shadysus@lemmy.ca to

You Should Know@lemmy.worldEnglish · 2 months ago

YSK: You might be unknowingly doxxing yourself by sharing links containing trackers

1

YSK: You might be unknowingly doxxing yourself by sharing links containing trackers

shadysus@lemmy.ca to

You Should Know@lemmy.worldEnglish · 2 months ago

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/31187638

Earlier today I came across a Reddit comment with a link to an Instagram post. The link had ?igsh= at the end.

When I clicked on the link, I got this popup. It had a name and profile photo that was different from that of the post being shared.

Join Firstname Lastname on Instagram

See photos, videos, and more from Firstname Lastname.

[ Open Instagram ]

not now

I avoid link trackers. However, I did not realize it was this bad.

To my knowledge, TikTok does the same thing and lists the name of the person that shared the link. Assuming this increases engagement, any website could enable such a feature, even on old links that you shared in the past.

You should manually remove any trackers before sharing, or use an app for it.

Chat

DillyDaily@lemmy.world
link
fedilink
arrow-up
0·
2 months ago
Jesus, now that its terrifying!

What would even be the point of a link that allows you that? Like, why was it designed to do that!?

Props to that person who PM’d you the warning.
- chiliedogg@lemmy.world
  link
  fedilink
  arrow-up
  0·
  2 months ago
  They were probably just lazy in their site design and the link itself contained the token for the login or whatever.

You Should Know@lemmy.world

youshouldknow@lemmy.world

You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !youshouldknow@lemmy.world

YSK - for all the things that can make your life easier!

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)

Rule 1- All posts must begin with YSK.

All posts must begin with YSK. If you’re a Mastodon user, then include YSK after @youshouldknow. This is a community to share tips and tricks that will help you improve your life.

Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK:

**In your post’s text body, you must include the reason “Why” YSK: It’s helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. **

Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.

Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That’s it.

Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.

Rule 6- Regarding non-YSK posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-YSK posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

If you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.

Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.

Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.

Rule 10- The majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.

Partnered Communities:

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

Credits

Our icon(masterpiece) was made by @clen15!

Visibility: Public

This community can be federated to other instances and be posted/commented in by their users.

6 users / day
52 users / week
160 users / month
1.54K users / 6 months
0 local subscribers
33.4K subscribers
237 Posts
5.16K Comments
Modlog