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 8 months ago by L4s to c/technology

74 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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 202 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (16 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.

[–] ashok36 46 points 8 months ago

I agree. It's a handy chat app but it's not a replacement for actual forums and, God forbid, an actual support page for a project.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They already have

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 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 18 points 8 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 11 points 8 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 8 points 8 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 11 points 8 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I think at a minimum someone would need to create a semi automated client for Matrix that would have a better interface and then handle the technical changes and configuration automatically. Spaces can use used a "servers" but it involves creating rooms and then adding them and the process is complicated.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Slack was basically the same when I used it

[–] gndagreborn 3 points 8 months ago

Amen

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[–] Zarxrax 171 points 8 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.

[–] [email protected] 104 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] echo64 44 points 8 months ago (16 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] echo64 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

you think a service you pay for that lets you upload files to them, to share the files with an unlimited amount of other people, is not a file hosting platform? even though it hosts files for you? and you pay for the service?

what do you think it is?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Don't move the goal posts. It's 100% not an advertised feature to use Discord uploads as cloud storage or an off-platform CDN.

The unintended side effect that you've so clearly described is the exact reason they're implementing the protections in question.

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[–] Sylvartas 8 points 8 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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[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago (20 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.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 8 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 20 points 8 months ago

Dam gotta download all the memes before they get deleted.

[–] blackfire 16 points 8 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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

"To block malware delivery" haha good 1

[–] A_Very_Big_Fan 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

https://catbox.moe/ is pretty good

[–] Skipcast 14 points 8 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

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

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