Facebook Secretly Saved Videos Users Deleted • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Secretly Saved Videos Users Deleted

#281

Post by drdaeman » Sun, Apr 01, 2018, 9:07 AM UTC

guessmyname wrote: post #8

This reminds me of the long conversations that I used to have with family members and friends several years ago. With their continuous requests to create my own Facebook profile so I can keep in contact with them and with their activities as well as to share my whereabouts. I always used the same argument to reject these suggestions — "I don't want Facebook to have too much data about me, more than the data that you…

> I have always refused to send that type of images/videos/audios

Isn't it still trivial to self-host stuff?

Just send a link to picture (or document or whatever confidential information you want to share) to a password-protected resource on your own server (or even a laptop or desktop machine, if you have globally routeable IP address there). Facebook automation is not that smart to grab the password from the very same conversation, and even if they do - I'm sure they won't do it, knowing you'll catch them in access logs and press charges for unauthorized access.

I doubt many would object and insist on sending via a very specific medium (i.e. strictly require pics in a FB Messenger). Some, of course, may find this inconvenient.

Re: Facebook Secretly Saved Videos Users Deleted

#282

Post by Demcox » Sun, Apr 01, 2018, 9:20 AM UTC

This can not be a surprise to anyone with a just a bit of skepticism.

Re: Facebook Secretly Saved Videos Users Deleted

#283

Post by speedplane » Sun, Apr 01, 2018, 9:20 AM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #176

dividuum wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am sure that the deletion of media files in services like Facebook has never meant to be absolute. Many of my colleagues believe the same thing that I believe: Facebook and other services do not actually delete data, they just mark it as "deleted" and purge it only if they need the space. No reason to believe. You can read about the storage architecture used to store photos from a post in 2009 here: https://code.…

Allow me to ask the obvious question. Who doesn't do the something like this? Not to alleviate facebook of blame, but who's to say data on almost every other social media service isn't also just flagged for deletion?

> Not to alleviate facebook of blame, but who's to say data on almost every other social media service isn't also just flagged for deletion?

The word "delete" has a pretty clear definition to most users. Facebook is one of the most used pieces of software in the world. If FB is allowed to lie to its users, it would indeed give a pass to just about every social media service out there.

The reason Facebook is special, and deserves special scrutiny, is because of its power. If FB establishes a bad behavior, it will become the norm.

Re: Facebook Secretly Saved Videos Users Deleted

#284

Post by falcor84 » Sun, Apr 01, 2018, 9:23 AM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #173

You mean they follow what many people consider best practices? https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1592... https://stackoverflow.com/questions/820466/never-delete-entr... https://serverfault.com/questions/31455/should-i-ever-delete... https://www.infoq.com/news/2009/09/Do-Not-Delete-Data http://udidahan.com/2009/09/01/dont-delete-just-dont/ https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2549839/are-soft-dele…

These best practices are about database records and not about files. I'd be very surprised if Facebook store files as database blobs. These are generally stored on a separate system, and it's quite reasonable to delete the file while keeping the metadata in the database.

Re: Facebook Secretly Saved Videos Users Deleted

#285

Post by speedplane » Sun, Apr 01, 2018, 9:24 AM UTC

Demcox wrote: post #282

This can not be a surprise to anyone with a just a bit of skepticism.

Agreed, but most do not have much skepticism. You and I may have known about Facebook and had accounts (or deleted them) for over a decade, however many current users are relative internet novices.

Re: Facebook Secretly Saved Videos Users Deleted

#286

Post by speedplane » Sun, Apr 01, 2018, 9:26 AM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #31

Huh. So now I'm starting to think: what if I purposely recorded thousands and thousands of meaningless video? None of my friends would ever see them since I never published them, but Facebook would use up hard drive space storing them. What if a lot of people did that? Suddenly Facebook's cost for hanging onto all these videos would become quite high with no value in doing so. Anyone feel like making a website to hel…

Facebook might actually love this. Because for every 20 useless videos you upload, you may click, comment, or view some facebook message that pops up while you're uploading. It could become a net gain for them.

Re: Facebook Secretly Saved Videos Users Deleted

#287

Post by speedplane » Sun, Apr 01, 2018, 9:27 AM UTC

Kequc wrote: post #109

Storage costs next to nothing, recovery costs a lot. Why would facebook who depends on this data for income ever delete it. You get two massive benefits from keeping it and setting a "deleted" flag. Why would anyone expect anything different. How entitled do people feel they are.

It's quite simple: if someone says they deleted something, you expect them to delete it. If they don't, they are lying, and you can't really trust them with anything else.

Re: Facebook Secretly Saved Videos Users Deleted

#288

Post by dorgo » Sun, Apr 01, 2018, 9:29 AM UTC

dividuum wrote: post #57

guessmyname wrote: post #8

This reminds me of the long conversations that I used to have with family members and friends several years ago. With their continuous requests to create my own Facebook profile so I can keep in contact with them and with their activities as well as to share my whereabouts. I always used the same argument to reject these suggestions — "I don't want Facebook to have too much data about me, more than the data that you…

> I am sure that the deletion of media files in services like Facebook has never meant to be absolute. Many of my colleagues believe the same thing that I believe: Facebook and other services do not actually delete data, they just mark it as "deleted" and purge it only if they need the space. No reason to believe. You can read about the storage architecture used to store photos from a post in 2009 here: https://code.…

The database we use (Vertica) works this way. Nothing is deleted. Instead it is flagged as deleted. A background task may purge old data (older than x). Historical queries show the database state as it was days or weeks ago. If the background task is broken (bug?) then the data stays indefinitelly on disk.

Re: Facebook Secretly Saved Videos Users Deleted

#289

Post by izacus » Sun, Apr 01, 2018, 9:33 AM UTC

There are people on this very site complaning about how "hard" it is to delete data on request to be GDPR compliant. Highly paid developer experts are literaly throwing a fit when told that they should be able to delete data when "Delete" button is clicked.

It's not just Facebook.

Re: Facebook Secretly Saved Videos Users Deleted

#290

Post by jaclaz » Sun, Apr 01, 2018, 9:35 AM UTC

guessmyname wrote: post #8

This reminds me of the long conversations that I used to have with family members and friends several years ago. With their continuous requests to create my own Facebook profile so I can keep in contact with them and with their activities as well as to share my whereabouts. I always used the same argument to reject these suggestions — "I don't want Facebook to have too much data about me, more than the data that you…

>I got used to the looks of disbelief, thinking that I was some sort of hermit, an antisocial.

I know that look.

>I also got tired of answering the frequent "Why don't you have Facebook?" questions.

I solved it by stating flatly "For the same reasons I don't have Twitter.", somehow marking the final period, people still believes I'm a kind of weirdo, but they don't go on asking ...