New leak of Epik data exposes company’s entire server

I have been using HN since 2012, and have over 4000 karma spread over three accounts, but sometimes downvotes still flummox me. I think as long as a user seems respectful, a little meta discussion is okay in order to learn how to be a better user going forward.

Yes, some people are obnoxious and obviously toxic, and when they complain about being downvoted, they should definitely be downvoted more, but when a user seems genuinely curious, I think we should do our part to help make HN a better place by taking a moment to give a quick reason.

I've politely asked in the past in order to not make the same mistake again. I think we should give users the benefit of doubt.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

However

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

I think that last guideline should be changed to "Please don't complain about the voting on comments."

Why not allow meta-discussions? If HN is striving to be a place where interesting topics can be discussed, then I suppose commenting etiquette should fall under that heading for sure.

No, we don't. You get blocked from mainstream registrars by spreading hate and making the excuse that this is somehow "counter narrative, science-driven questions", but you know very well that that is not being honest.

Gab rolled their own SQL injection prevention and failed at it, published the source for it (because they forked Mastodon and had to) and got hacked. When they got hacked they tried to cover it up and did barely anything to fight the fire they created. They got hacked again because they never reset any user tokens in the aftermath.

Parler got hacked due to them building a platform on Wordpress, using 3rd party plugins that were riddled with security holes that they never updated. On top of that due to their decision to use WP their entire platform got scraped using the sequential IDs.

And we've all seen this entire Epik debacle.

I see these as a complete betrayal of user trust and it makes any similar platform or service potentially dangerous to its users, that's all. If you're interested in my political opinion: I'm very torn between censorship and free speech as far as any entity in guardianship of others' speech is concerned, I still haven't found a balance where I'd feel comfortable planting myself because no decision happens in a bubble and is shielded from consequences in a bubble.

So, to circle back, I don't dislike Cloudflare for hosting Gab, I wouldn't even say I hate Gab for being Gab, I just avoid it. I don't know if I'd do business with Gab or not, but I'd say this: if you develop a reputation, whether thanks to you or people outside of your influence (the press or social media, for example), you have to manage it and act accordingly or risk causing a fallout.

Now, personally, I'd avoid white supremacists and anarchist groups, malware providers, hacking groups and any extremists as far as doing business with myself.

However, I'm not in charge of a giant company so I don't have to draw the line and I'm thankful for that, I certainly don't know if I'd have the wisdom to both consider my best interests, my company's best interest and the world's, all at once.

That's different from a book only featuring nazi iconography and text.

Regardless of our respective views, yours is not an accurate comparison.