Discord customer service data breach leaks user info and scanned photo IDs

No, that can't be right. Forced use of photo ID for age verification couldn't possibly lead to leakage of said IDs. The purity police assured us!

think of the children!!!!!! :< :< :< :< :<
- Coincidentally an alarming lot of people that impose pure bullshit on us seems to think of the children a tad too much.
- I know right! Now we got their IDs too! :D
  /s
- stop thinking about anything else but the children!!
- stop thinking about anything else but the children!!
- stop thinking about anything else but the children!!

Lol I thought they were supposed to delete the ID images once confirmed

"Haha, and you believed us" -Discord
FTA: The IDs leaked were from people appealing age verification.
That's different from the age verification process, which goes through a third party provider.
In short, the leaked IDs were from a standard shitty support platform (Zendesk, Salesforce, etc), not the much-advertised "safe and private" age verification system.
But the ai training lol
Very first question in FAQ:
Q: Does Discord or k-ID keep my selfie data?
A: Discord only logs the k-ID age verification results used to unlock your account—it doesn’t save your selfie image. For questions about k-ID’s processes, please contact k-ID.
So they are going to blame someone else.

That fast, huh?

Crazy, that thing I said would happen finally happened.

didn't take too long either

I knew this was gonna happen

Candidly, I did not expect it so soon.
- I am honestly surprised it took this long for a company to get hacked(surprised it was discord though).
- I was thinking that, you'd think they'd strike once the pot is a little larger.
And you didn't tell Discord??
I am surprised it took this long. Probably happening since day one and just now getting reported.
Even if it wasn't, they would sold your data to someone anyways, MEta being obivous

Ah yes, another reason not to give me ID to these tech companies. Anyone that demands my ID online can go fuck themselves while I find a replacement service.

Official statement from Discord: "Oopse woopse we did a fucky wucky. Sue us hahaha you won't"

Best part:

The unauthorized party gained access to “information from a limited number of users who had contacted Discord through our Customer Support and/or Trust & Safety teams”

I wish I could convince my giant discord community to go anywhere else. It's so fucking hard. I've built IRC networks and a matrix server. I host every fediverse app imaginable. I hate being attached to this company and my income being reliant on it.

Back in the day when our community was switching from xmpp to discord, our solution was to write a bot on either end that relayed messages from one to the other. The xmpp bot got more and more naggy over time until eventually we put the xmpp side in read-only for everyone except the relay bot. It did a good enough job at building momentum to switch that the final holdouts came over when we went r/o.
You might consider building something similar if you want to make a genuine effort to switch to matrix or IRC. A relay bot solves the problem of the first people being punished by virtue of being first.
- Its a good suggestion and something I've considered. Unfortunately we're using conduit as our server and that type of integration doesn't seem to work well outside of synapse. That said I know some people have gotten it working I just need to dig a little deeper. It's a chore for sure but it seems like the only path forward.
I hear you. I used to teach classes in a particular field and most people followed our updates and events on Facebook. I tried for years to change that and pry people loose from the Zuck. Mostly unsuccessfully. I agree with the other user who suggested bridging protocols. Bridge them then incentivise use of the good one and/or disincentivise use of the evil one to naturally encourage people to migrate.
- Indeed, seems the only path forward. Thansk for sharing.

Do people really have to scan an ID to us Discord?

No. According to an article the IDs were from people who were challenging an age determination. Still bullshit, but you don't need ID to use Discord as a general rule.
The unauthorized party also accessed a “small number” of images of government IDs from “users who had appealed an age determination.”
Small is, of course, a relative term. I would consider a small number to be 2 or 3. They may feel that 10,000 users is a small number. Who can say?
- as a very minimum, it would make sense to demand safe-deleting the photo immediately after the verification process, with fucking prison time to someone if it is found they did not comply with that.
  but that is clearly not the direction the society is going 🤷‍♂️
Apparently if they get flagged as underage when they aren't.
Yet another example of how requiring ID is a shit idea.
When I use the linux or web client it asks for a selfie with my ID card when I try to enter a server.
Works fine on Android.
Contacted support, they say my account is not flagged as underage but I have to submit the photo anyway. I told them i won't.
In the United Kingdom yes because of our authoritarian Online Safety Act that came into power earlier this year. If I join a discord channel marked as nsfw I get a prompt for id which I bypass with a VPN in another country.
Normally, no.
And this data breach wasn't technically to Discord either, it was to a third party company that does some part of customer support for them and the data and IDs leaked were from people who had contacted support because they were flagged underaged, and sent their ID to verify they weren't.
Which also kinda explains why they weren't deleted as they should be, they were just attatchements to support tickets, and not a "proper" verification system.
It's used by some Discord communities to prevent spam/bots. This would be inconjunction with other measures like how some communities require a verified email or to have a phone number associated with your account.
- While those exist, those wouldn't have been affected by this breach (or if they were it was only incidentally) - those communities are not using Discord's age verification but are doing it through DMs (or a 3rd party service). Discord communities do not have access to age or ID verification tools, nor do they have the ability to impose restrictions based off age or ID verification (yet, there is rumored to be an age-verification access restriction beta going out, but it apparently doesnt use ID)

One of Discord’s third-party customer service providers was compromised by an “unauthorized party,” the company says.

