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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

#401

Post by throwaway2048 »

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…

There is no historical evidence for this, its pretty clearly apocryphal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#402

Post by hak8or »

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…

What if I am totally fine working on that stuff if it means more money? Hell, I would be totally content working on weapons for the military if it means more money and interesting problems. I am aur enany others would too.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#403

Post by devindotcom »

Angostura wrote: post #284
jdminhbg wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “We’re taking it really seriously,” Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, said in a conference call with reporters. “We have a major security effort at the company that hardens all of our surfaces.” He added: “I’m glad we found this. But it definitely is an issue that this happened in the first place.” There was a conference call with reporters about the subject, so the press release public release was no…

I very very much doubt the NYT would have agreed to an embargo on a story like this. It's a major news story, not the launch of a new car.

Since you're just getting downvoted, I may as well say that as a member of the press it isn't uncommon to see embargoes on stuff like this. They don't say a week out "hey we've got a huge security announcement" but they do say "we have something coming out this afternoon and we're doing a briefing half an hour before if you agree not to publish before we go public."

It's often in the interest of the reporter to agree to stuff like this since publishing security issues ahead of time can have serious negative consequences.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#404

Post by ddebernardy »

dylan604 wrote: post #373
genzoman wrote: post #190

Until they can provide some data that say the 50 million number is a fact, I don't believe it's that low. Every breach starts out on the low end, and miraculously ends up being double or triple as they do "more research" and the initial anger dies down.

But in today's reality, that revised number is framed as fake news. Somebody has an axe to grind, and is artificially inflating the numbers. I am totally baffled in the post-fact world.

It's only a post-fact world on a handful of media outlets.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#405

Post by swozey »

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…

My understanding is that it's more hyperbolic than that. There are gates around Jerusalem called "Eye of the Needle" (St Alexander Nevskys Church for instance, its supposedly the location of a 1st century city wall) and a man can barely fit through these himself.

I could be totally wrong, of course. Maybe they started naming holes in dilapidated walls that to bring tourists/pilgrims.

Did a quick google for pic examples; https://patmcinerney.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/the-church-of-...

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#406

Post by throw2016 »

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…

It's only 2 large companies, Google and Facebook who are now out of control in building invasive surveillance systems so its completely disingenuous to try to pass this off as some sort of generic corporate issue.

People who work for known unethical organizations are hardly celebrated so these are poor attempts at muddying the waters and distraction.

The bottom line is if you can't behave ethically you can't expect ethics from others in society. If 6 figure earning engineers can't exercise ethical choice then who can? Its incredible given the level of discourse how anyone can expect any ethical behavior from the poor and starving and yet we do. The double standards and greed from educated classes is stunning.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#407

Post by losteric »

eanzenberg wrote: post #387
aonwoajdndj wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are all in the world of opinions here. Share your opinion or criticize his. Comments like this are not helping us make progress on these issues.

Sure, let's all sling FUD around based on anecdotes and fake data. Let's shame people earning a salary working at a company and trying to solve real problems. Sure FB does some shitty things but honestly so does every large company out there. It's impossible to get to that massive size without breaking a couple eggs here and there. People expect saints when saints are imaginary. The baseline to measure cannot be "per…

> People expect saints when saints are imaginary. The baseline to measure cannot be "perfection".

You're putting up a strawman. The baseline is other big tech companies (MS/GOOG/AMZN/AAPL) - companies that are definitely not saints.

Amazon/Google's ethical tradeoffs are debatable, but they do deliver benefits that are unmatched in the market. Facebook? Not really.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#408

Post by jazoom »

iMuzz wrote: post #318

Here's the banner that they put up on peoples newsfeeds: https://imgur.com/G7sBbwX Nowhere on that banner does Facebook make it clear that there was recently a severe security issue that may have resulted in the loss of personal user information (Making it much less likely for the user to actually click 'Learn More'). It's misleading to title this with just "An Important Security Update" and make it seem like they've…

They've been showing me that banner for a while. In fact, they stopped showing it to me about a week ago. Are your sure it's related?

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#409

Post by ianamartin »

It's not 50 million users. It's all of them. The numbers will go up and up and up in small increments until they basically just admit that it's everyone. They break the news in the middle of a national political event, minimize the numbers, and that's the worst of it. The coming ripples that up the numbers will be mostly ignored.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#410

Post by buboard »

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…

he who is without sin ...
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