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Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#201

Post by denzil_correa »

NabenHarb wrote: post #100
makecheck wrote: post #72

In computer security, every time machines become fast enough to breach the limits of an algorithm we invent something new so that “hard” problems remain “hard” and therefore encryption is still secure. There has been no corresponding increase in the difficulty of invading privacy. 30 years ago, even though you probably “could” observe somebody for a long time and eventually connect some dots about them, it would not…

You have essentially described differential privacy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy ). The main issue is that there is no reason for companies like Facebook to fully adopt it, since it doesn't benefit them and there is no outside pressure forcing them to do so.

May be I'm the only one but how is the parent referring to Differential Privacy? Differential Privacy is "one way" to achieve privacy. The parent comment talks about a different standard for privacy the moment computing power increases.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#202

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

a2decrow wrote: post #151
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might be worse. The NSA, after all, is at least ostensibly only after terrorists and such.

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

That is irrelevant to my point.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#203

Post by throwanem »

jacquesm wrote: post #187
anigbrowl wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that defeat? I have no desire to waste my precious time in an unwinnable arms race. My freedom of action and self-expression are my primary operational need, and I don't want to spend my life creeping around trying to conceal every fact about myself that might be employed as an attack vector. That's not liberty.

You are now officially part of the problem.

I don't use Facebook either, and I've suffered for it, but I find your analysis here both overly simplistic and hampered by an obsolete framework.

With a billion daily active users, the problem is well beyond the individual human scale. Facebook lives, in its own right. If those users were cells, Facebook would be an organism of quite respectable size. There's only one action I can see, on the part of the individual, that poses a credible risk to the health of the whole.

Find a way to give Facebook cancer, and we can talk about individual actions affecting the problem as a whole. Until then, I don't see what it helps to throw around ultimata, especially ones like yours which in the past have embodied a significant threat of politically motivated violence - not, to be sure, something of which I accuse you, but connotations do matter, and those in particular are not conducive to worthwhile discussion in any way I can see.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#204

Post by zafiro17 »

jaskerr wrote: post #53
killjoywashere wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law will not crack down on this. The politicians stand to gain too much. See The Dictator's Handbook (which is as relevant to democrats as autocrats).

Which "Dictator's Handbook"? There are two on Amazon. [1] The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po... [2] The Dictator's Handbook: A Practical Manual for the Aspiring Tyrant https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Practical-Manual-A...

I'm the author of the second book. Happy to offer Hacker News readers the epub/mobi/pdf at no charge. zafiro17@gmail.com

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#205

Post by eriknstr »

prostoalex wrote: post #119
tunesmith wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any work being done on making tracking our details more worthless? Like... generating fake data, honeypot browsing behavior, etc?

AdNauseaum

You have slight misspelling. The name is AdNauseam. Their website is https://adnauseam.io/

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#206

Post by throwanem »

Theodores wrote: post #108
c3534l wrote: post #74

I signed up for facebook two years ago, didn't put any real information on there, then haven't touched it since. I still get emails about "people you might know" that they have absolutely no business knowing about and aren't in any way connected to my immediate family. It's creepy and I don't want them storing that information about me, but there's nothing I can do. I've been cautious about putting my information on…

I created a Facebook account because I was doing something with a Facebook API, long enough ago that I have forgotten the details of the project. However, lurking in my spam folder there is always 'you have more friends than you might think' as a subject line in there somewhere, from Facebook, trying to lure me back in. The thing I find funny about this is that they only send out emails with that one subject line. I…

Getting you back is low pri. You haven't stopped generating money for Facebook; you've only stopped generating quite as much.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#207

Post by dexterdog »

sandov wrote: post #146
ihm wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love if someone made a Chrome extension that encrypted all the posts and messages you put on Facebook. That is, any post you made would be made as a ciphertext, the extension would swap keys with all your friends in the background, and would decrypt their posts when displaying them to you. Sure Marky Mark still sees when you post, who you send messages to, etc. but it's a much better situation than what's goi…

I had thought something similar, but with Google drive instead of Facebook. To create a rogue client that encrypts my files, uploads them to Drive encrypted, but presents them nicely unencrypted in my local machine. That way I get the free (as in beer) cloud storage, but google doesn't spy on my files.

There are many tools that do that. On Windows I have used stablebit clouddrive which is great.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#208

Post by dexterdog »

prostoalex wrote: post #119
tunesmith wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any work being done on making tracking our details more worthless? Like... generating fake data, honeypot browsing behavior, etc?

AdNauseaum

Something like that integrated with pihole would be awesome.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#209

Post by tjl »

b1daly wrote: post #175

The is some kind of disconnect happening here. The tone and content of many comments here reflect an attitude that it's a given that FB having data about, anything, is bad. (Not universally in this comment thread, there are some dissenting views, but I'm reference what I see as the general rhetorical tone.) My guess is that your average civilian does not view the fact that FB is acquiring vast amounts of data about t…

In my mind, it's one thing if FB collects data on people who are actually users of the service and collecting data on people who don't use the service at all. People who don't use the service haven't agreed to any FB terms of service at all, but FB acts the same way about people who agree and those who haven't even seen a FB ToS.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#210

Post by nebabyte »

benevol wrote: post #198
fiala__ wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical as to how worthwhile your effort is as long as the outcome is just another alternative to FB. We've seen countless examples of how these alt-social nets failed. But I do see a lot of value in the tech you might be developing, and if in some way we could embed it into existing social nets, that would be amazing. Fingers crossed!

How easy would it be for Zuck to just update the TOS to say "encrypted content is against our TOS" and ban you? Zuck can't add any encrypted content to your personal profile, which means he doesn't make any money off you. And Zuck can do pretty much whatever he wants in his castle, I'd say.

Not very, but getting them to outright do so would be an excellent step forward for privacy.
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