Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 635 posts

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#361

Post by glori3 »

twoheadedboy wrote: post #93
quotemstr wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, exactly, is wrong with the expectation that people make senior level eventually? What exactly is wrong with being able to work at any time? I worked there for years, and if I was landing code at 12am, it was because I was excited about what I was doing. It was wonderful being able to work with people from all over the world on high-impact projects, and fixing important bugs was definitely high-impact. People wh…

What you call being "excited about working at 12am" I call "accepting being a corporate slave".

It’s perfectly reasonable to work at 12am, and there’s nothing in the parent comment to suggest that they’ve been working since 9am or so. Maybe they started working at 8pm. Modern work should be asynchronous. If your company cares about butt-in-seat time, it’s the one that’s wrong.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#362

Post by roblabla »

joelx wrote: post #305
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nation states (China and Russia) are backing a massive PR campaign against tools that they can't control... Hence these major attacks lately and all the hate for Facebook and Google. In reality, those tech companies are enormously more ethical than Baidu or Alibaba or almost any mainstream alternatives... And compared to companies oil, gun, drug, tobacco, alcohol and most others, Facebook and Google are saints.

Can we get proof of this supposed massive PR campaign? You can't just shoo away several real, well-documented, massive breach of trust from Facebook with "well it's the Russians". The hate Facebook is getting comes from them being negligent about user data, and they were well-aware of the problem.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#363

Post by kartan »

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…

> Working for Facebook is a morally bankrupt position.

Facebook offers a service that people wants. A service that is not morally bad, if any connecting people is a positive thing.

The monetization of that business is what has proven problematic. As it is offered for free, it is people's privacy what is being sold.

Who should solve it?

The problem with "just don't work for Facebook" is that it shifts the responsibility to policy companies from governments, that have the power and resources, to individuals that have not. Of course individuals have a moral responsibility, and that is why whistle-blowers are so important in all industries.

But it is the government that has the responsibility to assure that the industry remains a positive force in the country. Tech giants are a new phenomenon. Regulations have not still catch up with its problems. But governments around the globe need to shape up and get up to the challenge of letting companies offer services that people wants and needs while minimizing the harmful impact that some business models have.

If you do not like the ethics of the company that you work for, change jobs. You are going to be happier. But that is not going to make the company more ethical, if any it is going to be less ethical as people that worries about such things move out.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#364

Post by ddebernardy »

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.

Over the years I've met a lot of people who went into HR in the hopes of making things better for the rank and file. I've yet to meet a single one who didn't report a few years later that they had been delusive.

I sincerely hope your friends will be more successful. But I doubt it.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#365

Post by jackconnor »

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…

I hate facebook but I still totally agree. And, I just don't use it, though I still maintain an account for messaging purposes. Like, in my perfect world, Facebook would go away because I find it kind of gross and think that it is generally negative. But, I don't think it cracks the top 100 of "Most Evil American Companies", it just attracts a ton of attention because of it's size and how pervasive it is. For example, a company like Pepsi, or Walmart, or many oil companies are much worse in how "evil" (ie intentionally do bad stuff to increase shareholder value). It's tough, and i do not like facebook, but yea they're villainy is overrated (but still, screw facebook).

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#366

Post by [deleted] »

dylan604 wrote: post #359
1000units wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always liked this line, even after becoming quite wealthy: And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. --Matthew 19:24

When I first heard this as a kid, I immediately thought about a real life camel attempting to fit through the hole for thread in a sewing needle. That seemed like a very odd comparison as to who would try to do such an odd thing? As an adult, I heard someone talk about one of the gates in the wall to Jerusalem was named the "eye of the needle" because of its shape. If a camel was loaded up that exceeded a certain hei…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#367

Post by glori3 »

reaperducer wrote: post #187
quotemstr wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that I should be forced not to code after a certain time of day? I wouldn't work at a company that imposed this restriction.

I work at a company like this. In fact, I need permission from my manager's manager's manager in order to stay past 7pm. This company believes in a strong work-life balance, and this is one of the ways it achieves this. Also, it "changes the world" in good ways, not by "connecting people" through bogus data siphoning addiction traps.

If you did, do you get fired? Genuinely curious: what happens?

Personally I strongly prefer no fixed working hours. If you want to work at night, so that you can do things when it’s light out (especially in winter), and you still get the expected results, what’s wrong with that?

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#368

Post by dylan604 »

dkrich wrote: post #334
nialv7 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 doe…

> How would they do this if you never visit the site or download the app?

Your friends install the app on their device. They provide access to their contacts. FB slurps in all of that data. For every person in the user's contacts, FB compares that info to their records. They update connections where found, and start new records when not found. So they now know your name/email/phone number/physical address info depending on how detailed your friend's contact was about you. I haven't read anything if the user has added your picture in their contacts if that's something FB can read as well, so they could know what your face looks like. They are now tracking you, and you've at this point never joined FB. One day, you decide to join FB, and you're presented an option to connect with people FB thinks/knows you know. Oh, and now that you're a user, you don't get to see that info that they had been making on you before you signed up either.

To me, this is the most evil part of the scheme.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#369

Post by glori3 »

fesoliveira wrote: post #180
quotemstr wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that I should be forced not to code after a certain time of day? I wouldn't work at a company that imposed this restriction.

Yes, and it shouldn't be up to an employer to set that limit, but to regulatory bodies. Having people spend 12-14h a day working is not good in the long term, and expecting people to do that otherwise they will be fired is draconic.

But... nothing about “12am” sets that expectation. You need to know when they started work.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#370

Post by rexpop »

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…

Arguably, no: rather, we should work to organize our workplaces into democratically controlled firms whose bottom line incorporates the ethical thresholds of its employees, who are then free to adjust their ethical thresholds back to with what we can sleep at night.
Post reply on HN