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Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#101

Post by wolco »

gaahrdner wrote: post #89
quotemstr wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is essential that tech companies, especially ones that provide critical infrastructure, place technical excellence above other priorities. Denigrating meritocracy is like pollution: the impact may not be immediate, and in the short term, it may look like you can have your cake and eat it too, but the universe is not caring and not kind, and if you forget about the need for excellence in the continual struggle agai…

Is Facebook now considered critical infrastructure?

It should be.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#102

Post by 21 »

gaahrdner wrote: post #89
quotemstr wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is essential that tech companies, especially ones that provide critical infrastructure, place technical excellence above other priorities. Denigrating meritocracy is like pollution: the impact may not be immediate, and in the short term, it may look like you can have your cake and eat it too, but the universe is not caring and not kind, and if you forget about the need for excellence in the continual struggle agai…

Is Facebook now considered critical infrastructure?

Anyone who has data on billion users should.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#103

Post by jerf »

gaahrdner wrote: post #89
quotemstr wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is essential that tech companies, especially ones that provide critical infrastructure, place technical excellence above other priorities. Denigrating meritocracy is like pollution: the impact may not be immediate, and in the short term, it may look like you can have your cake and eat it too, but the universe is not caring and not kind, and if you forget about the need for excellence in the continual struggle agai…

Is Facebook now considered critical infrastructure?

The "surface" of Facebook may not be, but the parts of it that keep "personal information" certainly are, due to the scope of what can happen if it leaks.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#104

Post by IvyMike »

modeless wrote: post #56
IvyMike wrote: post #45

So here is a question: my girlfriend only uses FB on her laptop, and always logs out when she's done. I usually make fun of her for doing this. But does this mean most of the time that there was no active access token and she is mostly safe? (Excluding the windows of time where she was actively using FB) Do I have to take back all of my teasing?

I doubt it. The "View As" feature does not require the target to be currently logged in to Facebook AFAIK.

This is an interesting point. Right now, I can't reconcile the "we canceled active sessions thus logging people out" as a fix with the fact that "View As" was the attack vector.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#105

Post by jdminhbg »

testplzignore wrote: post #53

Fun fact: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/09/security-update/ was published at 16:42:44. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/technology/facebook-hack-... was published at 16:45:41. NYT writes fast :)

> “We’re taking it really seriously,” Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, said in a conference call with reporters. “We have a major security effort at the company that hardens all of our surfaces.” He added: “I’m glad we found this. But it definitely is an issue that this happened in the first place.”

There was a conference call with reporters about the subject, so the press release public release was not the first the NYT knew about it. They likely had an embargo agreement.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#106

Post by JumpCrisscross »

fareesh wrote: post #100
gaahrdner wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Facebook now considered critical infrastructure?

According to some in the US government, Facebook can change the result of an election, so I guess that would qualify

> According to some in the US government, Facebook can change the result of an election, so I guess that would qualify

Essential infrastructure describes "assets that are essential for the functioning of a society and economy" [1]. Not things that can cause a lot of damage. Bombers aren't essential infrastructure. Facebook is non-essential.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_infrastructure

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#108

Post by anarazel »

testplzignore wrote: post #53

Fun fact: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/09/security-update/ was published at 16:42:44. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/technology/facebook-hack-... was published at 16:45:41. NYT writes fast :)

Or it was the other way round, they learned of the issue, asked for comment, accelerating the news release.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#109

Post by throwawaymath »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #65

Fun quotes from all of two months ago: 'Facebook is clearly aware that losing its chief security officer and dissolving its dedicated security team, in the middle of all that’s going on, is not a great look. So many of the company’s statements today are clearly designed to address obvious concerns that arise. “We expect to be judged on what we do to protect people’s security, not whether we have someone with a certai…

For what it's worth, Facebook did not dissolve its dedicated security team. That statement is misreporting on the part of The Verge. Facebook's security team is actually expanding its presence.

There is lot of misinformation about the Stamos debacle on all sides.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#110

Post by the_clarence »

laken wrote: post #67
testplzignore wrote: post #53

Fun fact: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/09/security-update/ was published at 16:42:44. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/technology/facebook-hack-... was published at 16:45:41. NYT writes fast :)

In the journalism world, pre-written articles are apparently quite common. I assume they had a boilerplate already for the next Facebook controversy, and just wrote 2-3 opening paragraphs that were relevant for this one. CNN many years ago accidentally left some of their pre-written obituaries for (living) world figures publically accessible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_premature_obituaries#T...

This is probably not at all what happened. Things get heard and articles get quickly written. In this case it can even be the company spreading the news to key media companies in order to control the spreading of the news.
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