Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#441

Post by holtalanm » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 10:14 PM UTC

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…

if your entire purpose in life is to...idk...actually have a good life, then personal wealth does somewhat go hand-in-hand with that.

The only people that say they don't need money are those that aren't poor, from my experience.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#442

Post by sctb » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 10:14 PM UTC

zeth___ wrote: post #279

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…

[flagged]

Since we asked you to please stop starting or feeding flamewars, we've banned the account.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#443

Post by jkchu » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 10:16 PM UTC

hobs wrote: post #285

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.

It seems like a vast networked trove of everyone's information is doing the opposite of "preserving our democracy from attacks" - its actively enabling it. Minimizing the damage of collecting that information is maybe not directly evil, but helping kick the can down the road to the point where facebook is so deeply networked in our society its unremoveable doesnt seem like a high horse to be riding on.

your line of reasoning makes it sound like it would be simple for everyone in the world to stop using Facebook or some similar social media platform. I see nothing wrong with trying to improve something that is already well ingrained into human society.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#444

Post by nerflad » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 10:17 PM UTC

rajathagasthya wrote: post #13

> This attack exploited the complex interaction of multiple issues in our code. It stemmed from a change we made to our video uploading feature in July 2017, which impacted “View As.” Obviously, Facebook is an extremely complicated system. But I find it hard to believe a video uploading feature would impact 'View As'.

If I recall correctly this is not the first FB vuln relating to View As. I searched and can't find it, but I seem to remember there being a bug around 2009 where you could basically take over a friends' account by viewing your profile as them.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#445

Post by zinssmeister » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 10:19 PM UTC

ehsankia wrote: post #429

zinssmeister wrote: post #399

We compiled details on this breach here, including some insights on the attack vector https://breachroom.templarbit.com/facebook-is-breached-by-ha...

Is this in any way related to the person earlier who said they would livestream hacking Zuckerberg's account?

No, but that sounds entertaining!

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#446

Post by mtarnovan » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 10:20 PM UTC

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.

Straight from the Newspeak dictionary:

"Nation states": The bad guys, usually China and Russia, sometimes Iran.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#447

Post by yuliyp » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 10:20 PM UTC

0xmohit wrote: post #418

Facebook is blocking users from posting stories about its security breach Some users are reporting that they are unable to post today’s big story about a security breach affecting 50 million Facebook users. The issue appears to only affect particular stories from certain outlets, at this time one story from The Guardian and one from the Associated Press, both reputable press outlets. ... The situation is another exam…

Which posts are being blocked? The Guardian one and the AP one linked at the top of that post work fine for me.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#448

Post by QML » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 10:20 PM UTC

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…

This is a very typical Silicon Valley mindset where the number of high paying software engineering positions is abundant, and there’s no shortage of work.

If you look outside the Bay Area, I’m sure you will find people who desperate enough and would sacrifice any sense of morals they have for a $100k job.

It’s as simple as that.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#449

Post by danso » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 10:23 PM UTC

chalkandpaste wrote: post #61

tmh79 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they havent monopolized talent, they pay for talent. Facebook paying high salaries has increased all of our pay, equity etc, whether you work there or not. The only thing this may be bad for is founders who are in a zero sum competition with FB for talent and now need to spend more money and equity to get it.

This is a very short-sighted view. Yes it has some immediate benefit in terms of pay, but you have to consider the long-term societal tradeoff of not developing addictive mental candy for people or developing societally useful technologies (or vice-versa, as it now stands). We can focussed on getting paid a lot now, or improving the wealth of everyone and generative the value we can all enjoy later.

There's also its ostensible goal to connect people. I logged in for the first time in months just to see if I had been compromised. In about 15 minutes of goofing around, I got to enjoy countless happy baby pics posted by old college friends, and had a nice chat with someone I hadn't talked to in almost a decade, after I randomly commented on a status update. Then I logged off. I know that my kind of limited use is likely not the average scenario, and I can definitely understand people suffering when they get sucked in. But it's a site that does a damn good job of making it easy for me to find and interact with friends, and I don't believe the tech and design involved is trivial.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#450

Post by myth_buster » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 10:25 PM UTC

yuliyp wrote: post #447

0xmohit wrote: post #418

Facebook is blocking users from posting stories about its security breach Some users are reporting that they are unable to post today’s big story about a security breach affecting 50 million Facebook users. The issue appears to only affect particular stories from certain outlets, at this time one story from The Guardian and one from the Associated Press, both reputable press outlets. ... The situation is another exam…

Which posts are being blocked? The Guardian one and the AP one linked at the top of that post work fine for me.

Those articles were hitting their spam filter (not sure why reliable news sources won't be whitelisted) which prevented users from posting and deleted posts that were already made.

They may have fixed the "bug" now.