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Facebook's seized files published by MPs

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#461

Post by manfredo »

xanipher wrote: post #447
manfredo wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The requirement to make GDPR downloads available was never well thought out. For instance, say you requested a log of your Facebook chat logs. Should Facebook provide this without redaction of the recipients' identities? I'd say no, providing this data without that redaction is a violation of the recipients' privacy. Especially for a service that is all about networking and sharing, it's difficult to walk the line be…

>Should Facebook provide this without redaction of the recipients' identities? I'd say no, providing this data without that redaction is a violation of the recipients' privacy. How is it a violation of privacy to tell a user with which other users they have communicated in the past?

Do you want your Facebook usage published because any one of the hundreds (thousands?) of the people you interacted with requested their data under GDPR?

It's not just telling the user. Once they info is published said user can turn around and tell it to the rest of the world. Some people have already published their requested data, it seems unlikely that people publishing said data face consequences.

Sure, nothing is stopping people from scrolling through chat logs screenshotting them. But that's difficult to do at scale, so there's de-facto limits on how much info can leak this way. Also consider the situation in which you unfriend someone, thus preventing them from seeing past chat logs - I think, I haven't used Facebook in a long time. If that person does a GDPR request should the company deliver data that the user is otherwise prohibited from viewing? If GDPR does mandate this it seems like a legally-mandated side channel attack.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#462

Post by jammygit »

Mahn wrote: post #307
amaccuish wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what precedent is that? The idea that companies aren't above the law? That's a precedent I wish was more enforced. I'm proud of my parliament today (and it's not often I can say that), even if in other parts they're tearing themselves apart.

What laws did Facebook break that warranted seizing and publishing internal documents?

I'm glad to have the documents, but I have to admit its really sketchy for a government to step in and do that. People are saying 'the sovereign body wanted it', but that's a worrying way to run things.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#463

Post by Stryder »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #380
SirensOfTitan wrote: post #231

I worked at Facebook for 5 years on Workplace and Internal Tools. I am typically very critical of the company nowadays, but even so find the discussion here difficult to digest. People are complex. They are more complex than an action, or even a group of actions. To take a person and alias them into being "good" or "bad" based on an action or a series of actions is to explicitly dehumanize them for the sake of making…

> I wonder if that's a good model, up-to-a-point for people and groups. With people, by compartmentalizing some unsavory perspective someone has, you have the ability to change it later on through discussion. Compartmentalization is part of the problem, not the solution. It's why some people can exploit and hurt a hundred thousand other human beings in the morning, enjoy their lunch break, fuck up the environment a b…

"Compartmentalization is part of the problem, not the solution."

This, this and this again. We as people are absolutely allowed to be complex, contradicting beings, but it is because of this richness of breadth and depth in our characteristics and beliefs that we ought to consider deeply the consequences of our actions.

Compartmentalization acts effectively in the opposite direction of that.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#464

Post by rlucas »

sangnoir wrote: post #375
Mahn wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What laws did Facebook break that warranted seizing and publishing internal documents?

Parliament is not into enforcing laws - it writes them. Parliamentary sovereignty means it can publish internal documents[1] if they decide it's in the public interest, if not, the MP will be appropriately censured by their peers. 1. In the US, the president (executive) can declassify any classified information, the DOJ or judiciary may publicize (discovered) internal documents for trials/indictments before guilt is…

In the US, Congress enjoys the Speech and Debate privilege, meaning pretty much the same. It's even in our (written, unlike the UK) Constitution.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#465

Post by deytempo »

e40 wrote: post #177
evilzuku wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing says evil more than preparing reactive PR to bury your competitors. And the nonchalant way his response sends chills down my spine. These people will suffocate innovation just to win.

> These people will suffocate innovation just to win. I don't like Zuck, but come on, you just described every CEO in America, that when they have a choice they will do this.

