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Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

nytimes.com

51–60 of 274 posts

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#51
post #42
post #2

I feel like someone should also give Zuckerberg the memo that it's only a matter of time before an insider also goes rogue and abuses data access (edit: or otherwise; see below). Facebook fundamentally seems to trust itself way too much, and it worries me that it thinks the only threats are external entities... to me, this is another silently ticking time bomb. EDIT: And don't forget that going rogue is just one scen…

FWIW, as a Facebook engineer you have a ton of trainings on how to handle data privacy. And not only is every place where you can touch data actively logged/audited/monitored (this includes DB reads from code, admin tools, etc.), but to access any data you have to explicitly request permission for that specific data.

> FWIW, as a Facebook engineer you have a ton of trainings on how to handle data privacy. And not only is every place where you can touch data actively logged/audited/monitored (this includes DB reads from code, admin tools, etc.), but to access any data you have to explicitly request permission for that specific data.

Really? So are stories like [1] complete lies? Or does someone inside just blindly grant these "explicitly requested permissions"?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16675503

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#52
>"There was a feeling, said one of the people, that Facebook wanted to take aggressive steps to make sure it could regain user trust. And over all, he said, confidence was up."

I'm curious what might be the source of this regained "confidence."? The idea that this will all just blow ever in a few months?

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#53
post #25
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty easy to call for resignation as an outsider. This is not an elected position, i do not think people get to call this.

As a shareholder I do, this kid works for me and it is time to take full responsibility and go home...

Seeing as he's the majority shareholder, you seem to be out of luck.

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#54
post #5
post #2

I feel like someone should also give Zuckerberg the memo that it's only a matter of time before an insider also goes rogue and abuses data access (edit: or otherwise; see below). Facebook fundamentally seems to trust itself way too much, and it worries me that it thinks the only threats are external entities... to me, this is another silently ticking time bomb. EDIT: And don't forget that going rogue is just one scen…

You'd think so, but most companies have pretty strict internal controls for this sort of thing. Access is also carefully logged so a leaker is pretty much guaranteed to get caught at which point they'd immediately lose their job and likely face criminal prosecution. With so much to lose and so little to gain internal leaks of this sort are extremely rare.

Recent news ([1]): Facebook security boss says its corporate network is run "like a college campus"

1. http://www.zdnet.com/article/leaked-audio-facebook-security-...

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#55
post #40

I respect Facebook and their engineering chops as much as the next person, they are truly world class programmers, but how the holy hell is everyone daydreaming that they don’t work for an advertising company? You sell and use people’s data to get money: this is the business plan. Full stop. Connecting people can definitely be lucrative and useful in other ways but facebooks particular implementation is impression ba…

The money probably helps, especially given the Bay Area cost-of-living.

The FB employees I've met have been fine with explaining away the consequences of their actions with "oh it's just a job", "that's not my team", or "the technology is really interesting".

And as an idealist, I'll invoke Goodwin's Law depending on our relationship.

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#56
post #5
post #2

I feel like someone should also give Zuckerberg the memo that it's only a matter of time before an insider also goes rogue and abuses data access (edit: or otherwise; see below). Facebook fundamentally seems to trust itself way too much, and it worries me that it thinks the only threats are external entities... to me, this is another silently ticking time bomb. EDIT: And don't forget that going rogue is just one scen…

You'd think so, but most companies have pretty strict internal controls for this sort of thing. Access is also carefully logged so a leaker is pretty much guaranteed to get caught at which point they'd immediately lose their job and likely face criminal prosecution. With so much to lose and so little to gain internal leaks of this sort are extremely rare.

Facebook is not most companies, though.

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#57
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says it hasn't happened already? How would we ever know? For that matter, how would Zuck?

Anecdotally I've heard of interns getting fired for just looking at profiles (that they aren't actual friends with) even around 5 years ago. So at least they take it somewhat seriously.

i interned at fb a few years ago. any engineer, intern or not, can access production data. day one you set up an instance of fb on your dev server that you can mess around with, and its connected straight to the prod db. you're able to view anything you want, but they're very adamant that they monitor what you look at.

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#58
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, as a Facebook engineer you have a ton of trainings on how to handle data privacy. And not only is every place where you can touch data actively logged/audited/monitored (this includes DB reads from code, admin tools, etc.), but to access any data you have to explicitly request permission for that specific data.

> FWIW, as a Facebook engineer you have a ton of trainings on how to handle data privacy. And not only is every place where you can touch data actively logged/audited/monitored (this includes DB reads from code, admin tools, etc.), but to access any data you have to explicitly request permission for that specific data. Really? So are stories like [1] complete lies? Or does someone inside just blindly grant these "exp…

You request access, and justify it with something like "I need it to debug issue #123". Someone manually oks/disallows it, and there's asynchronous reviews of these requests to double check. My guess is the intern lied about what they're using it for.

How else would you suggest to do privacy checks like these?

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#59
post #5
post #2

I feel like someone should also give Zuckerberg the memo that it's only a matter of time before an insider also goes rogue and abuses data access (edit: or otherwise; see below). Facebook fundamentally seems to trust itself way too much, and it worries me that it thinks the only threats are external entities... to me, this is another silently ticking time bomb. EDIT: And don't forget that going rogue is just one scen…

You'd think so, but most companies have pretty strict internal controls for this sort of thing. Access is also carefully logged so a leaker is pretty much guaranteed to get caught at which point they'd immediately lose their job and likely face criminal prosecution. With so much to lose and so little to gain internal leaks of this sort are extremely rare.

Unfortunately the criminal charge would be theft of facebook's proprietary information.

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#60
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally I've heard of interns getting fired for just looking at profiles (that they aren't actual friends with) even around 5 years ago. So at least they take it somewhat seriously.

i interned at fb a few years ago. any engineer, intern or not, can access production data. day one you set up an instance of fb on your dev server that you can mess around with, and its connected straight to the prod db. you're able to view anything you want, but they're very adamant that they monitor what you look at.

Yes, but you have to explicitly request data every time you access anything. IDK what it was like when you interned, but that's what it's like today.
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