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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

#291

Post by NeedMoreTea »

chronid wrote: post #253
pdeuchler wrote: post #127

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…

I'm sure "but it pays well" is the rationale used to self-justify many morally dubious through to outright immoral and illegal acts.

Doesn't improve the validity of the position though.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#292

Post by zepto »

brunoTbear wrote: post #260
pdeuchler wrote: post #127

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…

Some of my favorite and most ethical friends work everyday at FB to protect against these kinds of attacks and others. You're making an incredibly global statement about an organization where a more tailored statement would carry your water a lot better.

Ethical people can take part in an unethical project until they realize what they are doing.

The parent poster is calling on them to do just this with regard to Facebook.

There is nothing wrong with that call, and it doesn’t impugn your friends unless they ultimately fail to re-evaluate the company.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#293

Post by wolf550e »

Kalium wrote: post #189
wolf550e wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everything facebook knows about all its users and their contacts who are not themselves facebook users becomes public, people will get hurt.

You're absolutely, completely, 100% correct. Facebook holds an immense trove of private information that in the wrong hands could be leveraged to inflict unimaginable pain and suffering. With that said, is it perhaps possible that some people might view this as subtly distinct from power plants, hospitals, roads, and ISPs? Those are what are generally considered "critical infrastructure".

If you also add the ability to micro-target voters at scale using everything facebook knows about them using secret ads and niche content that only those voters will see and no one knows need debunking, and thus changing the government, then it is very much like the power plants.

I understand the point that you don't need facebook the way you need the ability to feed the people in the cities (and thus need roads and power plants). If facebook disappears, life will go on. But as long as it exists, control of it is critical like control over power plants.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#294

Post by [deleted] »

chronid wrote: post #253
pdeuchler wrote: post #127

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…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#295

Post by pisteoff »

quotemstr wrote: post #130
twoheadedboy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think i'd just much rather spend the short time I've got left in my one existence doing things outside of work that actually make me happy and fulfilled, than being exploited for the benefit of the mostly rich and powerful and the illusion of "progress". If you truly get fulfillment from that stuff then more power to you, but I don't think the vast majority of people who are pressured to perform do. Just because we…

> I think i'd just much rather spend the short time I've got left in my one existence doing things outside of work Okay. That's your choice. But having made this choice, don't complain when those of us who choose to devote more time to work receive greater rewards. There's nothing wrong with paying for performance.

Keep on living to work, brah. I'll feel less guilty clocking out early knowing you're there to keep things running. I bet you'll feel differently on your death bed.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#296

Post by prostoalex »

tobr wrote: post #267
prostoalex wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why haven't they been developed by the time Facebook came around?

Why would it be remarkable that a few popular technologies come out of a big, rich technology company? People who create such technologies work at places like that. But there’s nothing about React or GraphQL that makes them only possible at Facebook.

A big, rich technology company has the resources to put people on the project full time and a revenue stream to justify such broad architectural project.

There's also financial support for building a community around improving the tech, by encouraging outside contributions via meetups, conferences, social events, better technical documentation, etc.

At smaller scale startup an engineer is surely welcome to work on his skunkworks project, but justifying expensive large-scale architectural undertakings on company's dime is problematic. Especially if a quicker fix is available and buys the company a chance to kick the problem down the road.

With that said, it's not impossible to build a major popular piece of technology within a small company (Joyent and Node.js being a good example), it's just harder.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#297

Post by carapace »

chronid wrote: post #253
pdeuchler wrote: post #127

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…

> So is working at Google, Amazon and... ...oil to finance to pharmaceutical to telecommunications

Yes. Most of the large and powerful organizations have severe moral problems, almost all of them due to violations of a simple rule: $ "Love of money is the root of all evil."

We all have choices. We all make decisions.

I would go even further and say that people who ride Uber or buy from Amazon are moral cretins.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#298

Post by TaylorAlexander »

compcoffee wrote: post #290
chronid wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Also, I fear that HN somewhat forgets the world is not SF, 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. I guess if your entire purpose in life is personal wealth, this makes sense. It also makes sense why you f…

That feels pretty dismissive. Wealth independence is a huge deal that gains an individual very important security and well being.

We can chastise the workers as much as we can chastise the consumers who support this system. We’re all complicit in this, for the most part. We can work together to build alternatives.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#299

Post by emodendroket »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #291
chronid wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm sure "but it pays well" is the rationale used to self-justify many morally dubious through to outright immoral and illegal acts. Doesn't improve the validity of the position though.

I'll tell you what: you go to the cloister first and the rest of us will catch up with you later

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#300

Post by [deleted] »

chillydawg wrote: post #280
subcosmos wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]
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