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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

#161

Post by Retra »

foobaw wrote: post #81
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.

Like a person with a newborn child doesn't know they want cheap diapers or something? What is this?

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

#162

Post by lostlogin »

barryduffman wrote: post #83
lostlogin wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 posit…

It mentions that humans verify hits in the above links - but yes, it would seem unlikely for the average user.

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

#163

Post by gst »

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.

No. But I trust that the Signal binaries for Android match the source code that is published on Github: https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/

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

#164

Post by aianus »

hmate9 wrote: post #6

Ofcourse they do. On one hand it’s absolutely surprising that such a piece is considered “news” but on the other hand at least the general public (not just people in CS) are paying more attention to their privacy. But in this case I think it’s 100% fine, even expected in order to stop bad content (porn, abuse etc) from going through

> But in this case I think it’s 100% fine, even expected in order to stop bad content (porn, abuse etc) from going through

I was pretty shocked when FB filtered out a pornhub link I tried to send to my then-girlfriend on Messenger. I thought it was very inappropriate of them to police our relationship like that. We were both adults...

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

#165

Post by wsetchell »

aserafini wrote: post #92
linuxftw wrote: post #79

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. New…

Another example of charitable sanitisation: referring to personal data being 'monetized' rather than 'sold'. Information is sold when advertisers can target sets of users based on their personal data.

I hear this point frequently, but never really understood it. Can you explain? Here's the flow as I understand it.

1) Advertiser tells tech company "please show this ad to people you think are interested in X"

2) Tech company uses its private data to figure out who to show the ad to.

3) If you don't click the ad, end of story. No data leaves the tech companies servers to tell anyone anything about you.

4) If you click the ad, the place that ad directs to will know the ad you came from. Åt most, they can use referral source to infer some data about you.

To me, data is sold means that large amounts of personal data are shared about me without my consent. What am I misunderstanding?

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

#166

Post by desu_ »

reaperducer wrote: post #115
tzahola wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Based on the perp walks I've seen on TV they don't look exceptionally intelligent.

Some (off the top of my head, Taleb) advance the argument of survival bias: Smarter criminals are less likely to get caught and so, are less likely to be offered a seat by Chris Hansen.

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

#168

Post by mrep »

nstj wrote: post #127
oarsinsync wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple can add additional keys to iMessage messages and thus view them in transit - they say this themselves in their own security white paper I just read the section on iMessage (from around page 49) and I can’t see where this is written. Can you point to the part where they say this?

Page 51: > The private keys for both key pairs are saved in the device’s Keychain and the public keys are sent to Apple’s directory service (IDS), where they are associated with the user’s phone number or email address, along with the device’s APNs address.

I'm no security engineer but wouldn't that require Apple to have access to the private key, whereas the whitepaper says they only have access to the public key?

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

#169

Post by rock_hard »

lz400 wrote: post #147
rock_hard wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On top of that news outlets essentially lost almost all their web traffic after FB started focusing on meaningful connections in January. They are probably beyond pissed because of the ad revenue loses...wonder how many of them will fold soon?

Can you elaborate on how that change affected news outlets? I can understand they losing traffic to fb in general but I guess I'm unaware of that specific change.

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104413015393571

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

#170

Post by aserafini »

wsetchell wrote: post #165
aserafini wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another example of charitable sanitisation: referring to personal data being 'monetized' rather than 'sold'. Information is sold when advertisers can target sets of users based on their personal data.

I hear this point frequently, but never really understood it. Can you explain? Here's the flow as I understand it. 1) Advertiser tells tech company "please show this ad to people you think are interested in X" 2) Tech company uses its private data to figure out who to show the ad to. 3) If you don't click the ad, end of story. No data leaves the tech companies servers to tell anyone anything about you. 4) If you clic…

Why does selling information mean 'large amounts of data must be shared'?

The explanation is in your point (4). Let's expand on it:

I click an ad targeted at African-American, Christian homosexuals, over 40 years old, living in Boston, earning >$100,0000 with a custom audience set consisting of 100 email addresses the advertiser scraped from a forum.

By the way, I never told Facebook my sexual orientation, salary or religion, it was inferred based on other sites I visit.

When I click the ad, Facebook reveals to the advertiser that I match this description: and this is exactly what the advertiser pays them for.

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