The fake news is writing that Trump’s social media site was hacked within hours of it being announced. I’m wondering how since the thing isn’t going to be launched until 2022 and when you go to the website it directs you to the App Store to get on a waiting list for the app?
@MissLane They had it running, they just didn't have any public links to it.
I'm not sure if that's what I would really call a "hack."
It looks like they're also violating copyright law with it which is unfortunate.
Thank you for the explanation. I am not tech savvy at all. What do you mean violating copyright law?
@MissLane In most countries when you share something it's shared under a "license." Most software developers (including the mastodon devs) use one from the GPL family of licenses for a number of reasons (I use it because it prevents my employer from messing with my side projects.)
One of the rules in most GPL style licenses is that you must publish changes you make to the code and license it under a compatible license. This helps prevent companies from hijacking projects in various ways among other things.
It sounds like whoever is setting that up didn't understand this.
@MissLane The solution to the copyright issue is simple: publish the source. I expect they'll do that since there's no good reason not to.
I think waiting to enable the thing and just presenting a billboard is probably more marketing/PR than anything else, I'm not sure what kind of sabotaging that can really prevent.
Ok! This is tech talk beyond my skills but I’m glad there are folks like you out there who know what’s up. I’m on board with alternatives that can legitimately kick FB and Twitter to the curb but draw enough people there’s actual dialogue. But I don’t like going to a platform that isn’t secure, even if launched by Trump. So I’m on board unless folks with knowledge say it isn’t wise to hop on. I avoided Gettr bc of concerns I’d read about security etc.
@swiley
Ah I see. I guess you’d have to know that info to catch all of that. To me it looked like basically a billboard page where you could click a link to go to the App Store. Does that pose any long term issues? Or is is possible what they’re presenting is just the face and the actual system will be very different? Maybe a way to announce w/o giving competitors an edge, ie prevent sabotaging?