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Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

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

#81

Post by foobaw »

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.

Okay, but couldn't this be good for some people? If they see cheap diaper ads, they might be motivated to buy them.

I know the implication is negative in terms of privacy, but it has its benefits if it could actually solve problems and provide value to the majority.

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

#82

Post by greggarious »

saboot wrote: post #72
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.

I think the parent's (unstated) implication is that a system that can detect and block from a list of CP hashes could also be used to block any other content.

For example, let's say I create an eye catching flyer image detailing locations for a peaceful protest against the firing of a Mueller. Such a system could be used to block it.

Right now no one opposes building it, but the capacity once created can be easily abused.

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

#83

Post by barryduffman »

lostlogin wrote: post #80
barryduffman wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well it's an automated system, so it's highly unlikely that someone is reading all (or any) of your messages. The volume of messages Facebook and Google process every day is astronomical, so no manual oversight process would scale. It's similar to how email spam filters have worked in a completely automated fashion for years. In this case, PhotoDNA works by comparing image hashes, so it probably has fewer false positives than spam filters.

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

#84

Post by logicallee »

danpalmer wrote: post #68
logicallee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Would you rather see ads for cat food? Yes. I do not own a cat but would prefer to see cat food ads. I would suggest however, that cat food brands should advertise on pet channels on Youtube, or on pet related blogs perhaps. This allows targeting, but without collecting data about the users, many of whom do not know enough about online advertising to provide informed consent. The best adverts I've seen were from Ca…

Let me ask you this then. I clicked your HN profile for clues about what your interests might be, and you mention your public key on keybase.io. For this example (I am writing this before I did this search) I will search Google for keybase.io and copy here one of the top ads.

Unfortunately keybase.io and keybase as search terms don't show me any ads. Let me try "public key". Still no ad. (On Google's homepage.)

Let me try keybase public key. Still no ad.

Let me try public key server. No ad. I clicked around on some related queries, until I finally saw an ad. (The query I ended up under was: sks keyserver setup).

Now here is the ad that I saw:

   OpenPGP Library for .NET‎
   Adwww.didisoft.com/‎
   Pure .NET OpenPGP Library Easy API
   Online examplesPurchaseProduct page
(How it appeared to me, at the bottom of the search page: https://imgur.com/a/n76d3)

Now let me ask you. If you are a .NET developer and you're trying to work with PGP, would you rather see what I just showed you - or would you rather see an ad for cat food (even though you don't own a cat)?

Please be honest here.

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

#85

Post by edwhitesell »

dylan604 wrote: post #10
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...

I have the same initial reaction. However, even though we 1% of tech geeks that are paying attention and are aware of these things, how many of us have had people slightly tilt their head sideways in confusion when we try to inform them of this stuff. I'm sure we've all been labeled kooks, conspiracy nut, tin foil hat wearers, etc in the past. This is one of those situations where the mass populace just didn't want t…

It's similar to the activities of most anti-virus/malware agents on computers. Of course, one could argue those cases are focused much more on the security aspects, rather than Facebook's revenue-generating motives to see what you do for advertising purposes.

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

#86

Post by tzahola »

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…

As if pedophiles would send their stuff in the clear...

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

#87

Post by nstj »

criddell wrote: post #37
DRAGONERO wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Apple do this with iMessage? I don't think they can, even.

They could. Correct me if I'm wrong but users don't see which public keys have been used to encrypt the message's symmetric key. Theoretically Apple could easily and invisibly include themselves as a recipient.

You're exactly right and I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. Apple can add additional keys to iMessage messages and thus view them in transit - they say this themselves in their own security white paper[0].

[0]: https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf

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

#88

Post by nstj »

DeepYogurt wrote: post #32

So they mention the encrypted mode, but they don't confirm that facebook doesn't read those (either can't or won't). Can anyone confirm one way or another?

I'm not sure why this is being downvoted - it's IMO one of the most important questions about this post.

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

#89

Post by tzahola »

logicallee wrote: post #84
danpalmer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you rather see ads for cat food? Yes. I do not own a cat but would prefer to see cat food ads. I would suggest however, that cat food brands should advertise on pet channels on Youtube, or on pet related blogs perhaps. This allows targeting, but without collecting data about the users, many of whom do not know enough about online advertising to provide informed consent. The best adverts I've seen were from Ca…

Let me ask you this then. I clicked your HN profile for clues about what your interests might be, and you mention your public key on keybase.io. For this example (I am writing this before I did this search) I will search Google for keybase.io and copy here one of the top ads. Unfortunately keybase.io and keybase as search terms don't show me any ads. Let me try "public key". Still no ad. (On Google's homepage.) Let m…

I would rather see the cat food. Software products that need advertisement to succeed are either underperforming (because they’ve spent their money on ads instead of devs) or scams.

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

#90

Post by danso »

scarface74 wrote: post #76
danso wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

What difference does that make?
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