Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine

Post by stochastic_monk » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 12:36 AM UTC

fancyfacebook wrote: post #159

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…

Yes, I think we are ready to grow out of the "arrogant jerk" phase of tech. The tech wizards who build things and run these companies: 1. Are not smarter than you 2. Do not have your best interests in mind 3. Will lie to you repeatedly 4. Will do everything to avoid negative attention or consequences Stop worshipping anyone. Not Jobs, not Zuckerberg, not Gates, not Musk, not anyone. They aren't on your team. I don't…

Post by username223 » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 1:27 AM UTC

Post by closeparen » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #326

verylittlemeat wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>protected data What data was being protected? The data was created when the user chose to engage with the facebook apps. CA pays facebook to put something in front of users faces and then CA gets back information on user engagement. How is that different than any other kind of advertising on the web? We can argue that there needs to be more transparency on facebook but a breach? That's torturing the word.

> What data was being protected? Personally-identifiable information [1]. Many states require notification in the event this data is found to have been accessed improperly. The definition of a "breach" is not limited to technical malfunctions. [1] http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-informat...

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 2:32 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #252

phkahler wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> ...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 d…

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 3:33 AM UTC

checkyoursudo wrote: post #394

thaumasiotes wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any of these old definitions contains sufficient meaningfulness to make "Facebook loses control of data to unauthorized breach" perfectly intelligble. Sure, but the point being made by the "it's not a breach" people is that Facebook didn't lose control of data to an unauthorized breach. They gave up data according to their own documented and expected procedures to people who were supposed to have it. "Facebook volu…

I guess then I'm confused about the narrative of the story so far. Did Facebook have control over its (my? your?) data at Cambridge Analytica or not? I thought the extra 50 to 250 million profiles scraped were unauthorized access? I could be entirely mistaken.