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Searching Facebook drives home the privacy degradation problem

willmoffat.github.com

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Re: Searching Facebook drives home the privacy degradation problem

#31

Post by rmc »

aristoxenus wrote: post #26
hamstersoup wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an example of the fig leaf in action: http://willmoffat.github.com/FacebookSearch/?q=HIV%20test&#3... We decided the redactions reduce the impact without actually offering any privacy at all. (That's up to Facebook and the users).

"Full disclosure" is a discussion about the ethics of publishing an exploit. Publishing exploits is customarily done in a descriptive manner -- I've never seen it done by publicly sharing the spoils of using that exploit. Did you try publicizing it without the full identifying data available and measuring the response? Did you consider a strategy of escalating outrageousness, instead of going straight for this course…

> What about automatically contacting the affected users first, and attempt to rouse them to action?

You mean contacting 98% of facebook's users?!?

Re: Searching Facebook drives home the privacy degradation problem

#32

Post by fezme »

It's important to note that no one can 'stalk' you using this feature if they aren't your friend - you can't search by name, only content. Unless there is personally identifiable information about the person in the post itself (e.g. "I'm John Doe and I hate my boss Bob Smith") the odds are you'll never be able to find information about the person you are looking for. If you search for "rectal exam" (http://willmoffat.github.com/FacebookSearch/?q=rectal%20exam) and you happen to know Groten Nils, well, that's pretty embarrassing.

Re: Searching Facebook drives home the privacy degradation problem

#34

Post by 0nly1ife »

rmc wrote: post #30
snewe wrote: post #10

Unless we assume that these people are completely ignorant of the public nature of their status updates, then this isn't a privacy violation. Is the argument that Facebook defaults to public and makes it confusing to change settings?

Initially Facebook was private by default. It's only recently that it's changed to 'default public'. Lots of people are using a public thing, when it used to be private. It's the change that's the most important thing.

edit: double post

Re: Searching Facebook drives home the privacy degradation problem

#35

Post by 0nly1ife »

rmc wrote: post #30
snewe wrote: post #10

Unless we assume that these people are completely ignorant of the public nature of their status updates, then this isn't a privacy violation. Is the argument that Facebook defaults to public and makes it confusing to change settings?

Initially Facebook was private by default. It's only recently that it's changed to 'default public'. Lots of people are using a public thing, when it used to be private. It's the change that's the most important thing.

Said change occurred in December 2009. Why did it take people six months to start complaining?

Since then Facebook has made it more difficult for 3rd party developers to access data. The new authentication flow (announced at f8) is more restrictive for developers and more informative for users. The old authentication flow granted developers access to all of the users information and all of their friends information by default. Everything announced at f8 was in the direction of increasing privacy. I'm confused why it triggered a revolt.

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/

For the record I think the default public option was just an experiment and Facebook will revert to default private. I still don't understand what caused this uproar.

Re: Searching Facebook drives home the privacy degradation problem

#36

Post by davidmurphy »

snewe wrote: post #10

Unless we assume that these people are completely ignorant of the public nature of their status updates, then this isn't a privacy violation. Is the argument that Facebook defaults to public and makes it confusing to change settings?

I doubt people would say things like they want to beat up their "stupid" "c*nt" boss (to quote one update I saw on the site) if they knew these statuses were public....

Re: Searching Facebook drives home the privacy degradation problem

#38

Post by jdunck »

GabrielBen wrote: post #28
bloodnok wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I talk to people about it, there seems to be a general apathy around the privacy aspects. Most are of the opinion "why would someone other than my friends be interested in me and what I did on Saturday night?". I think the first wake-up call comes when their parents join facebook. Otherwise it's being turned down for a job without knowing why, getting fired for bragging about throwing a sickie, being harassed/st…

Im about to move out with my girlfriend, and my realtor checked my background with Facebook. I only knew about this because that guy turned out to have gone to high school with my boss, and my boss told me. Even though im a programmer, the only thing i do in facebook is add friends, it already affected me to just have an account there. The effect was neutral to good..this time.

I'm fiddling with a FB privacy thing. Would you mind if I used this example as an anti-testimonial?

Edited as follows: " [M]y realtor checked my background with Facebook. I only knew about this because [he] turned out to have gone to high school with my boss, and my boss told me.

[T]he only thing i do in [F]acebook is add friends[.] [I]t already affected me to just have an account there. "

OK to attribute, or no?

Re: Searching Facebook drives home the privacy degradation problem

#39

Post by jondoh »

nikolayav wrote: post #33

The same tool is available on Facebook itself. Type a query in the bar at the top of the page, click on More Results, choose Posts by Everyone from the filter on the left.

Exactly! I was going to say these folks better expect a buyout offer for their amazing real-time search tool until I realized that what it offers has been available on Facebook itself for a while, and nobody cares. I don't mean nobody cares that people's posts are public. I mean, nobody cares to search people's posts because doing so is NOT USEFUL.

Ironic how it appears that the catalyst for what people are calling Facebook's privacy violation was the tech media's echo chamber screaming "real-time search." Yes, take the current over-hyped BS (Twitter), combine it with yesterday's insanely successful business (Google), and that is the direction things must go in. And Facebook would be wise to get on board with the inevitable or risk loosing everything. But if they overdo it and sneakily encourage their users to act like attention hungry Twitter users (aka journalists), then they risk loosing everything via a backlash from violated users. Oh, and we're still waiting for either them or Twitter or Google to make bazillions with real-time search because won't that just be so amazing.

...right. I suppose that dismissing this concept now could be a bit premature, but, come on. It's been around for a while and has gone nowhere. Maybe when Facebook realizes that there's no money in this real-time search nonsense, they'll default everyone back to private. Of course, then the story will be that they rudely interrupted their attention hungry users' abilities to act like exhibitionists. And that is why Twitter will always have an edge.

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