So, not Discord but a 3rd party company that handle Discord's customer service, and if you didn't use their customer service then you're not affected.

So, Discord - by forcing your acceptance of their tos which renders them immune from damages done by "third parties*
By offloading a term of service that Discord requires you to provide.
If they force you to give the info, they are responsible for handling and storing it properly, no matter what some evil lawyer or exec says.
If laws make bad things legal because rich people can use words, then there needs to be some form of redress to return the spirit of the laws to the people.
Maybe we all make usernames with a legally binding personal ToS that is deemed agreed upon by the corporation accepting the username.
This is just a shell game and they are conmen.
Moral of the story, never ask for help.
- Moral of the story - tech co's and gov id requirements are evil and have no basis in actual security.
  Now that peoples data has been exposed, they are susceptible to id theft. So, how does a site or gov deal with that?
  There suddenly are over 9000 Stan Smith's on the site. Weird.
  Well, guys, for the safety of... .. (Murmuring... We're using the kids as justification this time or terrorism... Kids. OK.) the children, we will require a blood sample to verify your genetic code.
  Thank you and have a nice day and welcome to gattaca.
that's a good quote, and a bad conclusion

I am jack's complete lack of surprise

My take on this is a little more fundamental than the whole ID/age thing. We all knew this would happen, and why? Because nobody has addressed the first problem. Security is only as strong as the weakest link, and companies are not transparent with customers.

Companies spell out in their Terms and Privacy statements that they have Affiliates that data gets shared with. And they want you to accept them all blindly, without clarifying who they are and what they do.

Even here, with a reported breach, they are not naming them and just calling them "third party". So they screwed up and many people have their information and IDs out in the wild because if them, but we don't even get to know who they are?

His are we to trust a company of we don't know who they're in bed with? How are we to rate their security and assess our risk of using their service without all the information?

As far as I can tell Discord handled it pretty well as far as breaches go. But maybe if I know they are using a shit company as one of their vendors I might think twice about using them.

Its the same logic as the next article in my feed, where crunchyroll is getting pushback from the subtitle service they are using. And that's not even their own security in mind. People make choices based on what companies do, so be transparent with it all and we will have the warm fuzzies if things match up. If they don't then the company gets customer feedback so they can adjust.

Called it.

And the "Tea" app leak happened right before these age-verification rules started popping up everywhere. It's obvious cause and effect, but it was also demonstrated RIGHT before.
Don't put your hand on a hot stove, especially after watching someone burn their hand on that hot stove.
- But the stove says it’s safe!

So they kept the images illegally, hm?

I really wish there was a good competitor to Discord. I have not found one that has the same screen sharing feature. Revolt (now Stoat) gets close but lacks the screen sharing - something me and my friends use a lot. They are adding this soon so hopefully it is good

