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Leaky Server Exposing Scraped Data of 150,000 Mastodon Users 😬

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#Mastodon


Leaky Server Exposing Scraped Data of 150,000 Mastodon Users

An Elasticsearch server is currently scraping posts and public account information on Mastodon users - What's worse? It's leaking the data!
Waqas (Hack Read)
#Mastodon

Rokosun reshared this.

in reply to Dr. Percy

Rokosun
Rokosun
• •
This is why I have mixed feelings about #Mastodon going mainstream, data scrapers are a much bigger threat for us now. Just because I decided to make a post public doesn't mean it can be scraped, archived, and stored in an entirely separate database. This is a form of #SurveillanceCapitalism and us #Fediverse folks hate it with a passion.
This entry was edited (2 years ago)

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in reply to Rokosun

Tio
Tio
•
I mean if something is public even I can scrape that data with a little bit of coding....if a browser can access a webpage (so it is public) nothing prevents scrapping isn't it?

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in reply to Tio

Rokosun
Rokosun
• •
Yeah, I know the data is public, this is why I don't share too much sensitive/private information here. @mxtthxw made a similar comment above, that people shouldn't post things they don't want a script kiddy to know. But what I'm concerned about is the people who buys these data from the script kiddies, think advertising companies, political parties, oppressive regimes, etc. This is what #SurveillanceCapitalism is about, these data can and most likely will be used against people.
@frankie
@Dr. Percy @INPC

Dr. Percy reshared this.

in reply to Rokosun

Rokosun
Rokosun
• •
If you meet someone and they ask you about your name, profession, hobbies, etc, then you may gladly share these details with them. But if the same person then asks you if you wanna add these details to a database that will be sold to the highest bidder, would you be okay with that? These "data scrapers" are doing the same thing, snooping in on your casual online conversions, and they don't even ask for your consent before collecting your data.

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Rokosun
Rokosun
• •
More people should be aware of these things, with Mastodon getting more and more popular these days its more of an issue now. Don't share your private info on social media!
@tio @frankie
@Tio @Dr. Percy

Dr. Percy reshared this.

in reply to Rokosun

GoatsLive
GoatsLive
• •
Scrapers should be required by law to follow robots.txt access restrictions. Example, the wayback machine that completely ignores disallow tags!

Dr. Percy reshared this.

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