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Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

theguardian.com

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#351

Post by stephenr »

chenning wrote: post #347
18pfsmt wrote: post #203

Some poor Senator just went on a rabbit hunt to discuss FB's bug bounty program. Who are these Congressional staffers? Tech illiteracy is on full-display; we're not even talking 'power-users' (who were on UseNet, btw), these people are lost. Zuckerberg had to be gracious and say his team would follow-up on many things that it was clear the Senator didn't even understand. This is supposed to be our smart chamber.

I would also argue that a healthy dose of tech illiteracy (if that's what you want to call it) is precisely what we need in this situation. Tech minded people will always find a way to decide in favor of technology. They are loyal to the technology. We need people who can look at all of this from the unbiased perspective.

> Tech minded people will always find a way to decide in favor of technology.

I’m pretty tech minded, and I fucking abhor Facebook and Google for the way they behave as a matter of business.

Don’t assume that because you might feel inclined to give tech a pass because it’s tech, that others would too.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#352

Post by Silhouette »

bhhaskin wrote: post #325
Silhouette wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the sort of word game that surely wouldn't last ten seconds in any courtroom. "Did you delete the data or not?" "Yes, we deleted the data." "Then how is it that we're all sitting here looking at it?" This modern fiction of pretending something is deleted just because someone set a flag called "deleted" has about as much relevance to actual deletion as the evil bit in an IPv4 header has to actual Internet secu…

But the reality is that is exactly what is happening when you delete a file. It sets a flag as deleted in the file system. The data reminds there until overwritten. Computers have worked this way since forever. Also if you look at the definition of delete it matches this. To remove by striking out or canceling, not to remove all remove all traces.

But the reality is that is exactly what is happening when you delete a file. It sets a flag as deleted in the file system.

Sure, but no-one is testifying before a senior government committee that such files were "deleted" in a context where deletion is clearly understood to mean making permanently irretrievable. If the committee called any IT expert to give evidence and asked if data had really been deleted under those conditions, surely no-one who understood the technicalities would say yes.

Computers have worked this way since forever.

A lot of things have been done "since forever" in the computer age. The fact that some of those things might not be good ideas and public awareness has finally reached the point where something might actually be done about it is rather the point here.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#353

Post by lawnchair_larry »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #265
m52go wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way Cambridge Analytica's got its data was a little nefarious...as I understand it, they obtained data through ways Facebook discouraged (but still enabled). Whether you consider that an 'exploit' or not is subjective. It's certainly not an 'exploit' in the more common infosec sense. But the real issue here is that Facebook was complicit in electing Donald Trump. It's political.

i thought that the data flow was: 1. FB users took a personality survey conducted by some researchers at Cambridge University. 2. Then one of those researchers sold the data they'd collected on FB users to the newly formed Cambridge Analytica. 3. The Trump campaign employed CA and CA used this data to directly message FB users who'd completed the personality survey At some point, FB learned of this unapproved resale…

The survey was a decoy. By taking the survey, you got a screen that asked if you wanted to allow the survey to have access to your profile. If you said yes, it got all of your data from your facebook account, including all of the data on your friends that your account has access to. The survey itself was basically a trojan horse and irrelevant.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#354

Post by Slansitartop »

18pfsmt wrote: post #184
dusing wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuck had himself just said that people living in silicon valley are overwhelmingly left leaning. So when he says they have 20k back home policing content it would makes sense to assume those 20k people are included in the group Zuck summarizes as overwhelmingly left leaning. Worth asking about.

He also emphasized that the majority of their users are not speaking English or in the US, so their foreign workforce would not reflect the political views of SV nor the US.

> so their foreign workforce would not reflect the political views of SV nor the US.

However, at a minimum, the Facebook employees setting the polices those foreign workers follow will be in both the US and SV, so you can't assume their actions will be aloof from American politics.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#355

Post by Im_Mr_Manager »

cdlvan wrote: post #219
0x00000000 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not have the facebook app on my phone. I downloaded Instagram and it magically knew one of my email addresses (not the one used with my facebook account). I deleted it, mashed the keyboard for the new email address, declined syncing contacts, blocked the permission as well as every other permission, and lo and behold it still shows all of my facebook friends on instagram as suggestions. Fucking creepy.

