I’m getting a bit sick of large corporations a) demanding excess data as a condition of doing business with me, b) allowing it to be stolen, and c) giving zero fucks about it.

What are some things that us netizens can do to make our displeasure known.

Extra points for funny ideas.

  • @QualifiedKitten
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    215 hours ago

    ELI5 please? I’ve read the other replies, but would love to understand a bit more.

    • @PM_Your_Nudes_Please
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      214 hours ago

      EICAR test strings are strings of text that can be used to test an antivirus. Basically, you bury the file somewhere, and see if your AV picks it up. The joke being that if they’re storing your password in plaintext (a big no-no from a security standpoint) then their AV will clamp down on the database once you create your account and the test string is embedded.

      It wouldn’t work in this instance, unfortunately; EICAR test strings are only meant to work when embedded in files that are shorter than 128 bytes. And every database is almost certainly larger than that.