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Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

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Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#151
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless Heard has stopped working then this is not 100% true http://www.heardapp.com/ It may put a banner on the top bar but I've used this app and it worked just fine.

Very off-topic but what is your real-world use case for such an app? The site lists a couple but most of those seem to make more sense when using a recording app in the traditional, explicit, way (e.g. "we are having a meeting, I will record this meeting").

So honestly it's best use case is "gotcha". As in you didn't know I was recording and you said something stupid and now I have a recording. Likewise if you are talking to someone and you say something along the lines of "Are you sure about that?" or "Can you confirm this is what/how you want me to do this" and then you record the audio for later incase they come back and say "I never said that".

For myself I went the extra mile to just have my laptop record ALL audio but then felt this was a little too douchey/NSA-y and disabled the whole thing and wiped the audio. I wanted such a system not only for "You said this then and now you are saying that now" but to remember things I had said myself. I wanted to hook it up to STT to have a searchable archive of what I had said but again it was an invasion of privacy (to people around me) that I personally couldn't stomach.

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#152
post #116

Another anecdotal-data-of-sample-size-one, my wife was at a bar and struck up a conversation with another person to whom she had no connections. After she left, Facebook suggested this person as a friend. The other person may have searched for her on Facebook, causing her to be listed as a possible friend. Or perhaps Facebook uses location data to group people that are in the same location for an extended period of t…

My guess: either common wifi networks or IP addresses.

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#153
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a solid example, in relation to the OP comment. Since you didn't know her name. But...there is still a possibility that you had mutual friends and her face popped up. I used FB a lot and FB cycles many friends multiple times, in the hope that someone connects with you. I'm really good a remembering faces and well, this was what happened to me, numerous times. I might not knew the person in January but in July…

We had no mutual friends. I actually have 0 friends on Facebook. I use it as a media outlet. All my recommended friends come from my iOS Contacts, by phone number. So the fact she popped up is absurd

Hmm. That's bizarre. Heck, innovation isn't stagnant. Maybe they did do this. Could become bad PR for FB, if proven.

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#154
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people keep the Facebook app installed? I use it in the web browser and it works just fine, while sort of sandboxing it within Chrome.

It performs a bit better. It can fit better on a small screen without the browser chrome. It handles loss of connection a lot better.

If so, that's recent. I uninstalled the app solely because the web version was much faster for me.

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#155
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a solid example, in relation to the OP comment. Since you didn't know her name. But...there is still a possibility that you had mutual friends and her face popped up. I used FB a lot and FB cycles many friends multiple times, in the hope that someone connects with you. I'm really good a remembering faces and well, this was what happened to me, numerous times. I might not knew the person in January but in July…

We had no mutual friends. I actually have 0 friends on Facebook. I use it as a media outlet. All my recommended friends come from my iOS Contacts, by phone number. So the fact she popped up is absurd

woah this almost seems like Facebooks version of Hot Single Girls Near you. Except they might actually be near you.

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#157
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I work for Facebook. This doesn't happen.

Heh that's a funny thing to say. I remember when one of the first Snowdens revelations came up, Larry Page wrote a blog post on official Google blog: https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/what.html saying they don't cooparate with NSA. The same week we were provided documents signed by NSA/CIA officials claiming that Google is not even forced to do it, they provided extra interface for NSA so they can grab data w…

Your techtimes link doesn't have anything about Arab countries (or Clinton for that matter), the only fact in there is that Google and others were invited to an NSA talk about "security" in 2011.

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#158
post #116

Another anecdotal-data-of-sample-size-one, my wife was at a bar and struck up a conversation with another person to whom she had no connections. After she left, Facebook suggested this person as a friend. The other person may have searched for her on Facebook, causing her to be listed as a possible friend. Or perhaps Facebook uses location data to group people that are in the same location for an extended period of t…

Playing devils advocate here - isn't that supposed to be helpful? As in, what an amazing capability to be able to do that.

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#159
post #157
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh that's a funny thing to say. I remember when one of the first Snowdens revelations came up, Larry Page wrote a blog post on official Google blog: https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/what.html saying they don't cooparate with NSA. The same week we were provided documents signed by NSA/CIA officials claiming that Google is not even forced to do it, they provided extra interface for NSA so they can grab data w…

Your techtimes link doesn't have anything about Arab countries (or Clinton for that matter), the only fact in there is that Google and others were invited to an NSA talk about "security" in 2011.

Sorry, missed it http://thefreethoughtproject.com/clinton-emails-expose-googl...

This issue was quite hot on HN a month ago.

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#160
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless Heard has stopped working then this is not 100% true http://www.heardapp.com/ It may put a banner on the top bar but I've used this app and it worked just fine.

Very off-topic but what is your real-world use case for such an app? The site lists a couple but most of those seem to make more sense when using a recording app in the traditional, explicit, way (e.g. "we are having a meeting, I will record this meeting").

The best case I saw was to catch things your kids say. It's really hard to get a child to repeat exactly what they said again.

I'm guessing your phone would have to be pretty close to the child though.

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