We are all script-kiddies now / GSV Sleeper Service.

[hirez]

It seems to be some largely unexamined function of 'social networking' that no matter how well or poorly designed the 'contact management' functionality may be, there will be a set of people who will immediately exploit it to create maximal drama.

I mean, we bugger along with LJ's unfortunate overloading of the word 'friend' and have to generate elaborate interpersonal structures in order to avoid the sort of howling fuckups who agonize about net imbalances in 'friend' vs 'friend of'. However, the longer one uses tools like 'default view' , a default custom-post list and the oh-get-over-yourself that is lj-toys, the more the likelihood of cock-up or coat-tailing tends toward 1.

Meanwhile, FaceAche has a flat friend-space, which is Geek Social Fallacy no.4 enshrined in pre-compiled PHP and a complete joy to behold when it inevitably goes wrong. You can either keep it totally 'hullo trees, hullo sky', which means the place is ankle deep in lifeless bullshit and anyone with the gross bad taste to be having a bit of a shite time is perceived as lame and driven out of the herd by those who're convinced that it might be catching. Or you can generate a bogus identity so you can be happy-smiley for work and/or the people who you wish had stayed inside FriendsReunited.

Obviously there are degrees of false identity, which range from 'sadly required to stay safe on the internets' via 'you are a trouble-magnet and please stay the fuck away from me' to 'genuinely disturbing stalker ditto'.

You know how proper hacker types muck around with computing kit in order to get it to work the way they want, and it's all about privilege escalation and exploits and man-in-the-middle attacks? The broken design of the existing crop of 'social networks' enable exactly the same behaviour, but this time root == optimal gossip-source.

[ Reference material: http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2 ]

Comments

[sola.livejournal.com]

You are absolutely, precisely correct, and the way I've had to manage online presence all these years is a frightening mirror. The exact thought I had on realizing that I'd accidentally sent an email to a professor from the wrong account was, "Shit, opened a trap door - hope he doesn't know enough to exploit it."

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

You can have permissions-by-group in the Facebooks, but it's a bit of a kick in the nuts.

I've been merrily putting individuals into the appropriate trust-buckets in G+, but have no idea if it actually does anything with that beyond a friendly label.

Please to be implementing LDAP for social networks. Even better if it can automatically ambiguate any updates that might be drama-magnets in the wrong place.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I point to the splendid and long presentation by the bloke who appears to have invented the concept of those circles. It's a long procession of 'oh lord that's so obvious' moments that lead one to wonder why no bugger else managed to spot same.

[hsb.livejournal.com]

You point, but provide no link, nor sufficient info for googling. How shall I procrastinate at work if you do not provide links?

H

[hirez.livejournal.com]

http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2

(Originally via the tasteful and rococo andrewducker)

[zenithed.livejournal.com]

Excellent post. I think the way FB's set up (especially the 'like' button) definitely contributes to the banal mush of it, curious to see how G+ improves on this. I took my family, schoolfriends and work colleagues off my regular filter on FB ages ago, they must think I never use it.