

LinkedOut - kcl
https://linkedoutapp.com/

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sireat
I suppose this might have some utility to some, but you are trusting a hacked
over a weekend site with your Linkedin password?

The trend to give out passwords to 3rd party sites needs to stop, because
security risks eventually become too great.

~~~
Spearchucker
Interesting that you mention that. This is the first site I've ever seen that
is upfront on their home page with the risk and implication of giving them
your password.

I won't (and wouldn't) do it - I don't even trust OAuth providers - but
refreshing that they're promoting informed consent.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
I couldn't agree with you more. But perhaps the parent's comment reflects the
thought process of the masses? If you give people this honest, upfront view of
the risks, they probably wont take them. If you play like everything's ok, and
nothing could possibly go wrong by giving them your pw, even when that's not
100% the truth, they'll prob cough up their password. There's some interesting
social engineering to be learned here.

~~~
Spearchucker
That's just as interesting. Security these days is driven by two things -
economics and psychology.

If you're interested in that sort of thing get a copy of Ross Anderson's book
Security Engineering. He even covers the TSA.

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sdfjkl
Can't I just not have a linkedin account? Seems to work for Facebook.

~~~
mapleoin
I have tried this approach and have been using it successfully for over 9
years now. No complaints so far.

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philjackson
Why would you want to accept every friend request?

~~~
dguaraglia
I suppose there's the argument that "the bigger your social network, the
greater the possibilities". In my experience, that argument is a fallacy.

In my experience, by having a lot of contacts you dilute the value of every
single one of them. A prospective employer (or co-founder, or investor!) won't
be able to easily discern the hay from the chaff.

~~~
mmahemoff
My main concern with auto-adding people is you end up exposing your real
contacts' details to all these random people. Spambot812a83 is suddenly a
friend-of-a-friend from your trusted contacts.

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squadron
Good idea for people like me who think LinkedIn is great in theory but has
turned out to be pretty useless.

~~~
Drbble
How is this better than just not using Linkedin? I used the Linkedin network
(even the recruiters-- it only takes two good ones to balance out a hundred
junk spammy ones) great effect in landing my last two jobs, even while the
site itself is kamikaze nose diving into the toilet with its every trashier
design evolutions to boost "engagement" and "stickiness" and "ad impressions"
that no one wants. But if Linkedin, has nothing you, why not just leave?

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stephen_mcd
Built an app with the same name last year, also running on Sinatra:
<http://linkedout.jupo.org/>

Very different purpose though. The original (snark) LinkedOut app lets you
export profiles as clean PDF resumes.

~~~
Drbble
I thought that is a builtin feature of Linkedin.

~~~
stephen_mcd
They embed their logo (as they should), apply a bunch of formatting, and most
importantly haven't kept the export up to date with new features that have
been added, such as skills. LinkedOut also takes the free-form formatting
people tend to use in large text blobs, and tries to turn them into bullet
lists and headings where applicable.

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MatthewPhillips
Not bad.

Since LinkedIn is 90% recruiters this is what I'd really like to see from an
app: Fill in a few of your skills and it autogenerates a profile with keywords
that recruiters search for.

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Aloisius
Accepting every connection on LinkedIn pretty much defeats the purpose. I only
add people that I could ask for personal introductions to others ensuring my
LinkedIn network is actually useful.

I suppose if you've never gone through the backdoor in order to meet someone,
LinkedIn could seem like a big waste of time. For me though, the network
graphs of who I know that I can ask for an introduction are quite valuable.

~~~
jsight
From the site's FAQ: "Who should use this service? People who want to stay on
good terms with their colleagues without having to log in to LinkedIn."

I think this pretty much means it is for people who don't really want a
linkedin account, but don't want to their coworkers to feel shunned. I don't
see much point in this beyond that.

If you actually cared about using LinkedIn to build a social graph around
yourself, you wouldn't use this, IMO.

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Drbble
In addition to concerns raised by other posters, bonus points for the invalid
SSL cert. This site must be a honeypot to name and shame the criminally
stupid. Eventually the official raison d'etre--that your colleagues care
whether you Linkedin-connect them--seems designed to trawl for idiots.

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uptown
This is one of those ideas that should have been left on the drawing board.

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paisible
"In the worst case your LinkedIn account may be compromised. You will have to
weigh this against the convenience of not having to log in to LinkedIn." This
doesn't convince me.

~~~
feralchimp
While I appreciate their honest and upfront response to the question, I'd
argue this makes the idea better suited to an application that the user runs
locally.

~~~
joering2
any idea why they need to save it in plain text? no encryption mechanism
provided in the world of open source?

~~~
corin_
In order to log into a user's LinkedIn account with the password, they need to
be able to give LinkedIn the password in plain text.

So yes, they can and most likely do encrypt it in some way, but in order for
their server to be able to decrypt it when using it, they must naturally have
to have the decryption code/passkey/etc stored on the server.

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donjigweed
Wow. I thought for sure the first comment would be one of the cool kids
bitching about another Bootstrap site.

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jchrisa
This reminds me of a friend of mine who talks about wanting to post his linked
in credentials to his blog.

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jsnk
" ... This means you never have to log in to LinkedIn."

Thank you!

~~~
joering2
I respect their honesty, but honestly this kills the idea imho. I would rather
"have to" login to LinkedIn to accept someone, or just _wait_ until im logged
next time (it will show me remaining invitations) instead of shoving my LI
credentials into just another hole, increasing probability that my LI
credentials will leak/be stolen.

