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Facebook is terrifying

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Re: Facebook is terrifying

#271

Post by dang »

r1chard5mith wrote: post #215
BigChiefSmokem wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook profile you posted doesn't match any of the other profiles you posted. Try again, young (old?) hacker :)

Oscar Renzo Guiulfo. There is a great deal of information available about you online. Your HN posts alone reveal information which you may one day wish to conceal.

That counts as a personal attack. We've banned this account.

If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll behave civilly on HN in the future.

Edit: that happened, so we unbanned the account.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#272

Post by PeterisP »

junto wrote: post #248
jitbit wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar moment (and ironically I'm a musician too). I went to a bar, where a band was playing on stage... After a while I realized I know the drummer. I played with him before, in another band, years ago. We had a beer, chatted a bit and went home. Now, we hadn't posted any pictures, nor statuses, we have no mutual friends on facebook, no connection at all... Heck, Facebook DIDN'T EVEN EXIST when I last saw h…

I also had this recently too. I got given a friend suggestion of someone I haven't seen in twenty years. We have no shared FB friends, nor location, nor schooling / college education. I have her email address in my contacts which has been shared with WhatsApp. Curiously, there should be no way to directly link my FB account with WhatsApp. I haven't shared my mobile number with FB, and I haven't shared my FB account e…

That's simple - whenever any of your personal or business contacts grants access to their contact list to some app, "everyone in the world" obtains a mapping between your mobile phone number (that they had), your full name and nicknames (that they entered manually) and likely your other identities as well (e.g. emails, various IM providers, etc) that they linked to you in their contact list.

It's the same with facial recognition - to avoid it, it's not enough to never post your pictures, you'd also need to ensure that noone who knows you would ever tag you in some picture they have.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#273

Post by PeterisP »

anigbrowl wrote: post #241
scaryspooky wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're blocking an enteance or exit that is not being peaceful and does result in arrest.

Sez you. Try convincing a crowd of thousands backed by the local authorities.

Why convince a crowd? They can simply visit you at home or work a day after the protest, device location tracking and face recognition works well enough and they don't need to detain everyone, just enough for deterrence to work.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#274

Post by tmnvix »

nerflad wrote: post #245
LyalinDotCom wrote: post #159

I'm almost 100% positive that some of your best and brightest employees working in critical divisions at Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. are NSA moles. I have zero proof but it's what I'd setup if I was part NSA leadership. Just think about what that means for our data.

Think about being one of the best and brightest hackers out there... why would you want to work for the NSA? What incentive do you have, other than a boatload of money? Isn't the regular, guilt-free FB boatload enough?

FB pay plus the substantial NSA bonus perhaps? Maybe also the added benefit of access to NSA career networking (even assistance to land those top jobs in the first place)?

All supposition on my part of course.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#275

Post by Arkaad »

guscost wrote: post #74
jitbit wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar moment (and ironically I'm a musician too). I went to a bar, where a band was playing on stage... After a while I realized I know the drummer. I played with him before, in another band, years ago. We had a beer, chatted a bit and went home. Now, we hadn't posted any pictures, nor statuses, we have no mutual friends on facebook, no connection at all... Heck, Facebook DIDN'T EVEN EXIST when I last saw h…

Not to say this is definitely what happened, but he could have looked you up on FB which might tip off the suggestions algorithm. That's a whole other can of worms, of course.

Occam's razor, I agree. I've heard several times these kind of stories.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#276

Post by brokenmachine »

jitbit wrote: post #67
mmjaa wrote: post #35

Its not just faces .. me and a friend had a little jam session recently and posted a picture of our cool little setup, consisting of a few pocket-sized machines (synthesizers and controllers) on our table in front of us. Just an innocent little picture of our jam setup. Within seconds of posting this picture of the machines, my friend was getting targeted ads from the manufacturers of those devices - within seconds!…

I had a similar moment (and ironically I'm a musician too). I went to a bar, where a band was playing on stage... After a while I realized I know the drummer. I played with him before, in another band, years ago. We had a beer, chatted a bit and went home. Now, we hadn't posted any pictures, nor statuses, we have no mutual friends on facebook, no connection at all... Heck, Facebook DIDN'T EVEN EXIST when I last saw h…

I stopped using Facebook completely when it suggested that I friend a Work Associate that I have only dealt with once via email. The creepiest part of it was that I have never told Facebook where I work at all.

All the other people that it suggests that I friend where I have no idea who they are, I wonder where the association came from...

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#277

Post by jayajay »

theghostofjr wrote: post #232
jayajay wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To slightly bastardize the term "burner", people might think they don't have any burners, but everyone's got burners. I started to notice that one of my professors, around every ~25 sentences, he would capitalize the first two letters of the sentence. I mean it's a dead giveaway, because most people do this a lot less frequently. But these figurative "burners" are everywhere. Little, tiny, seemingly untraceable ticks…

'burner' in the parent comment refers to a disposable pre-paid phone without contract. You're describing a kind of 'tell' I think. Still an interesting point you make.

He was talking about burners being used to be seemingly undetectable, which got me thinking about people with nearly imperceptible tells, and how both of these "nearly invisible" things are seen by big brother. You are right though... it's a very questionable segue.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#278

Post by jeffrey-sean »

It's not as easy for many to just delete their Facebook account. For instance, people use it for their jobs, to find work, or even to use the Facebook Workplace app. For some, it's a cheap and efficient way to communicate with friends or family. However, I agree that it's critical to mind what data you share on Facebook.

People post so many things, and they don't realize how the data is being interpreted, or how it could be taken out of context and viewed the wrong way.

For people who do decide to use Facebook, check out this app to find any posts you might not want to be associated with your account: https://wwwrepnup.com

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#279

Post by kalleboo »

nerflad wrote: post #269
macns wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you from? Not sure if that's just in Europe but there's an option[1] to permanently delete everything from fb, though I'm sure it wasn't available a few years ago. Now it is though and I'm guessing fb is obligated to provide this b/c of some european law. [1] Sorry for the google ref link but I have fb hosts blocked and couldn't find an easy way to just copy the actual link: https://www.google.gr/url?sa=t&r…

United States. I need to look again but I don't think there's the option to permanently delete. Just some kind of generic notice like "your data will eventually be permanently deleted"... eventually, like the heat death of the universe.

The settings menu on Facebook only has a "Deactivate your account" option, which is the one that leaves all your data there.

The link to permanently delete is only found inside help articles.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#280

Post by nerflad »

kalleboo wrote: post #279
nerflad wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

United States. I need to look again but I don't think there's the option to permanently delete. Just some kind of generic notice like "your data will eventually be permanently deleted"... eventually, like the heat death of the universe.

The settings menu on Facebook only has a "Deactivate your account" option, which is the one that leaves all your data there. The link to permanently delete is only found inside help articles.

Thanks, I will look into that.
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