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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

#621

Post by dang »

cambalache wrote: post #495
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'.

Say, how much money can one make in astroturfing?

This comment breaks the site guidelines. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Be sure not to miss the one about accusations of astroturfing.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#622

Post by genericone »

omgtehlion wrote: post #576
genericone wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 com…

Facebook's goal: sell ads Google's goal: sell more ads Amazon's goal: Sell all the merchandise... and ads FTFY

NYT/WaPo/WSJ: Make people click or view ads

All other news outlets: Make people click or view ads

Random-blog: Make people click or view ads

Free games companies: Make people click or view ads.

Internet businesses are a vicious circle of cash for ads. Ads are deeply embedded in the business model, but is advertising the goal of any of these companies?

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#623

Post by ramchip »

thefounder wrote: post #617
ramchip wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the cookie not associated to a specific IP? SSO systems would normally flag the mismatch if you try to connect to a website and pass an SSO cookie issued for a different IP, so sniffing cookies wouldn’t help all that much.

In the mobile space the IP address changes all the time, isn't it?

It's unlikely to change between the SSO login page and the application's login page, and it doesn't matter if it changes later on since the app can issue its own session cookie which isn't tied to an IP.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#624

Post by pyman »

nautilus12 wrote: post #544
bigiain wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead they moved fast and broke things.

Its more important for you to move fast and break things and make us money than to move slow and do things the right way. The life of an engineer...Do it now! why did you do it that way!? Now we are screwed??

Facebook’s php developers like to move fast and break things. Bad design choices, monkey patching, breaking things on production, it’s all part of Facebook’s “engineering” principles.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#626

Post by ChristianBundy »

dschuler wrote: post #472
ChristianBundy wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no trouble understanding that "Mark" meant "Mark Zuckerberg" given the thread about Facebook and the comment branch about him. I don't think "Mr. Zuckerberg" is warranted on HN.

When I interviewed at Nest a few years ago, people kept telling me what Tony said or believes. You know, Tony. It's just an awkward way to refer to a 3rd party, unless they're in the discussion.

You're right, that is an example of an awkward or inappropriate use of a first name.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#627

Post by simplify »

martimarkov wrote: post #342
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?

So if ppl are not to judge morality who is then?

I didn't say "don't judge ever". I'm opposing the idea of judging the entirety of someone's moral compass based on so little – in this case, a single point of data.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#628

Post by Angostura »

devindotcom wrote: post #403
Angostura wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I hadn't considered an 30 minute embargo, thanks for setting me straight on that (also an ex member of the press, but from the days when things didn't move quite so fast)

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#629

Post by zepto »

ethbro wrote: post #611
zepto wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By your reasoning it would be a fallacy to call any large project unethical. I think that is clearly a fallacy. Nobody is arguing that every individual within Facebook is an unethical person. The argument is that the overall project is unethical and the ethical people within it should take that possibility seriously. For more philosophical background on this idea: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY

By my reasoning it would be a fallacy to assume that all the members of a large project are unethical, which is exactly what some in the comments are suggesting. And is ridiculous, for anyone who's worked in the real world. We all make ethical compromises, and have worked for companies that made ethical decisions we didn't agree with. That was the crux of the Nuremberg Trials: what portion of an endeavor's ethical de…

“it would be a fallacy to assume that all the members of a large project are unethical, which is exactly what some in the comments are suggesting“

Can you quote anything at all from this particular thread that supports this statement?

It’s clearly the position you are trying to refute, but I think it’s a straw man.

That said, at least you are in the domain of agreeing that working for Facebook is an ethical compromise:

“We all make ethical compromises, and have worked for companies that made ethical decisions we didn't agree with.”

Once again, your position seems to be to try to erase the distinction between Facebook and any other company. The Nuremberg trials demonstrate that this position is not tenable - we don’t erase the distinction between the Nazis and any other government.

The argument here is that by now there is enough evidence that this compromise is too much, and that ethical people who work at Facebook should consider that.

Being an ethical person doesn’t imply some kind of mythical ethical purity. It implies that you care about ethics.

Re: Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users

#630

Post by ethbro »

zepto wrote: post #629
ethbro wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By my reasoning it would be a fallacy to assume that all the members of a large project are unethical, which is exactly what some in the comments are suggesting. And is ridiculous, for anyone who's worked in the real world. We all make ethical compromises, and have worked for companies that made ethical decisions we didn't agree with. That was the crux of the Nuremberg Trials: what portion of an endeavor's ethical de…

“it would be a fallacy to assume that all the members of a large project are unethical, which is exactly what some in the comments are suggesting“ Can you quote anything at all from this particular thread that supports this statement? It’s clearly the position you are trying to refute, but I think it’s a straw man. That said, at least you are in the domain of agreeing that working for Facebook is an ethical compromis…

> Can you quote anything at all from this particular thread that supports this statement?

The original parent comment of this thread...

> 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.

As to your comment...

> The argument here is that by now there is enough evidence that this compromise is too much, and that ethical people who work at Facebook should consider that.

The argument in this thread is not that people who work at Facebook should "consider" that, but rather that anyone who continues to work at Facebook is no longer ethical.

It's not a straw man if the very first comment proposed exactly that.

Which is a sort of absolutism that I'm taking issue with. I'm sure there are parts of Facebook that are wretched hives of scum and villainy. I'm sure there are parts that would make my and your employer look terrible, ethically comparatively.

So maybe we should use a bit finer brush when tarring people. That seems like a fairly modest proposal to me.

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