Isn’t that like saying one must be a foolish consumer because they live in a western nation?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#466

Post by mulmen »

joering2 wrote: post #316
tpush wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really interesting stuff in there. > Facebook email 24 January 2013 > Justin Osofsky – ‘Twitter launched Vine today which lets you shoot multiple short video segments to make one single, 6-second video. As part of their NUX, you can find friends via FB. Unless anyone raises objections, we will shut down their friends API access today. We’ve prepared reactive PR, and I will let Jana know our decision. > MZ – ‘Yup, go…

Is that for real? I remember Mr. Zuckerberg said their mission is to connect the world together. Can you help me understand how you make world smaller place and connecting people by "shut down their friends API access" ?

Connect the world together on Facebook.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#467

Post by hkt »

AlexandrB wrote: post #95
tpush wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really interesting stuff in there. > Facebook email 24 January 2013 > Justin Osofsky – ‘Twitter launched Vine today which lets you shoot multiple short video segments to make one single, 6-second video. As part of their NUX, you can find friends via FB. Unless anyone raises objections, we will shut down their friends API access today. We’ve prepared reactive PR, and I will let Jana know our decision. > MZ – ‘Yup, go…

What's really striking is how user-hostile this conversation is. Forget about whether the user wants to share their data or not - it's all about what Facebook wants to do. In this case, that's snuffing competition by denying access, in the case of Cambridge Analytica, it's sharing data for purposes of shady data "research".

Yeah, so much for openness and connecting people.

Funny that the committee ended up being the open ones.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#468

Post by kjeetgill »

varenc wrote: post #441
rhizome wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If exfiltration of user information and data was not the explicit purpose of FB's API policies, they soundly rejected the principle of lead privilege, which dates back 45 years and is no doubt incorporated into FB's own systems. thanks to the very permissive APIs that Facebook provided Why did they do this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_privilege

Facebook improved this years ago and you can see the discussion surrounding this change in the released emails. These days a Facebook app can't ask for your entire friends list, instead, it only gets to see your friends that have also authorized that app. Also, user IDs now have a per-app namespace so they can't be (easily) correlated between different apps. The discussion revealed in this release is pretty fascinati…

Can't they trivially use your first name and/or email to correlate across apps? I'm pretty sure those are all part of the lowest permission class.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#469

Post by wahern »

nathan_long wrote: post #326
Mahn wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing that Facebook did here than any other company, in tech or otherwise, wouldn't have done. And for the record, Facebook did not "share data with Cambridge Analytica for shady research purposes". A rogue third party developer created one of those shitty quiz apps for Facebook, and then proceed to get users to signup for it; several million did, which allowed said developer to harvest data thanks to the v…

> There's nothing that Facebook did here than any other company, in tech or otherwise, wouldn't have done. This isn't true. Lots of companies wouldn't steal users' call logs - eg, Mozilla, Signal, and plenty of boring, normal ones who make TODO list apps or whatever. It also isn't relevant. See how that argument flies in criminal court. "Anybody else would have stolen that car." What we see here (again) is that FB do…

Facebook's business is car stealing. They tell you that upfront: we want your car, and if you park it in our garage we're going to take it.

All this anger over Facebook is ridiculous.[1] Now, if you want to talk about Android and Google's decision to make it more difficult to not only control but to know what data apps (especially theirs!) will take, that's a different matter....

[1] Especially from geeks, and particularly geeks from the 1990s and earlier when we were told that unless we promoted non-centralized publication models that we'd see the very constellation of centralized, user-antagonistic, profiteering services we now have. Whenever someone says, "but why would you want to host your own e-mail/web/chat server, my head wants to explode." It's always "why would you" (or "why would you, it'll never be as good as GMail/Facebook/Twitter/etc"; never, "maybe I should promote and help work on projects that make it easier".

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#470

Post by greenyoda »

Jach wrote: post #264
thecatspaw wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whiteout is an interesting one though, I personally would have written blackout

I like rub out (from the space cadet keyboard's backspace equivalent).

Actually, "rub out" goes all the way back to Teletype keyboards:

> "This code was originally used to mark deleted characters on punched tape, since any character could be changed to all ones by punching holes everywhere. If a character was punched erroneously, punching out all seven bits caused this position to be ignored or deleted, a computer version of correction fluid."

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delete_character#History

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