W.T.F.

[permetaform]

Have discovered frienditto.

I'm slowly throwing my all past posts into friends-lock; they will be up if and when frienditto is down.

[edit]



what is this, you ask? Click on the link to find out. (It's CREEPY.)

Why, yes, I'm hot-linking.

Please, feel free to hot-link too.

Idea taken from lierdumoa. Crash their servers with me?

[edit2] tanacawyr rocks in so many ways, and explains things so well. This is one of these things.

[edit3] elke_tanzer explains, via quoting their Terms Of Service contract why frienditto is soooooo incredibly shady.

Also? please hot-link. Really, I'll **love** seeing that picture over and over again...

Comments

[nomadvagabond.livejournal.com]

I think the whole boogey-monster of frienditto is that it archives the friends-locked posts...

[permetaform]

isn't it via people who you have friended? I have more than 700 of people friended...

[ponderosa121.livejournal.com]

Assuming someone on your flist would sign up there, you'd have to make your posts private to avoid the archiving.

[tiltingheartand]

Auron!

(Sorry, random squee.)

[permetaform]

even if they're filtered? I'm filtering them to my most trusted list.

[rhapsody.livejournal.com]

I'm totally out of the loop, what is this about?

[linaelyn.livejournal.com]

I liked verylisa's discussion for its clarity on the issue.

[harukami]

Do you know (or know anyone who might) what the proper methods would be to report this to LiveJournal and/or sixapart? A support request or abuse report doesn't seem right if it's not actually affected you yet, but I'm pretty sure that, since this basically violates one of LJ's basic structures, LJ or Sixapart might want to/be willing to threaten legal action or some such.

[linaelyn.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I saw a post where LJ Abuse was already on the task. SOmeone named "Scott" was involved somehow.

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

This person has more information about frienditto. I have no idea what's up myself, just that it's all over my friendslist today.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/subbes/1112291.html

[elke-tanzer.livejournal.com]

From what I have seen, subbes is a frienditto enthusiast.

There is more information at lori and applecameron has actually done some testing. I tried explaining what I know about frienditto in elke_tanzer as well.

[elke-tanzer.livejournal.com]

You may want to read carefully the following page: http://www.frienditto.com/legal.php

Specifically, "10. Correspondence with Frienditto

Should you choose to present your e-mail address, physical home address, telephone number, full name or other personally identifying information to Frienditto by any means whatsoever, we reserve the right to publish said personal information in whole or in part. Should you chose to contact any member of Frienditto.com by any communication means, Frienditto reserves the right to publish the conversation, in whole or in part, as seen fit to do so. Any and all e-mails may also be published in whole or in part. By communicating with Frienditto.com staff, you consent to said publication and acknowledge you have no expectation of privacy whatsoever under federal or state law for materials discussed and/or submitted. Legally privledged materials and communication, and/or communication concerning an active ongoing law enforcement investigation will be kept confidential as required by law."

Also http://www.frienditto.com/faq.php, specifically

"When I archive a journal entry does frienditto strip out any information within the page's source that could identify the archiver? How?
We have gone to great lengths to make sure that any posts that are archived are as anonymous as possible. This includes when you archive a friends only post. The scripts that are used eliminate all information that could possibly identify the archiver.

Hey can you tell me who archived what? I promise I won't tell a soul.
Nope. We never ever reveal any identifying information about archivers. We simply aren't able to keep logs of that much information and pinpointing who archived what would be administratively burdensome, resulting in a sketchy ID at best. Please do not ask anyone affiliated with Frienditto to reveal this proprietary information to you. All Frienditto employees and affiliates are bound by a strict Non Disclosure Agreement barring them from sharing that information. Frienditto values the privacy of its users and will not reveal this information for any reason."

The philosophy of frienditto's founders is offensive to me, and I hate the effect their thoughtlessness over some quick entertainment has done to some folks on my flist.

[ladysorka]

Er, I don't suppose I could talk you into unlocking the vid meta post?

Or, at least, sending me a copy of it? Considering that frienditto is run by the ljdrama folks, I don't expect that it'll be gone any time soon, and I started ripping footage today and I'd really like access to some of the links.

...and now I feel horrible for even requesting this.

[(Anonymous)]

*begs*

Infant vidder wannabe, no LJ, sent here by geekturnedvamp, only got a short look at the vid meta links before they were locked. Woe.

RydraWong

[spacefille.livejournal.com]

That's insane. You should at least be able to track which *friend* put you out there so they can be blacklisted... can it do that? O_o

[permetaform]

nope. TOTALLY anonymous.

[amourality.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info. I'll pass the message on.

[permetaform]

=) cool.

