not to know these things, and it doesn't seem to be very visibly documented after all. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 0:02 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @quid: The badge does not specify the manner in which the link was shared, so it could also be the case that the sharing was done in a different way than merely posting a link, so one cannot cite this as an evidence that SE informs its users about spying. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 23:51 | comment | added | user9072 | Now, if somebody should have gotten bitten by it I am sorry for them, and it might make sense to make the information that the link is identifying more visible. However, as long as the main thrust of your post is talking about unethical and spying as opposed to user's ignorance I will continue to insist on the fact that if you did not know it is first and foremost you that is to blame. @DmitriPavlov // Actually the IMO more plausible risk is for anon users here revealing their identity here via sharing a link. But then "everybody" here is against anonymity so who should care. ;-) | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 23:51 | comment | added | user9072 | @DmitriPavlov I said I consider it as a non-issue, which is something other than making the claim it being a non-issue. And, for it being an issue one might say there should be some plausible harm. Mainly you complained about it being unethical and spying and what not, while SE really puts it on display via the existence of these badges. Perhaps you could acknowledge that. The actual scenario you give feels a bit contrived, and you might want to reply to my example where one also needs to be careful on the main post and that it is called share suggesting that the user sharing is a player. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 23:43 | comment | added | Todd Trimble Mod | @DmitriPavlov That is true, but you might see a sizable number of upvotes to the first comment, which in that case would lend greater confidence to your hypothesis. It's just a crude test anyhow. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 23:39 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @ToddTrimble: An important factor to consider in all such polls is that visitors to Meta can be expected to be much more knowledgeable about MO than a typical user. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 23:35 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | @quid: A weaker statement will suffice: your claim about this problem being a nonissue only makes sense if all or almost all users are aware of this behavior, for which you supply no evidence. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 23:34 | comment | added | Todd Trimble Mod | Vote this comment up if you were aware of this behavior. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 23:34 | comment | added | Todd Trimble Mod | Vote this comment up if you were not aware of this behavior. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 23:27 | comment | added | user9072 | "[...] almost all users are not aware of this behavior." Citation needed. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 23:20 | comment | added | Dmitri Pavlov | You seem to be knocking down a straw man; I've never claimed that this behavior is secret or that it is hard to circumvent. The issue that you fail to address is that almost all users are not aware of this behavior. | |
| Mar 8, 2015 at 23:00 | history | answered | user9072 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |