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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

#321

Post by chronid »

pslam wrote: post #312
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…

"They're all like this so it's impossible to do good" is an even more morally bankrupt position. It rejects personal responsibility and agency, places you as the victim, and allows you to continue to be a bad actor in the world. You should change this.

It's not impossible to do good, that's not what I'm claiming at all, and that's why the last line is there.

I'm pretty sure you can do good even within facebook, doing your utmost to keep the company accountable (from my experience in another big corp, we don't see 1% of what's happening inside it, and how many people are facepalming - and we'll never know if many things were just humans being stupid or actual calculated decisions). You can also keep your guard up from outside and force facebook to fix itself (obviously, as much as its business allows) from outside, for example pushing it to hire more moderators and get as better so to prevent things like myanmar from happening again.

What I'm saying is that it's impossible (and in my opinion, pointless) to claim moral superiority and to accuse people of being morally bankrupt because they work for corp X.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#322

Post by nialv7 »

dkrich wrote: post #317
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…

It's pretty interesting to me how incredibly polarizing the topic of Facebook is on the web. People seem convinced that Facebook is an evil enterprise and has to be stopped and its board, employees, and shareholders should all suffer. At least that's how it seems based on the loudest voices on the web because defending Facebook is a highly unpopular position. But why? Use of the platform is entirely voluntary. Beyond…

> Use of the platform is entirely voluntary

No it's not. Do you know Facebook creates shadow profiles of you by tracking your online activities?

Even if you discount that, what about when all your friends use Facebook? Then you are going to be forced into a situation where you either use Facebook or stay disconnected from you friends.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#323

Post by richardowright »

goldenManatee wrote: post #313
sdwisely wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it’s clear that attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook’s code that impacted “View As”, a feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else. This allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people’s accounts oh boy, what a mess.

Am catching up. Would these tokens be the signed JWT’s, if so am wondering how they were able to figure out the signature part?

I imagine you just "replay" the issued/signed JWT to Facebook, so you can act like that user.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#324

Post by jim777 »

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…

Man this post made me angry.

Being human is a morally brankrupt position. Accumulating wealth is a morally brankrupt pastime.

If you want to be a morally pure human, starve yourself -- that's the only way.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#325

Post by minikites »

Xyik wrote: post #281

Its sad that everytime there is a post about Facebook the comments are extremely toxic and negative, and don't really even discuss the article itself. I would argue that 80% of all tech companies are doing close to 0 in making the world a 'better place'.

I wouldn't limit that 80% to the technology industry. Capitalism isn't optimized for human or societal welfare, it's optimized for resource extraction and the production of disposable goods.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#326

Post by daten »

erichurkman wrote: post #7
sdwisely wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it’s clear that attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook’s code that impacted “View As”, a feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else. This allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people’s accounts oh boy, what a mess.

User impersonation code always terrifies the bajeebus out of me.

Something similar happened 8 years ago. https://techcrunch.com/2010/05/05/video-major-facebook-secur...

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#327

Post by genericone »

Xyik wrote: post #281

Its sad that everytime there is a post about Facebook the comments are extremely toxic and negative, and don't really even discuss the article itself. I would argue that 80% of all tech companies are doing close to 0 in making the world a 'better place'.

Facebook's goal: Connect all the people

Google's goal: Organize all the information

Amazon's goal: Sell all the merchandise

-----------

Taken at face value, all those companies were/are all trying to make the world a better place in the ways available to them. But when the externalities of those goals affect other people, they will become hated. Everyone has a different opinion of what 'better' means.

Since giant companies are most able to execute their vision of better, they will get most of the hate from people who have a different opinion of better.

Looks to me like its all just a battle for power: People with ideas but lacking implementation and execution, vs Companies with ideas, implementation, execution, AND momentum. Let's not forget all the different forms of government either...

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#328

Post by justinph »

dkrich wrote: post #169
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 :)

There's something ironic about NYT getting a lot of its traffic these days by writing recaps of Facebook news.

* Citation needed

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#329

Post by b_tterc_p »

EGreg wrote: post #132
laken wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition, the site isn't responsive, which is quite problematic considering that statistics show ~60% of web traffic is on mobile devices.

What do you mean it isn’t responsive? It loads on mobile phones with a completely mobile optimized look. Have you tried it? Unless you mean you loaded it on a desktop and tried to resize the browser window to quickly check what would happen on a phone - no normal user does that

You’ve picked a point of the criticism and are trying to defend it. You need to drop your view of your own work when receiving constructive criticism. I agree with other comments. Your website is full of 3d effects and low quality pictures that imply it’s a product for children- and most importantly it doesn’t seem to mention your product besides the blog. A blog is a secondary strand of thought from the main page. You should only have to read the blog if you’re already interested and want to learn details. Also in the blog, you give a long list of features that are very difficult for non technical people to consume. There’s no value statement. It also reads like a side project and not a professional venture. If you spent $700k on this, you should really pay a professional to write some marketing material.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#330

Post by baxtr »

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…

OP’s stance is (I believe) that we shouldn’t align our incentives along money only, but also on the core values of a company. Call it naive or idealistic but I, and obviously many others, believe that we have a responsibility as people and employees to work for companies with the right set of values. Truly lived, not just printed out and put up on the wall. I think this is something that motivates people these days. Do something with a good impact on this planet with the single lifetime we were given and f*ck the money (ideally have both).
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