Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 418 posts

Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine

#251

Post by ryandrake »

apotheothesomai wrote: post #167
flexie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Parakilas, 38, who now works as a product manager for Uber, ..." So from one reckless company that doesn't give a damn about the law to the next. Who teaches developers that it's okay to work for anyone as long as the tech is cool and the salary is great?

Well, the reason is that people in general aren't often ethical, when they seek to benefit personally. It's not taught; it's the default setting. I wish a little philosophy and ethics were part of the curriculum. This would not be to inculcate normative values, but to help eng students clarify what they believe, and what the implications are. That said, most engineers I've met who work on sketchy stuff are either nai…

My undergrad Computer Engineering curriculum as far back as the mid 90’s offered a dedicated “social and ethical issues in computing” course, which included not only ethics but the societal issues around hacking, copyright, automation, robots, etc. Do these courses no longer exist? I think tech professionals ought to agree to Do No Harm and be held accountable when they do. Problem is the vague and debatable definition of “harm”.

Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine

#252

Post by wpietri »

phkahler wrote: post #224
generalk wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we not let this become framed as a "breach"? No > systems were compromised. Nothing of Facebook's was > accessed that wasn't supposed to be accessed. This was > data intentionally exposed by Facebook, just exfiltrated > and given to an entity whom Facebook hadn't authorized. This is similar to a HIPAA "breach" where the word doesn't imply that a security system was compromised, but that protected data was acces…

>> ...but that protected data was accessed by folks who shouldn't have had it. Facebook handed over the data. They need to understand that they don't have control over it once it leaves Facebook. Is a violation of ToS a data breach? Do we really want to conflate those things?

I understand why Facebook doesn't want to call it a breach. But it seems equally reasonable to me that users see it as one. From the user perspective, private data is suddenly in the hands of unknown, suspicious actors who may use it against them.

That Facebook would rather not call that a breach so much as "business as usual" is all the more reason legislators may be inclined to define "breach" the way that voters do.

Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine

#253

Post by thatfrenchguy »

flexie wrote: post #48
malikNF wrote: post #3

What's utterly horrifying about this whole thing is how the media is acting as if this is some sort of surprise. Like what did you think was happening at a company collecting data about billions of people? Especially at a company that has a CEO who is famous for calling its own users dumb fu * * s? A company that experimented on at risk teens. Like come on. --edit--- Or lordy, didn't expect this comment to blow up th…

"Parakilas, 38, who now works as a product manager for Uber, ..." So from one reckless company that doesn't give a damn about the law to the next. Who teaches developers that it's okay to work for anyone as long as the tech is cool and the salary is great?

I think a lot of software engineers (past me included) are genuinely persuaded that tech really is going to change the world for better and that it’s the way to do good social changes, because “politics is too complicated”.

Then the corporate koolaid of come and tell you you’re doing the most important thing in the world and you just eat it.

Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine

#254

Post by molszanski »

mattkevan wrote: post #93
jakelazaroff wrote: post #8

Can we not let this become framed as a "breach"? No systems were compromised. Nothing of Facebook's was accessed that wasn't supposed to be accessed. This was data intentionally exposed by Facebook , just exfiltrated and given to an entity whom Facebook hadn't authorized. This is simply the extent to which we've permitted these Internet giants to collect information about us. It's business as usual. Edit: To clarify,…

Sounds like a breach to me. The only difference is that instead of the baddies having to sneak in carefully at night to nick stuff, Facebook said 'welcome, come on in, help yourself – here's a sack'. The end result – millions of people having their personal data used against them without their knowledge or consent - is the same.

No, this is not a breach. Words still mean things.

Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine

#255

Post by ryandrake »

zeveb wrote: post #230
flexie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Parakilas, 38, who now works as a product manager for Uber, ..." So from one reckless company that doesn't give a damn about the law to the next. Who teaches developers that it's okay to work for anyone as long as the tech is cool and the salary is great?

> So from one reckless company that doesn't give a damn about the law to the next. Uber doesn't appear to have historically given a damn about the law, but AFAIK it has historically given a damn about its users. Facebook, OTOH, doesn't appear to be giving a damn about its users. As for the law: there are plenty of unjust laws out there; I respect someone who fights unjust laws such as the taxi monopolies. I don't res…

Why should Facebook give a damn about their users? Users are the raw material. It’s like asking a car manufacturer to give a damn about the feelings of sheet metal or how emotionally satisfied door handles are.

Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine

#256

Post by wruwew8uu9 »

sveme wrote: post #32
camillomiller wrote: post #2

The cool thing? This "whistleblower" already spoke publicly with an op-ed on the NYT months ago. Again, this is just the top of the newscycle. Let's see what happens in three months from now. My guess: Facebook revenue will go up. This is a PR shitshow, and a great piece of advertising for Facebook's ad department. A lot of marketers right now are thinking "wait, we could do that with all that Facebook data we have?!…

GDPR can't come too soon. That would definitely put an end to these shady practices, as the penalties of several individual infractions would endanger any company.

Even if they complied with your erasure request and deleted everything from all their servers and their backups (spanning the world over a decade), think of all the non-EU third-parties who have your FB data already

Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine

#257

Post by lerpa »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #8

Can we not let this become framed as a "breach"? No systems were compromised. Nothing of Facebook's was accessed that wasn't supposed to be accessed. This was data intentionally exposed by Facebook , just exfiltrated and given to an entity whom Facebook hadn't authorized. This is simply the extent to which we've permitted these Internet giants to collect information about us. It's business as usual. Edit: To clarify,…

It's the problem with that kind of speech, it's impersonal and dehumanizing.

Let's say it like it is: facebook betrays users expectations giving their data to other businesses.

Same for hacking: some people invaded system such and such and took private information.

It doesn't matter if it was a breach, a floodgate, a window, what matters is what happened, and what happened is that player X did Y. Let's just state that first and foremost.

Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine

#258

Post by hedonistbot »

malikNF wrote: post #3

What's utterly horrifying about this whole thing is how the media is acting as if this is some sort of surprise. Like what did you think was happening at a company collecting data about billions of people? Especially at a company that has a CEO who is famous for calling its own users dumb fu * * s? A company that experimented on at risk teens. Like come on. --edit--- Or lordy, didn't expect this comment to blow up th…

None of this would have come to light if the "right" person had won the elections. The moment Trump won, the campaign against social media began, first with the "Fake news" meme, then "Russian hacking", YouTube's adpocalypse and now "Facebook data breach". Some people are getting very scared that the traditional manufacturers of consent are losing their grip on people's minds.

And I am not in support of the mass surveillance exercised by those companies, just noticing the timing. When Obama won, his data scientists were hailed as geniuses. What do you think they were doing?

Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine

#260

Post by bogomipz »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #34
scottmf wrote: post #4

Oh man this is bad. >the platform operations manager at Facebook responsible for policing data breaches [...] warned senior executives at the company that its lax approach to data protection risked a major breach >One Facebook executive advised him against looking too deeply at how the data was being used, warning him: “Do you really want to see what you’ll find?” >They felt that it was better not to know. I found th…

Lol, "this is bad"? This is normal. I can give you an entire list of F500 companies I've worked at that have the same mindset. I've sat in meetings with F100 CIOs where they were given the same warning and shrugged it off. I've been asked before to turn off security monitoring systems because executives prefer to not know about vulnerabilities rather than know about them and not be able to fix them. The only thing sh…

>"This is normal."

So that means its not bad?

Post reply on HN