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Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

nytimes.com

271–280 of 635 posts

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#271
post #234

I find facebook's effects on privacy and democracy as scary as the next person, but so far their secure coding standards have been extremely high. They're one of the few big names NOT on haveibeenpwned.com, they run their passwords through a KDF and then encrypt the result with a hardware security module, and a whole lot of other good things. I guess even the best (at secure coding) sometimes mess up.

Many users are still going to use the same password for their FB account and email account. All the security in the world won't fix people.

Pervasive biometric security may be the next step. I know it's scary and could actually be abused but it also can generally increase the level of security for everyone.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#272

Recently talked to 2 friends working for fb. According to them, the culture there is very toxic. For a master's degree, once get in, you need to get promoted in 22 months (I might misremember the actual number.) or you will have to leave. Debugging is never counted as a real work, so for quick promotion, nobody wants to solve bugs unless a bug becomes too obvious. And they also complained about no work-life balance.…

Trading anecdotes, I have a number of friends at Facebook (both at Menlo Park and the NYC office), and they complain about the opposite: lots of people just coasting and doing the minimum needed to get by, really hard to fire people, etc.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#273

Said this yesterday in the other Facebook thread, and I'll say it again. Working for Facebook is a morally bankrupt position. If you are an engineer you have plenty of job opportunities available to you and there is no excuse for you to continue contributing your labor and time to a wholly malignant organization. At a certain point one has to ask how we as an industry will start dealing with those who continue to tak…

So is working at Google, Amazon and probably 90% of the big corps of the world in many sectors - from oil to finance to pharmaceutical to telecommunications and so on. And we can include the government. If you're a subcontrator or sold in body rental (modern IT slavery) you're also in the same position as an employee, so you're enabling their evils. Also, if one of those companies is a client of your company you're a…

>>in Europe going to work for Facebook/Google/Amazon is a enormous bump (we're speaking 2-4x) of salary for many people, which in some cases means you can buy an house after 3-4 years even with the crazy rents back in your home country - and that's HUGE.

So this is how we justify it now? “But it will allow me to buy a house in 3-4 years”?

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#274
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wild speculation. Any evidence? I don't think there has been much stopping these companies selling the data up to this point. That's been the issue with Facebook and others, they have happily sold peoples data with little legal protection for the people whose data they sell. There is no crime in just selling the data within the US so your theory doesn't hold up. Never attribute to conspiracy that which is adequately…

I don't have any evidence. But I just like to think it that way. Also it could be because I finished reading most of the books mentioned here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17749283 BTW there are people who need data, not just people within US. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/world/asia/trump-china-el... "Mr. Trump did not suggest that China’s behavior was on the scale of Russia’s sophisticated campaign of m…

> But I just like to think it that way.

You should try and change that. Best to deal with the actual verifiable ills of the world, without causing misdirection and making up new ones

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#275
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened was that VCs started sucking up all the equity and it became not worth it from a risk-reward perspective for most people to work at a startup. This, coupled with companies staying private longer meant that in the lat 5 years, you were better off working at G/FB than a small or mid-sized startup. e.g https://www.slideshare.net/a16z/state-of-49390473/29-29Becau...

While VCs certainly played into this, I'd say founders merit the bulk of the blame. VCs are generally more amenable than founders to larger equity pools for employees. They're also much more enthusiastic about IPOs than founders, since they want liquidity events for their investments.

Thank you both. VCs and founders together have sucked up all the potential value of working for a startup, leaving only risk and below-market pay to employees. Until this changes, big name companies are not just safer but higher expected value.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#276

Said this yesterday in the other Facebook thread, and I'll say it again. Working for Facebook is a morally bankrupt position. If you are an engineer you have plenty of job opportunities available to you and there is no excuse for you to continue contributing your labor and time to a wholly malignant organization. At a certain point one has to ask how we as an industry will start dealing with those who continue to tak…

I've got several infosec friends at Facebook right now, all new hires, trying to preserve our democracy from attacks. I don't consider them morally bankrupt at all.

How does the fit with Myanmar? It’s hardly a democracy, but is ‘morally bankrupy’ too strong a term for what they have helped create there? And that’s ignoring Cambridge Analytica, the creative accounting for that and the other related scandals.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#277

Said this yesterday in the other Facebook thread, and I'll say it again. Working for Facebook is a morally bankrupt position. If you are an engineer you have plenty of job opportunities available to you and there is no excuse for you to continue contributing your labor and time to a wholly malignant organization. At a certain point one has to ask how we as an industry will start dealing with those who continue to tak…

So is working at Google, Amazon and probably 90% of the big corps of the world in many sectors - from oil to finance to pharmaceutical to telecommunications and so on. And we can include the government. If you're a subcontrator or sold in body rental (modern IT slavery) you're also in the same position as an employee, so you're enabling their evils. Also, if one of those companies is a client of your company you're a…

Too much common sense for the internet. I'd love to know the organizations all the Facebook and Google haters work for. No firm is perfect.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#278

Said this yesterday in the other Facebook thread, and I'll say it again. Working for Facebook is a morally bankrupt position. If you are an engineer you have plenty of job opportunities available to you and there is no excuse for you to continue contributing your labor and time to a wholly malignant organization. At a certain point one has to ask how we as an industry will start dealing with those who continue to tak…

I abhor the phrase "morally bankrupt". Who are you to judge the entirety of someone's moral compass?

Some dude on the Internet who knows better than everyone else.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#279

Said this yesterday in the other Facebook thread, and I'll say it again. Working for Facebook is a morally bankrupt position. If you are an engineer you have plenty of job opportunities available to you and there is no excuse for you to continue contributing your labor and time to a wholly malignant organization. At a certain point one has to ask how we as an industry will start dealing with those who continue to tak…

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Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#280

Said this yesterday in the other Facebook thread, and I'll say it again. Working for Facebook is a morally bankrupt position. If you are an engineer you have plenty of job opportunities available to you and there is no excuse for you to continue contributing your labor and time to a wholly malignant organization. At a certain point one has to ask how we as an industry will start dealing with those who continue to tak…

I've got several infosec friends at Facebook right now, all new hires, trying to preserve our democracy from attacks. I don't consider them morally bankrupt at all.

The various democracies your friends are protecting are at risk from Facebook et al, not hackers abusing Facebook.
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