this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023

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Discord will switch to temporary file links to block malware delivery (www.bleepingcomputer.com)

submitted 10 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Discord will switch to temporary file links to block malware delivery::Discord will switch to temporary file links for all users by the end of the year to block attackers from using its CDN (content delivery network) for hosting and pushing malware.

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[–] gridleaf@lemmy.world 172 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (10 children)

Can we please stop building everything around Discord? It has its place as a chat app, but it's become like a web parallel to our own, except owned and operated by a single company. It's an information black hole, completely closed off from the rest of the web, unscrapeable, uncrawlable, unarchiveable, and borderline unsearchable. It has everything that is wrong with the web today. When the company dies, all information in the app dies with it. There's no Internet Archive for Discord.

[–] HKayn@dormi.zone 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is not easy when everyone you know is already on Discord.

The network effect is active in full force here.

[–] spark947@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Its a good point. Eventually discord will find some way to enshittify, I am sure.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They already have

[–] spark947@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

I guess that is what they are doing, but this particular change seems pretty reasonable to me. Discord can't simultaneously be a chat application and a repository for all memes for all time.

Just goes to show that VC funded services are not sustainable infrastructure for anyone.

[–] Salzkrebs@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My university forces its students to use Discord for computer science. They even forced me to use my real name (otherwise they would've kicked me from the channel). It's a privacy nightmare so I hope they will switch now since they were using it to host weekly exams.

[–] markon@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's so hard to delete anything on Discord it's in the permanent record. It's upsetting. I use it too, but it is a nightmare privacy wise and it has all sorts of consequences.

[–] Salzkrebs@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Since I live in the EU, it shouldn't even be legal to force students into Discord. I really hate being that guy but if they do this shit again I will refuse.

[–] italien@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Admittedly I really like Discord's user interface. Love the servers that can be organized by channel and channel type, have permissions sets for different roles, etc. All that good shit. What I don't like is the total control of one entity and lack of privacy. I've been looking at Matrix but it still has a ways to go before I could ever think of completely dropping Discord.

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[–] r3df0x@7.62x54r.ru 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Technically someone could just make a headless browser and then scrape everything that way, Advancements in AI will make headless browsing easier and companies like Facebook won't be able to block automation by changing the HTML multiple times per day.

[–] ericflo@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes, instead they will discontinue their websites and make you use their app.

[–] r3df0x@7.62x54r.ru 1 points 10 months ago

I discontinue any websites that push apps. The reason they make apps is to spy on you.

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[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 142 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yeah... In sure malware is the reason. It's not that they don't want people using discord for file hosting.

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 89 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Still, it’s not a file hosting platform. 🤷‍♂️ it should have been temporary to begin with.

[–] echo64@lemmy.world 42 points 10 months ago (13 children)

It literally is, it's part of their paid plans.

[–] worsedoughnut@lemdro.id 16 points 10 months ago

It literally isn't, what the hell are you smoking?

[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

What ? Pretty sure their paid plans only allow uploading larger files. It says nothing about the longevity of said files on their servers

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[–] wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They wouldnt have been as popular if they had been temporary from the beginning.

Shoulda woulda coulda, this is now a thing their community has come to expect and rely on their platform being capable of. And the change of such will break a number of channels.

[–] darth_helmet@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Eh if they don’t want people using their service that way, that’s their right. People who care about it that much should host a matrix instance.

[–] echo64@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Reminder that file uploads on discord more than a few mb is a paid feature.

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[–] lostmypasswordanew@feddit.de 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

This is typical enshittification. Make an impossibly good service to gain marketshare. Then make it worse once you've eliminated all competition and dominate the market.

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[–] wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Did anything about my comment imply I thought this change was illegal? This has nothing to do with their rights

The issue at hand is taking away a feature your users have come to expect from your product after youve secured a level of dependance by outcompeting the competition

[–] darth_helmet@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I didn’t intend to imply that, my statement can be rephrased as “if users don’t like this change, they should use an alternative, because discord is going to do what makes sense to discord.” File hosting is ubiquitous and cheap, so it isn’t a big deal. I don’t work at discord, but I do work at a company that has file hosting as one of its features, and combating malicious misuse of that feature is expensive and a pain in the ass. If I could get away with not offering file hosting, I’d be tempted to remove it.

[–] wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Do you think your company could get away with offering a paid service that included file hosting, and then suddenly announcing that the file hosting was now only temporary?

Or would you expect your customers to abandon you over any claims of "just find an alternative"?

E: to clarify, by "your company" I mean where you work. Im not assuming youre at a position of ownership

[–] darth_helmet@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The services are way too different to compare that feature in isolation, unfortunately. But discord’s business model is not to be a cdn, and I think it’s a good move to occasionally prune a feature that doesn’t provide enough juice for the squeeze. We’ve seen much worse enshittification this year, and I doubt this move has any measurable effect on their active users. Dealing with getting your servers off of blacklists because some douche decided to host malware on your free file hosting isn’t how anyone wants to spend their days, I assure you.

[–] wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 10 months ago

Its not going to effect the causal, non paying active users for sure.

But thats because they arent the paying customers. A lot of people who paid did so for the purpose of upgrading their personal servers, which pretty often included the file storage.

Im not in a ton of servers, but the ones who were community hubs are already discussing leaving discord over this, because the file convenience was the big draw of paying for discord. No idea where they want to move to, but they arent happy about sitting still.

[–] lea@feddit.de 33 points 10 months ago

Files are still stored permanently and links inside the client stay permanent as well, only links accessed externally are affected. I don't like Discord either but anyone relying on it as their personal free CDN had it coming for them.

[–] Asudox@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

Dam gotta download all the memes before they get deleted.

[–] blackfire@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

This is good. At my place we actually already block any discord cdn links on proxy and emails as they were getting a pretty bad threat vector.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 8 points 10 months ago

"To block malware delivery" haha good 1

[–] A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Ughhh, now I have to go back to using shit like Google Drive. Discord was so much more convenient

[–] Oha@lemmy.ohaa.xyz 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

https://catbox.moe/ is pretty good

[–] Skipcast@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

Catbox shits itself pretty often causing for example 5 mb videos to take 3 minutes to fully buffer

[–] spudwart@spudwart.com 4 points 10 months ago

I'm sure there are some selfhosted options for file sharing.

[–] Rbnsft@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

Isnt Max filesize quite low? Like 40mb or smth? Or was that hust for non Premium users? Also file hosting and sharing is so much easyer via telegram fyi

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