83
deleted by creator (www.theregister.com)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/privacyguides@lemmy.one

Internet-scraping outfit Spy.pet claims to have harvested more than four billion public messages made by nearly 620 million users on more than 14,000 Discord chat servers – and is selling access to this trove.

The website presents the data it's collected in several ways. Each known user has a profile, which contains all known aliases, pronouns, connected accounts to other platforms such as Steam and GitHub, Discord servers joined, and public messages. If you wanted to quite literally spy on a Discord user or users, Spy.pet lets you do that, for a fee.

top 19 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] lemmyreader@lemmy.ml 33 points 7 months ago

Good :-) Finally people can index search and read back answers to questions for all the open source projects that only used Discord for communication (Like SerenityOS and many others).

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 28 points 7 months ago

I really don't like seeing people gloating about harm just because it doesn't affect them negatively, or treating it as justified because the victims were too stupid to know better.

And this "good" is not correct because the data isn't for you, even if it was from those projects.

[-] spookex@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

I just support the fundamental rule that was taught to me in one of those internet safety PSAs back in the day: The internet never forgets and whatever you posted is going to stay out there forever, good or bad.

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 13 points 7 months ago

That phrase is more often used as a post-hoc justification for harm, or to gloat, than as a legitimate warning.

[-] SuckMyWang@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

I’m not sure what the difference with discord and Lemmy is. I would assume this is all being scraped as well.

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago

Discord communities are inherently gated, Lemmy ones intentionally have everything publicly exposed. A better comparison would be between Discord and Matrix rooms, where privacy expectations could potentially vary tremendously.

[-] gravitywell@sh.itjust.works 7 points 7 months ago

Yeah my thoughts exactly, I don't see what the problem is here... Are people under the assumption discord is somehow private? What do they think discord themselves are doing with all that data?

[-] Lemongrab@lemmy.one 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Two assumptions are made by a typical user: discord is somewhat trustworthy, the data is only controlled by discord. These are both incorrect but it is understandable why they make such an assumption about a large platform like discord. Without the knowledge of how things are scrapped, one might not think it is even possible.

[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 3 points 7 months ago

This is unfortunately not the first time this has happened, there's a whole host of "Discord data scrappers" just one search away.

[-] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 months ago

Discord Users are also being tracked by Discord itself. Can't tell you how many conversations there fuck up my youtube algorithm.

[-] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 3 points 7 months ago

Each known user has a profile, which contains all known aliases, pronouns, connected accounts to other platforms such as Steam and GitHub, Discord servers joined, and public messages.

If you didn't connect to those other platforms, used unique email and username, and lied about your pronouns and other info (i.e. age), how damaging could this be?

I'm forced to use discord, unfortunately, but none of the data they have on me would match my actual identity or other accounts (which all have unique emails and usernames anyway).

[-] WaterSword@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 7 months ago

why’d you lie about pronouns lol. Unless your trans and haven’t come out yet I don’t see a reason to. Rest of your comment is valid though and I agree. I don’t think anything that advertising companies haven’t found out about me through other means anyway can be gotten from this data.

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

In the US there are several laws about providing abortions to women. If one such group existed on Discord, it could be used by legal, extralegal, and extremist interests to target those women.

Trans people just aren't official targets of legal discrimination...

...Well, not across every US state.

...Not yet, at least.

[-] pory@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

If there's a personal information field, filling it with random noise is marginally better than leaving it blank. The pronouns field is new but I've noticed a lot of women friends (that have gender neutral usernames and profile pics, and no linked social media) opting to not use it or set it to he/him because having it filled out accurately caused trolls and bots and incels to fill their DMs.

[-] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 3 points 7 months ago

What @LWD@lemm.ee said, but I do think it would be about profiling (for whatever reason), and the less they know, the better.

[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

You guys are on public servers?

Pfft.

[-] Scolding0513@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago

nothing but good

[-] ChallengeApathy@infosec.pub 1 points 7 months ago

If you use Discord for anything more than coordinating gaming sessions and whatnot, you bring this on yourself. 🤷‍♂️

[-] emmie@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I admittedly did bit stupid thing and posted a nude on a discord some time ago in 'verified' channel. Thankfully it doesn't seem to have a server it was on but it made me a bit nervous.

this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
83 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy Guides

16263 readers
1 users here now

In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.


You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:

Learn more...


Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We've tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!


This community is the "official" Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other "Privacy Guides" communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.


Moderation Rules:

  1. We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
  2. This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
  3. No soliciting engagement: Don't ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
  4. Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
  5. Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
  6. Don't repost topics which have already been covered here.
  7. News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
  8. Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
  9. No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don't abuse our community's willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
  10. No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
  11. Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
  12. General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.

Additional Resources:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS