
Show HN: Hush, an "incognito mode for Facebook" - darora
http://hush.sh
======
smutticus
I use an incognito mode for Facebook. It's called not having a FB account and
not allowing any javascript from their domains to run in my browser. Just quit
FB if you care about your privacy.

Why go to such lengths to avoid being exploited by a service designed to
exploit you? Just stop using it.

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kghose
I'm sorry, it's a bit early in the morning for me. I browsed the 'about' page
and could not understand what the application DOES. I am not about to log into
facebook through some application somebody put up randomly on the internet
just yet, simply to see for myself. So, to get me started what does this
application do? Thanks!

~~~
darora
Well, quite simply, you can anonymously[1] discuss things with your Facebook
friends (or the whole world, if you'd like).

[1]: That is, apart from the login and pulling in your list of friends so as
to populate your "Friends' feed", we don't use Facebook IDs or names at all.

~~~
kghose
Thanks. What is the identity that shows up on the friend's feed? Is it a
constant one so that it can be blocked if needed? If one of your friends goes
'rogue' and starts to spam/harrass you through this will you have to
systematically unfriend everyone till you find the culprit?

Why would you want to have an anonymous conversation on facebook anyway?
Sorry, don't get it.

~~~
darora
The friends' feed (or any other place, for that matter) doesn't _show_ any
identities.

For "rogue" friends, we have on our roadmap a mechanism to "flag" users for a
review of their postings. That'd trigger an admin banning them if necessary.

The facebook component, is intended to be for a couple of things. Firstly, to
allow you to restrict your discussion to just your friends (there are several
scenarios in which you'd like their opinions, but you suspect they might not
be completely honest with you if you knew who they were). Second, it allows us
to be able to keep out bots en masse. The assumption being, of course, that
Facebook polices its user-base to keep them out. In turn, the general quality
of the discussions stays decent (well, for an anonymous platform, at least).

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instakill
What's with the astro-turfing comments in this thread?

~~~
jklio
This is the second time I've seen astro-turfing on HN in as many weeks. On the
following thread there were hilariously bad (registered within the hour, first
comment on the product "wow great!") fake accounts.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4682896>

------
s_henry_paulson
I'm pretty sure the web is already full of anonymous forums where you don't
have to give up your identity by signing in with Facebook.

~~~
true_religion
True, but this is for people who want to be anonymous _on_ facebook.

~~~
olenhad
The idea is, that you want to make statements, but you want people you know to
hear them as well. That's why we use facebook's social graph. :)

------
alisnic
The contrast and font size of this site are a total disaster, my eyes are
bleeding.

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Osmium
What I'd really like is an extension for a Facebook "read-only" mode, so I can
leave myself logged in without worrying about accidentally clicking a "like"
button somewhere.

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slig
By logging with fb, your app will have at least my user id and email. Any data
breach on your side and all the "anonymous" posts are not so anonymous
anymore.

~~~
olenhad
We can assure you from our side, that the way the app is structured, no part
aside from login, uses facebook's user ids. We've tried to be very strict
about that.

~~~
synor
How do you filter my "own" posts without correlating my Facebook id with a
post-author id?

~~~
olenhad
All user associated data uses our own user ids, not facebook's ids. That
includes post author ids.

~~~
synor
Your system seems to be able to correlate the FB id and user id on login to
filter my own posts and aggregate my friends postings.

Am I wrong to assume that this ability might enable de-anonymization of
postings after a server compromise?

~~~
darora
No, you're correct in that assumption.

In case of a complete server breach, that would indeed allow for de-
anonymization of posts.

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fudged71
Most people won't understand what "Flavoured Markdown" means.

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sarhus
you should give the possibility to sign up without a facebook account.

~~~
darora
To be honest, without the facebook integration of being able to talk to _your
friends_, there are-as has been pointed out-far too many anonymous forums
already.

~~~
sarhus
And that's ok. But you'd like to test:

1) how many people would sign up without a facebook account? 2) how many of
them could you "convert" and sign-in again with facebook? (saying something
like "ok..now, how about you use your facebook account to [blabla] with your
friends on facebook?

I'd say people are more willing to give it a try and see how it looks without
passing facebook credentials first... That's just my hint..

~~~
darora
Hmm. I'm beginning to suspect that you're right. We'll be looking into
implementing this. Thanks

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laurenceputra
4chan with facebook login?

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dariuscheung
now we can all bitch about that friend together digitally.

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redDragon
pretty cool idea :D !

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thesleeper
i say Yes.

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chinab91
nice work!

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pbear
Super awesome! Finally I can express my opinions without offending sponsors
and the like.

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pbear
Awesome idea! Now I can make honest comments and opinions that won't offend
the wrong people!

~~~
davebees
Did you just make two separate comments praising this, both within two minutes
of registering?

~~~
instakill
There look to be a lot of new accounts all praising this.