If you previously had Facebook or Messenger installed on the phone it's possible they saved some user info on the device or in the cloud linked to your device ID.

AFAIK device uuid has been unique to device+app for at least 2 years now (iOS).

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#356

Post by paulddraper »

hyperdimension wrote: post #350
andromeduck wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think there's a requirement to be very informed about the subject matter. Why would you think that? This is a time limited, one day high profile public hearing.

I think it's actually two days. That's what they said on the CSPAN radio stream, anyway.

One day for each house

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#357

Post by Karishma1234 »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #263
18pfsmt wrote: post #203

Some poor Senator just went on a rabbit hunt to discuss FB's bug bounty program. Who are these Congressional staffers? Tech illiteracy is on full-display; we're not even talking 'power-users' (who were on UseNet, btw), these people are lost. Zuckerberg had to be gracious and say his team would follow-up on many things that it was clear the Senator didn't even understand. This is supposed to be our smart chamber.

Disagree. Several controversial questions were dodged by saying his team would follow up. While it's attractive to paint politicians as incompetent buffoons, let's not forget each of them has their own staff and understands what it means to delegate to your staff and not have answers immediately on hand that only a staff expert would understand.

Both politicians and Facebook have different incentives.

Facebook has to stay competitive and work with realities with the world. Politicians are paid from taxpayer money and don't have to pay for their decisions.

Politicians are not stupid. They can hire smart tech people to ask smart questions but it does not matter to them. Ted Cruz will still keep his job even if he asks stupid questions. Marc on other hand lose billions of dollars if he makes stupid decisions.

The politicians there do not care about privacy or you and me. That is just pretence. All they care about is how they can benefit from Facebook's $$$$. How can they use Facebook's success to gain more power.

Most of these politicians support unauthorised searches and snooping. These hearings are all farce and I hope Zuck comes out as a winner.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#358

Post by Blahah »

bithive123 wrote: post #328
bhhaskin wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the reality is that is exactly what is happening when you delete a file. It sets a flag as deleted in the file system. The data reminds there until overwritten. Computers have worked this way since forever. Also if you look at the definition of delete it matches this. To remove by striking out or canceling, not to remove all remove all traces.

The point people are trying to make is that properly practiced law can't be circumvented by these kinds of arguments. If there was a requirement to do something with the data and it was not done then you failed, technical jargon and implementation details are irrelevant.

I really do not think this is accurate. I have been in a courtroom when a file was described as 'deleted' and then an expert witness 'recovered' the 'deleted' file, which was entered as evidence.

Delete is a technical word that has a specfiic meaning. Unlike most language, technical terms are (to some degree) clearly defined and should not change over time or with common usage. Whether people misinterpret the word arbitrarily is not important when experts are being consulted - they use the word as defined. The word delete means what it means, and any expert giving testimony about it would use the same definition. It certainly doesn't mean removing information completely from existence with no possibility of it surviving in any way or ever being retrieved.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#359

Post by paulddraper »

adventured wrote: post #303
forgot-my-pw wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Facebook hearing is the greatest generational divide I’ve ever seen. It’s like watching WWII generals question somebody on drone strikes and cyberwarfare." https://twitter.com/eugenegu/status/983788172306874369

That's an entirely bullshit statement by the twitter user. WW2 generals were very arguably some of the greatest military minds the world has ever seen. They rapidly adopted what was radically new military technology at the time and figured out how to use it extraordinarily effectively through understanding it. Eisenhower, Montgomery, Rommel, MacArthur, Patton, Bradley would immediately understand drone strikes. I gua…

Not to mention, the military effort practically included the invention of computers.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#360

Post by ovao »

18pfsmt wrote: post #229
lakechfoma wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he was trying to get at something here though: can you run a business that is free for some people and isn't ad based? To which I think the answer could be nuanced. Maybe a large enough population pays $4/month and can thus subsidize some part of the population that doesn't have that privilege. Note I'm not actually advocating that, just saying I want to give the guy a benefit of the doubt that he was trying…

None of these people (i.e. legislators) should be involved until/unless they decide to learn how this stuff works.

What, you don’t think that someone who believes WhatsApp is an email client should be allowed to legislate technology? /sarcasm
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