[adrienneherbst.livejournal.com]

So, according to www.register.com, frienditto.com is registered to one Andrew Thornton (whose address and phone number are also available on register.com using the "whois" function). His host is one http://www.dreamhost.com, whose TOS states that while they will not generally excercise any control over the content of hosted sites,

" 1. Customer may only use DreamHost Webhosting's Server for lawful purpose. Transmission of any material in violation of any Country, Federal, State or Local regulation is prohibited. To this effect, child pornography is strictly prohibited as well as housing any copyrighted information on DreamHost Webhosting's Server for the purpose of illegal distribution or infringement.
2. Customer agrees to not have any content on their site that advocates, sells or in any way makes available tools or methods to send unsolicited e-mail or usenet postings (spam), or to use DreamHost Webhosting's Servers for relaying unsolicited e-mail or usenet postings, or to use unsolicited e-mail or usenet postings to advertise for their site hosted at dreamhost. Any complaint we receive about a violation of this or the preceding two points will be taken very seriously and will result in immediate account cancellation without a refund."

This seems to me to indicate that two courses can be taken to very easily shut frienditto.com down: either complain to dreamhost.com that they are threatening to distribute personal information (which by itself might be enough to get them yanked) in possible violation of the spamming clause, or, more crudely, upload a bunch of journal entries containing blatant child pornography to their archives, taking advantage of their "totally anonymous" policy, and report these entries in the frienditto system to DreamHost. In fact, I don't think you would even need to upload child porn-- one of the things that DreamHost specifically prohibits is the redistribution of copyrighted materials, and if the degree to which fandom entries are being posted are in any proportion to the number of fandom people who are worried about the site, they may already be in violation of their webhost's TOS.

[permetaform]

oooo, we should get some people together to draft something...

[hetrez.livejournal.com]

What's hot-linking?

[permetaform]

linking a picture directly from their site. ie. using their bandwidth. =)

[kokkoryuha.livejournal.com]

So you could know, I've done a small bit of research myself,
and Frienditto (as a user) has a "free" account.
Meaning, no e-mail to Frienditto@livejournal.com
(Though, I was going to sign up for a free i-pod! with that name)
If you can bear to muddle through it
http://www.livejournal.com/users/news/83275.html?thread=18958923#t18958923
has some interesting things to say on the subject.

Mostly, what I thought you guys might want to read
(Not sure on how legal this is)
http://www.livejournal.com/users/news/83275.html?thread=19179083#t19179083
But, that might make you guys feel a BIT better...
(on the fact that before hand, you didn't have the e-mail
address.... 0.o)
If you follow the links, it gives e-mails (and addresses)
of the creators of said sight...

Thank you for telling me, <3

[permetaform]

::hugs:: thank *you*

[djcati.livejournal.com]

dude, someone who is willing to archive a friends-only post on that site is also perfectly willing to copy/paste it to show their friends.

This makes a difference...how?

[/random passerby commenting]

[permetaform]

with the previous way, there are methods of finding out who does the archiving or screenshotting and thus there's maintenience of a state that creates what amounts to a safe haven.

this? you can be perfectly *anonymous* and request a flist and it'll pop into frienditto's system. and they control that information from there on out. Not the original anonymous. Not the original poster.

Basically, think of all the worst anonymous hate threads rolled into one big huge ball.

And to that the potential legal issues of having recorded evidence of vidding going on. The state that it *had* been on LJ and on websites means that the vidders could sorta control who viewed what and had the option of pulling out if/when the Powers That Be go on one of their C&D witch hunts as their wont. With Frienditto? This option is taken totally and completely out of ANYONE's hands.

Except for Frienditto themself.

Who is run by the same people that run LJDrama.

Down already XD

[kitarakir.livejournal.com]

try to access their site. There' already down and "under severe legal duress" I believe it says. I think people were pissed maybe?

Re: Down already XD

[permetaform]

XD cooool. ::highfives you::

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

They are back up and begging for money.

Frienditto's operating costs have increased dramatically in the past 48 hours due to a massive influx of users wanting to view the site. This increased traffic combined with bandwidth costs is threatening the site's continued operations. Additionally, the Frienditto service is now under severe legal duress due to being named in various actions. We appreciate any support large or small.

Thank you for your fealty,

The frienditto team.

[permetaform]

they're selling their site on ebay!!!

huh?

[talon-iv.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I'm a tad clueless, but what the heck is frienditto anyway. Is it another LJ clone or similar blogging tool?

Re: huh?

[permetaform]

frienditto in a nutshell:

- person registers for free.
- person gives them their username and password
- they input someone's journal name (say permetaform)
- they thus give frienditto access to allll the posts I've flocked that they can see
- permanently. To remove *my* posts, which *I* haven't given permission for frienditto to archive, I have to personally contact frienditto and give them my personal information, ie. real name and contact information for them to remove the posts from their system
- they "reserve all right" to keep all the information they're given

and the nail in the coffin?

You *can't* find out who the original person who'd let frienditto get access to your posts. It's like those anonymous hate threads times ten billion.

[lurkerlynne.livejournal.com]

Clicked the link and wadayaknow, they're asking for money to help with their bandwith. Said usage has increased dramatically in the last 48 hours.

Conclusion?

Permetaform is an ebil corruptor of innocent LJ users. Bad, bad Permetaform! Must reward with fic spank!

[permetaform]

::grins and bows:: go look. they're selling the site on ebay now...