Now more than ever people will have to choose between privacy and comfort. And not to be a dick, but now more than ever, people choosing comfort are fucking over people who choose privacy.
- I know that person he is me.
Matrix or Jitsi with Lemmy or any popular forum software would be my suggestion. More secure and private but require some technical knowledge.
- Matrix is an absolutely pale imitation of Discord.
  Yes it is very upsetting that the most popular chat platform in the Western world is in league with Sauron, but Matrix as a replacement is a glorified ICQ client that regularly yells at you that your device is untrusted now and there's no hope of fixing it, you loser.
Revolt (Stoat?) is alright, but good luck getting people to join there lol, Discord is the only thing people are willing to join
Matrix, XMPP, GNU-Jami & SimpleX
- None of those come close to the features Discord has.
that has the same screen sharing feature
Uhm, yeah, it's a chat app, not a screen-sharing app.
- Screen-sharing is part of chat apps nowadays. You're fully within your rights to stay on IRC and pretend that featureful chat is not the norm these days, but that doesn't mean society is going to move to IRC with you. Like it or not, encrypted chat apps have to become even more usable for the average person for adoption to go up. This reminds me of how all the old Linux-heads insisted that gaming was for children and that Linux didn't need gaming. Suddenly now that Linux has gaming, adoption is going way up - what a coincidence.
  Edit: Also for the record, I have a tech-savvy friend who refuses to move to Signal until there are custom emoji reactions, of all things. You can definitely direct your ire towards these people, but the reality is some people have a certain comfort target, and convincing them to settle for less is often harder than improving the app itself.
- Yeah no, sometimes you need screen sharing in the "chatting app"
  A lot of university clubs are on Discord, and my cyber club does tutorials and labs on the weekends where the leader screen-shares. It's nice because you can see the video in real time and ask questions whenever, rather than watching a pre-recorded video and having to hope you have no issues while following along.
  I mean, this is literally why Zoom blew up so much during COVID. Real-time learning works more than asynchronous learning for a lot of people.
I don't know why people keep saying this. You either pay for a service, or you get a company extracting as much data as they can from you for advertiser or VC money. Servers and bandwidth cost money
- I don’t know why people keep saying this. You either pay for a service, or you get a company extracting as much data as they can from you for advertiser or VC money. Servers and bandwidth cost money
  Some people pay for Discord and they still exploit their data.
  Some people pay for Lichess and their whole website is free of charge without tracking/advertising.
  Yes, things cost money. Yes, ideally those who can pay for it should. No, something being free doesn't legitimize unethical means to make a profit.
  ⚜︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.
- Telegram is profitable through semi-pushing some cryptocurrency and selling premium. Various free-to-play games are profitable through the sale of optional content.
  There are alternatives in offering delayed or optional monetary costs.
It's Matrix.
We don't need another competitor. We need more people using the federated option.
Same thing with alternatives to windows. We already have it, but people are too stupid to use it.

Can someone please send this to Keir Starmer with the subject like "Look what you did".

Update photos set deleted=1 where id=553468863

gasp*

surprisedpikachu.jpeg

This was kind of breach so predictable even surprisedpikachu.txt isn't enough, but it must be done.
⢀⣠⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⣤⣶⣶ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⢰⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⣀⣀⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡏⠉⠛⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠈⠛⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠛⠉⠁⠀⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⠿⠿⠿⠻⠿⠿⠟⠿⠛⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣸⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣴⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠏⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠠⣴⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡟⠀⠀⢰⣹⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣭⣷⠀⠀⠀⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠃⠀⠀⠈⠉⠀⠀⠤⠄⠀⠀⠀⠉⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⢿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢾⣿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⡠⠤⢄⠀⠀⠀⠠⣿⣿⣷⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡀⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢄⠀⢀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠉⠁⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢹⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿
- put the pikachu part in code so it'll render monospaced ;)
  
  ⢀⣠⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⣤⣶⣶ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⢰⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⣀⣀⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡏⠉⠛⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠈⠛⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠛⠉⠁⠀⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⠿⠿⠿⠻⠿⠿⠟⠿⠛⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣸⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣴⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠏⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠠⣴⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡟⠀⠀⢰⣹⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣭⣷⠀⠀⠀⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠃⠀⠀⠈⠉⠀⠀⠤⠄⠀⠀⠀⠉⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⢿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢾⣿⣷⠀⠀⠀⠀⡠⠤⢄⠀⠀⠀⠠⣿⣿⣷⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡀⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢄⠀⢀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠉⠁⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢹⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿
- Thank you for your service. 🫡

I tried getting my friends to move to any other chat client but the thing that keeps them on discord is the screen share. Like it or not, this feature is what's locking people in as a one stop shop game streaming chat.

Signal app on pc can screen share. I share with mates all the time through it
did you ever use jitsi? its not a chat platform, but one for video calls. it supports screen sharing and its very good. it works standalone, there are public instances
matrix used to use jitsi for group calls. I don't know what does it use now as a transition to an in house service has been in the works for a few years now, and element call just now starts to get mature enough, but I'm almost sure you can do screen sharing right now too. but try to check how usable it is before you try to get your friends to use it. if it doesn't work well, they may not accept your advice (as easily) in the future to switch chat providers
- Absolutely! I brought it into another group for corporate stuff and it was great. We also used it over COVID lockdown for games with another group of friends.
  I'll do more research on Matrix and see if i can set something up for a truly seamless transition. Thanks for the suggestion!

Sigh

More people need to use matrix and xmpp instead!

Unfortunately, stupid people need to be advertised to in order to see value in a product these days.

This shouldn't surprise anyone with a brain.

Anyone know where we can find the data?

/me chuckles from his IRC chat room

and people will continue to use Discord.

I held out for a return to IRC for a long time but the days of only getting messages when you're online, or of setting up a bouncer or other solution, are just long gone.

It's a good thing I didn't give out my phone number or passport and didn't communicate via voice chat.