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As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

nytimes.com

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Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#151

Post by sfifs »

jackvalentine wrote: post #63
Spooky23 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m always puzzled by the need people have to try to dispel the notion that Facebook listens to ambient audio or conversations. They are the bad guys. They didn’t need to steal Android phone logs either, but they did.

I just wish there was a way to figure out _why_ I'm getting some ads, to dispel that fear. On Instagram last weekend I and a friend were shown a number of ads for Chandon sparking wine after I bought a bottle, and someone else at the party also did and we talked about it. Both of us insist we didn't google sparkling wine, Chandon, or anything we think relevant... it really does on the face of it appear Facebook had l…

So here's how it could have happened....

You may have brought it online in which case almost certainly there was a FB tracking pixel fired back from the e-commerce website to signal that you did. On the other hand if you bought from an offline store and swiped a loyalty card while doing so, your transaction might have been uploaded to create a custom audience. If you paid by your phone or have your loyalty app on your phone this becomes even easier - convenient offline to online matching is the only reason loyalty program apps are pushed.

Finally, even if you didn't do any if these and the other person did, if you both connected to the WiFi at the party and checked FB (or better still you added the other person as a friend), the shared IP address between your devices is enough of a signal to begin connectings.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#152

Post by ardy42 »

squish78 wrote: post #149
NelsonMinar wrote: post #140

I always wonder about the engineers at Facebook who implemented a feature like this. Someone like me, more or less. Did they stop to wonder why they were being told to bypass user privacy preferences? Did they raise any internal questions about ethics? Did any of them consider becoming a whistleblower? Or perhaps everyone who works for Facebook is convinced this kind of data sharing is OK?

Most likely why they aggressively hire college grads and keep the developer workforce young. I doubt they teach corporate ethics in any comp sci program.

> I doubt they teach corporate ethics in any comp sci program.

Actually, when I was in school, there actually was an extensive ethics module in one of the required courses, and I think it was required by an accreditation body or the ACM. It also felt like it was used to satisfy some kind of writing-intensive course requirement, since it consisted of banging out 10-page papers on various topics.

Neither the professors nor the students took it very seriously because everyone was more interested in technology, not philosophy. It felt like it only existed to check-off a checkbox.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#153

Post by ardy42 »

crocodiletears wrote: post #92
rabidrat wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you use for search, then?

For general queries, I use Searx.me. Occasionally I'll use Google if Searx is down, or I need technical information that I need search operators for. For current events, I use Searx, Bing, Yandex, Yahoo, and Baidu (if I'm really digging). I don't trust any one provider on politically sensitive topics, and the the order/kinds of the results can occasionally carry as much signal as the the content of them. I'm not cons…

> Trusting Bing, Yandex and Baidu for politically sensitive topics? Are you being sarcastic?

“The central television’s family name is the party” - a real actual quote from an actual "media" organization:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/19/xi-jinping-tou...

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#154

Post by breitling »

squish78 wrote: post #149
NelsonMinar wrote: post #140

I always wonder about the engineers at Facebook who implemented a feature like this. Someone like me, more or less. Did they stop to wonder why they were being told to bypass user privacy preferences? Did they raise any internal questions about ethics? Did any of them consider becoming a whistleblower? Or perhaps everyone who works for Facebook is convinced this kind of data sharing is OK?

Most likely why they aggressively hire college grads and keep the developer workforce young. I doubt they teach corporate ethics in any comp sci program.

If someone in their 20s doesn't know much about ethics, then we're doing something wrong, as a society.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#155

Post by adamson »

inciampati wrote: post #147
InGodsName wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How Zuck doesn't seem smart? Have you seen " the social network " If you have to make assumption, let me make another data supported assumption, Zuck is Ashkenazi Jew, statistically he's got probability of having more IQ than a person belonging to some other ethinic group. /sarcasm Anyways, what makes you think he's not smart?

He is a copyful dullard who has no creativity and is only adept at implementing codes that do obvious things or stealing ideas had by creative types. He stands in contrast to real geniuses of the last centuries, whose every quote echoes through time. He is hack. The infiltration of the ivy league by the CIA makes it very possible that Facebook itself is a direct asset of US national intelligence services. Zuck would…

> The infiltration of the ivy league by the CIA

What does this even mean? I can't imagine many more wasteful uses of government revenue than approaching dull undergraduates and coercing them into starting clandestine programs that prey on their peers.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#157

Post by Scoundreller »

sangnoir wrote: post #119
jkravitz61 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don’t look at Facebook’s origin story this could almost be believable.

The Onion is ahead[1] of y'all 1. https://www.theonion.com/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-...

In [2011]

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#158

Post by microtonal »

bad_user wrote: post #111
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4

> The social network allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, the records show, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages. > The social network permitted Amazon to obtain users’ names and contact information through their friends, and it let Yahoo view streams of friends’ posts as recently as this summer,…

>> " they also overlap with GDPR " Both Facebook and Google were hit with GDPR-related lawsuits since the first day of GDPR enforcement. Companies are being sued left and right by privacy advocates and by "ambulance chasers". Which is great IMO, I hope Facebook gets at least a big fine for this.

A big fine is nice. But until some high-level executives go to jail, they will do it over and over again. A fine is just an operational cost.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#159

Post by robin_reala »

temp123131123 wrote: post #121
happppy wrote: post #120

Now I really doubt if whatsapp is secure, even though they say it has end-to-end encryption.

its not secure. if you have facebook app and whatsapp installed. the whatsapp can share data with the facebook app and upload it to their servers. messages on your phone are not encrypted. they are only encrypted during sending.

Just Android, or with iOS too?

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#160

Post by Ajedi32 »

smackfu wrote: post #132
koboll wrote: post #82

I'd love to hear a Facebook critic rebut this thread re: the article: https://twitter.com/_mades/status/1075228269845336064 What this seems to boil down to is a side channel for certain partners with looser technical controls but tighter monitoring of misuse, and no evidence that that tradeoff actually resulted in any misuse that couldn't have occurred through normal data access channels.

If you don’t trust Facebook to do the right thing, that thread is not much of a defense, since it just says they will police their partners.

It also sounds like access to certain APIs was much more limited than the NYT article implied:

> When you hear things like read/write access that access was only granted when the user gave permission. For example, if you share a Netflix link to messenger, the post is coming from Netflix.

> If you're sharing using messenger, you're able to search who you're sharing with through Netflix. If you then delete the message within Netflix, it would delete on Facebook. Very similar to using Tweetdeck for Twitter - same permissions

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