MrTangent
join:2001-12-28
Earth
| If you're able to view your opinion...
"Unhappy with a book review? feel free to flame the reviewer directly." If you're able to exercise your freedom of speech then why is it so awful to imagine that the author would be able to do the same? If I wrote a scathing review of a book I wouldn't feel the need to cowardly hide behind anonymity. Hell, I'd encourage feedback in any shape or form.
However, I do agree that this slip-up should be fixed immediately, but again, let's put this in to perspective here. This article makes it seem like this simple and relatively innocuous flaw is responsible for the recent "Orange" threat level increase.
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"War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength." |
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justin
Australian
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| I wasn't talking about an author finding the email of a reviewer. I meant, customers can flame each other. Any community site goes to great pains to make sure that only people you wish to know your email, can see your email, and amazon is spewing all of them, to anyone. |
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statemachine
Premium
join:2001-01-21
Si Valley
clubs:
| reply to MrTangent
said by MrTangent  :
"Unhappy with a book review? feel free to flame the reviewer directly." If you're able to exercise your freedom of speech then why is it so awful to imagine that the author would be able to do the same? If I wrote a scathing review of a book I wouldn't feel the need to cowardly hide behind anonymity. Hell, I'd encourage feedback in any shape or form.
You say that now, but wait until someone hacks your computer or a package-bomb shows up at your door, or you unexpectedly lost your job -- just because you had an opinion that was not inline with the majority.
said by MrTangent :
However, I do agree that this slip-up should be fixed immediately, but again, let's put this in to perspective here. This article makes it seem like this simple and relatively innocuous flaw is responsible for the recent "Orange" threat level increase.
Some people may feel more threatened due to the personal (and accurate) nature of the information leaked, rather than someone vaguely referring to "chatter" on a subjective "suspected terrorist" network about some possible event in some vague area of a very large country.
You call anonymity "cowardly" but others would call it "practical."
However, we do both agree that this flaw should be fixed immediately, although for different reasons. |
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MrTangent
join:2001-12-28
Earth
| Thanks to Justin and Statemachine for their excellent retorts.
I didn't mean to imply that anonymity was cowardly. I personally think that someone should be able to express their views anonymously. In my original reply I was only stating that I didn't think this flaw was hugely worrisome since no real damage would probably become of it (i.e. no financial loss due to credit card numbers being revealed).
However, I agree with the followups and hope that amazon.com fixes this flaw immediately.
And for the record, I am a big fan of anonymity; especially for critiquing the government or large corporations. In fact, the increasing reliance on cell phones (that are conveniently implanted with tracking technologies now) is troublesome. Why? Because oppositely, there are less and less payphones. This is worrisome because it is now becoming harder to be able to stay anonymous without fear of repercussion (i.e. if you wanted to call in a case of corruption anonymously with your cell phone you could be tracked). You could make a point that the payphone and the internet (especially weblogs) are our modern version of the Revolutionary War-era pamphleteering. Anonymous dissent is critical to freedom of expression.
I'm rambling though and I have a fever from the flu so I'll close for now.
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"War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength." |
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justin
Australian
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Brooklyn, NY
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| it isn't nearly as critical a flaw if someone could figure a URL to reveal a credit card number 
but privacy for ones email address is increasingly important, not everyone can bother to generate (or manage) infinite numbers of throw-away email addresses in order to stop spam.
Having ones email make its way onto a spam vendor cdrom "50 million emails for 39.95" downloads can kill an email completely. What if your amazon email (amazon being a SAFE company to do business with, one that would NEVER sell or leak emails) was your favorite email, the one you only give to friends and family? What a HASSLE to have to change it. Would amazon compensate for time spent changing it? I don't think so. |
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