Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#71

Post by jerf » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 7:20 PM UTC

rectang wrote: post #45

alex- wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people, at some level, know this and accept it. I think the shock comes when you think how long this information is kept for, and what that means. i.e. each year they can advertise age appropriate birthday presents, a few years from now they might get adverts for children party suppliers. As they grow up college saving funds, colleges, trips to Disney land, first cars can all be targeted to you at just t…

The shock is that it's exploitable by political actors who people are opposed to. That's what's getting attention these days.

I just hope people, including a lot of people reading this, remember this for longer than two or three news cycles. Just because Not-Trump gets into power someday doesn't mean that he or she won't be followed by Not-Not-Trump. In fact, I guarantee the eventual rise to power of Not-Not-Trump, because the only thing that would stop it is if Not-Trump successfully institutes totalitarianism, hardly a win. Our vigilance on this matter can't depend on how much we collectively do or do not like the people currently in power. That was a big mistake Silicon Valley made over the past decade and the bill is coming due in a big way.

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#72

Post by saboot » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 7:22 PM UTC

Jerry2 wrote: post #70

FTA: “For example, on Messenger, when you send a photo, our automated systems scan it using photo matching technology to detect known child exploitation imagery Ah yes, the "Think of the children" [1] argument. This is the favorite argument of censorship [2] lawmakers, dictators and everyone who wants to destroy personal liberties and privacy. They always invoke "think of the children" arguments because you look like…

What do you propose as an alternative? This isn't govt mandated censorship, it's a private company not wanting to become a CP sharing portal.

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#73

Post by cortesoft » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 7:25 PM UTC

logicallee wrote: post #44

TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #23

When our daughter was born, and I sent an announcement via GMail, I started seeing ads for diapers. After that, I assume anything I'm doing on the internet is being data mined for advertising or some other source of revenue.

Would you rather see ads for cat food? (Even though you don't have a cat.) This is not a rhetorical question: please answer it. The reason for this question is that even though you don't have a cat lots of people do! It's absolutely not a false dichotomy. Either people who have no cats must see cat food advertisements (bad choice), or cat food advertisements must be shown to people who probably have a cat (better cho…

I think targeted ads are worse than generic ads, yes. There is a great article about it here:

http://zgp.org/targeted-advertising-considered-harmful/

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#74

Post by rco8786 » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

Shank wrote: post #52

rco8786 wrote: post #39

Why is this newsworthy? Did people think Facebook somehow didn't have access to what was being sent across its own platform?

Yes, they have access. The point is more that they have an automated system scanning and flagging messages, specifically so that they're reviewed by humans, for content they don't want on their platform. My landlord has access to my apartment, and I certainly don't expect them to just pop in and take things out that they don't like -- I at least expect some kind of notice. You can apply this to basically anything in…

> Having the capability to access does not equate to having permission to access.

So it would be ok if there was a 30 day delay on the messages Facebook was accessing?

I don't understand your analogy.

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#75

Post by pmlnr » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 7:30 PM UTC

CGamesPlay wrote: post #30

pmlnr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also closed source, so no real way of auditing this promise.

Do you trust that the source code for the Signal iOS app on Github is the source code of the application you're running on your phone? All you really have to go on is the word of each company.

True, this is indeed a problem. I'm mostly trusting debian and f-droid, both non-profit, but still in need of trust.

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#76

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 7:31 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #54

pmlnr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

stopping "Bad content" is a slippery slope, especially on a network, where most only talk to people they actually know and who are usually using real identities. Keep in mind it's private messaging we're talking about.

Many people have that same expectation of email, but are ok with spam and phish filtering

With email, I don’t explicitly white list people I want to communicate with. With messaging apps, Facebook has a list of people I consider “friends”.

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#77

Post by imichael » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 7:31 PM UTC

tristanj wrote: post #3

Old news. Facebook has been doing this since at least 2009, I recall seeing an article where Facebook censored all links (including those in private messaegs) to thepiratebay.org [0] They also crawl links you share in private messages to grab the title, intro, and favicon to generate that clickable widget link thing. [0] https://torrentfreak.com/facebook-blocks-all-pirate-bay-link...

Yes the mechanics of handling a message or posting or whatever is understood at some level by everyone and perfectly acceptable. What's troubling is that they associate all of it and more with a cumulative collection of information about a "persona" that is essentially permanent, and in the majority of cases they know who that persona belongs to. The individual concerned has no control over it. Further even FB et al do not have complete control how that persona is used or abused.

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#78

Post by fencepost » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

Shank wrote: post #52

rco8786 wrote: post #39

Why is this newsworthy? Did people think Facebook somehow didn't have access to what was being sent across its own platform?

Yes, they have access. The point is more that they have an automated system scanning and flagging messages, specifically so that they're reviewed by humans, for content they don't want on their platform. My landlord has access to my apartment, and I certainly don't expect them to just pop in and take things out that they don't like -- I at least expect some kind of notice. You can apply this to basically anything in…

The point is more that they have an automated system scanning and flagging messages, specifically so that they're reviewed by humans, for content they don't want on their platform.

Expect more of that due to the recently passed sex trafficking legislation that got Craigslist personals, reddit escorts and all sorts of other places shut down.

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#79

Post by linuxftw » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

There seems to be a cottage industry around making words more palatable when it comes to tech privacy.

"Scans" should be "reads and stores"

"What you send to other people" should be "private messages, images, and videos"

"What you send to other people" implies that there was no expectation of privacy in the first place, which (while true) I think does not match the 'normal' person's expectations or understanding.

News organizations need to be more candid with the public about how their information is being inspected and stored instead of using slick language to downplay the distasteful practices of many organizations.

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#80

Post by lostlogin » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 7:37 PM UTC

barryduffman wrote: post #66

lostlogin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they didn't scan and detect child porn, there would be articles about how they're letting people get away with sharing child porn on Messenger. No there wouldn’t be. Do you hear that about iMessage, SMS, email or the numerous other services?

Google does scan for child pornography in Gmail: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2461400/how-google-handles-c... . This is done with PhotoDNA, a system used by many large tech companies for child pornography detection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhotoDNA .

Thanks for that link - I can’t edit my above comment now to note that some scanning does happen. I wonder how well it works, as the false positive rates must be huge? The idea of someone looking at my account and playing abuse/not abuse roulette is disturbing.