Discord Shuts Down ‘Spy Pet’ Bots That Scraped, Sold User Messages

Submitted ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.404media.co/discord-shuts-down-spy-pet-bots-that-scraped-sold-user-messages/

Discord banned a mass of accounts that were part of a service that scraped and sold user data, including messages posted across servers and what voice channels they joined, 404 Media has learned. The move comes after 404 Media reported on the service, called Spy Pet, last week and verified it was selling access to genuine user messages ripped from Discord servers.

Since then, and especially over the last several days, the number of servers that Spy Pet says it collects data from has fluctuated, dropping from around 14,000 to 12,000, before eventually on Thursday reaching zero. As of Friday, the Spy Pet website is also unavailable, and Discord says it is considering legal action against the site.

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Comments

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Badeendje@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Locking the barn after the horse is stolen.

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- tb_@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Better than leaving the barn wide open
  
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  - zeluko@kbin.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    But they are leaving it open..
    
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tal@lemmy.today ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If the Threadiverse gets large enough for data to be worth recording, they’re gonna be pulling off it too.

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- Donut@leminal.space ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You can’t get a Discord user’s IP address in the app itself as every interaction is proxied through Discord’s backend first.
  
  People do click on sketchy links and hand over their IP though, and Discord can’t do much about those situations
  
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  - zeluko@kbin.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Discord bots were able to get a users IP via the verification system afaik.
    
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wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’ll be honest, the return on Bonzai Buddy was indeed on my internet distopia bingo card.

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CosmicCleric@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
404 Media should also investigate what they do with all those phone numbers they collect, as a security measure.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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- TachyonTele@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What would you do if you found out I’ve been copying all your comments for the past week, changing them slightly, and then selling them to a certain company without giving you any credit whatssoever?
  
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  - CosmicCleric@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    What would you do if you found out I’ve been copying all your comments for the past week, changing them slightly, and then reposted them on a certain website without giving you any credit whatssoever?
    
    It’s so weird how some people get so bent out of shape over this.
    
    At the end of the day, its just a fucking link.
    
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  - gaael@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Why are you so intent on giving them s**t about their licensing of their comments?
    They cause harm to no one, they feel better because doing so is relevant to them.
    
    I might be wrong, but your question seems asked in bad faith: I am under tbe impression that most people on lemmy servers have at least a basic understanding of the privacy and copyright infringements of the training of AI models.
    
    Their will to license their comment probably has little to do with the very unlikely individual actions you describe and more to do with data licensing from big corporate entities.
    
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umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Account walled

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IndianaJones@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The spy.pet domain got taken down, but soon after the developer published the same website under a new domain spying.pet…

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