I am so sorry, man. No one deserves this.

And then there’s .net classic and .net core. Making up two entirely separate names shouldn’t be difficult for marketing executives.

Same. I’m not into selfies. I just want my keyboard.

Precisely. The national ID number itself was easily to spoof using a simple formula, but the difficult part was actual the “adult” verification, which I presume it was done by consulting a government database with actual citizen info. It was very easy to leak, and it did leak a lot.

There are countries like S Korea that used to demand new users national ID at signup (not anymore thankfully) and many websites, especially at the early 2000s, had your real name featured next to your nickname (following the tradition from their own national dial-up BBS forums). The argument was that revealing your real identity would make internet interaction more “civil”.

Guess what happened. Identity theft was rampant, trolling was equally widespread, you think Facebook spearheaded mixing real name profiles and internet sewagery, you haven’t seen anything like CyWorld from early 2000s.

The cases of identity theft ranged from minors borrowing their dads and uncles ID to actual Chinese hackers dumping massive records from the same Korean companies gathering them because of that stupid law. This was done so they could… access forums that demanded a valid national ID from a 18+ years old citizen, for example.

I was there, man. You’d find out your typical forum shitposter (that had surprisingly “ample” tastes) with a profile that says “46 y.o. male (ID verified)” is revealed as an elementary school kid using their uncles ID and gets banhammer’d. Monthly.

That’s true. They must have gained access to the phone itself somehow.

Perhaps they simply took out the sim card and inserted into another phone, giving them access to contacts (that could have been saved into the chip instead of the original phone)?

iddqd was a well known cheat code from the era, not exactly obscure if not contemporary.

And to think, the Q shit started on these sites.

Whoever is behind USB version naming schemes, please take notice.

What about XFCE users?

Come on. What are you, fifteen?

I support democratization of PRC and justice for all activists suffering under CCP’s opression. That doesn’t mean I’ll join a lynch mob after an internet comedian who dared to protect his own life and of his family.

Sure, everyone must become a martyr for the noble cause and sacrifice their entire career so you can conveniently upvote and move along to the next meme. Fucking A+ 5/5 gr8 b8 m8

In a similar situation as you (entire society revolves around whatsapp). I came to this conclusion:

1. Others won’t share my view on personal privacy at all will happily give out any metadata or data. No matter what secure channel we use, the destination (people) will always leak.

2. Because of (1), consider all communication with others as public, no matter the inferred intimacy, no matter the platform or its security.

3. Consider (2) as true even if they somehow used Signal or any secure platform, because of (1). (E.g. “Hey, did you hear about $familyMember? Yes, the weird kiddo who forced me to use some strange blue shit for chat. He got positive on blood exam for $badCondition. Go check on him”)

As for whatsapp itself, i use Android and isolate it in a separate profile, also frozen until opened. I also used a burner phone number for account registration, not my actual number.

People are more receptive of whatsapp accounts with “alternate” numbers when you explain you “got hacked in the past” or any plausible reason.

So many tech minded people, but at same time, so many of us fail to consider others POV and priorities.

JUST DON’T VISIT THAT WEBSITE! - sure bro, that means i won’t be able to pay the bills this month because the only traditional way of doing this is visiting a physical kiosk at working hour. Did i mention that i gotta work?

Similar with messaging apps.

YOU NEED BETTER FRIENDS LOL - trust me I’ve tried. i also need to send my resume using this app to whoever interviewing me. no, no email. yes, i tried teling that. no, i won’t be that guy preaching about software freedom when all i want is a fucking job.

I would have loved this as a drunk college kid at 2 am.

I hate apps and services doing that.

I lived in a country doing that, and couldn’t understand the people making social media profiles with their (actually traceable to a real life identity) phone numbers public. Don’t you love receiving spam calls?

Its the same for all East Asian countries as well, but I guess slapping JAPAN on it means fast upvotes, like that "Place, Japan" meme.

What if I use Debian but with backports and flatpak for apps that need fast updates?