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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

#331

Post by pslam »

chronid wrote: post #321
pslam wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 calcul…

Sure it is.

There are plenty of companies which can't easily be categorized as having significant negative effects to the world. You can work for a "bad" company but consciously constrain your work to a business unit which improves customers' lives.

What you're using is false equivalence. You know what the worst thing for the environment is? Being born. Why do people insist on living when everything is bad? Reject the notion that you're powerless to change things.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#332

Post by chaosbutters314 »

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 call this toxic in the least. There is no name calling or childish behavior. I would just call it debating.

I have a coworker that is jealous of me and my boss because we go at it, but we both know it isn't personal. It is about making the right call on a project. We each think we are right and just trying to make our point

So I think this thread is just more intense but there is no ill will

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#333

Post by Globz »

What really freaks me out is the day Facebook die, what will happen to all of this data?

If you heard about the NCIX story where they basically abandoned their servers filled with users data (over 13 years of data) and someone scooped them up and tried to resell them on the black market, one could think that a similar fate is possible.

source : https://www.privacyfly.com/articles/ncix_breach/

Obviously if Facebook was going under it would probably trigger a huge legal process on how to handle the data but it clearly doesn't happen for smaller businesses...

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#334

Post by dkrich »

nialv7 wrote: post #322
dkrich wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you know Facebook creates shadow profiles of you by tracking your online activities?

How would they do this if you never visit the site or download the app? If you're referring to the use of a pixel, compared to the full-fledge use of cookies used by other ad networks (the Gizmodo article from yesterday itself noticeably had ads all they way down the page based on sites I'd recently visited), surely that alone doesn't make FB evil relative to other advertisers?

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.

Why are you forced to use Facebook or be disconnected from your friends? You still have texts, email, Twitter and phones. I know a few people (admittedly not a lot) that refuse to use Facebook. They complain occasionally because they believe they are missing out on seeing photos or something, but nothing to the point where they are in the dark. I think the use of Facebook is a convenience and each person has to weigh their values against what they know Facebook does. But let's not elevate what Facebook does beyond the level of displaying ads for money and crossing ethical boundaries in some instances about what data they use to target those ads. Based on some comments you'd think they were proactively trying to destroy the world.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#336

Post by ankimal »

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…

Its a free world and last I checked its not illegal to work for FB. Trust in market forces to take it course.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#337

Post by martimarkov »

chronid wrote: post #288
enraged_camel wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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”?

I was just noting that in other parts of the world (where the average salary nationally for developers is NOT a comfy 60k$) finding alternatives to those companies can be a little bit complex, and for sure no less evil. The "justification" (if you want to call it that way) you are looking for is in the part you forgot to quote and respond to ;)

I find it hard to believe that only FB has on office in that country that offers the $60k you are referring to. I work in London and there are a lot of companies that will give close to FB salary if you are a good developer. And yes there are companies that are not as corrupt as FB, Google, Amazon.

So I'm wondering (out of curiosity as I can't personally think of any) where in Europe is that happening?

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#338

Post by carapace »

chronid wrote: post #302
carapace wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And so are people that have a phone built in china, abusing people enough they have to build nets to prevent them from suiciding. And so are people that use SIMs from carriers known to have an army of H1B slaves on their payroll through the usual suspects (infosys)? And so are the companies using hardware and routers sold by companies using the same methods (hello Cisco?) I can go on literally forever, just choose a…

> Yes, it's an horrible world. I know, I'm saying that it is, I agree completely.

Whew! It's not just me? That's reassuring (As in, yes, there IS a monster on the wing of the plane, but that's so much less scary if you see it too. Little Twilight Zone reference there.)

> What's the alternative?

I don't actually know. However...

Bucky Fuller calculated that we would have all the technology we need to supply our needs globally for everyone, if only we applied it efficiently, by sometime in the 1970's. We have arguably already passed that point, meaning that our problems today are not physical, that they are just psychological (or moral or religious or spiritual if you prefer.)

Starting in the mid-1970's a kind of effective cybernetic psychology has been developed (under a kind of trade name Neuro-Linguistic Programming) that provides simple algorithms for correcting a great deal of malfunctioning psychology. (Be aware that the Wikipedia article for NLP is crap, it's haunted by skeptics. I can vouch for NLP. Not only is it grounded in hard science, I myself was cured of serious debilitating depression. I owe my life in a sense to NLP.)

To sum up, we have the technology to supply our needs, and the technology to overcome our psychological problems, so I think it's a matter of A) dispelling ignorance of the possibility, and B) logistics.

Tag, you're it.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#339

Post by subcosmos »

icelancer wrote: post #278
simplify wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Someday in the future the "Internet Morality Police" will flash their cryptographically signed badges stored on a blockchain

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#340

Post by remote_phone »

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…

I would love to know where you work that is so morally upstanding and globally beneficial. More than likely you’re just a hypocrite.
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