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How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]

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Re: How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]

#61

Post by rock_hard »

IshKebab wrote: post #51
appleflaxen wrote: post #7

Is there a blog post or outline that summarizes this talk? I care about privacy, but don't have an hour to watch the whole video. The conference does provide a useful link to a privacy-centric page which catalogs some known facebook abuses: https://privacyinternational.org/types-abuse/facebook but there is no outline of this talk which summarizes the methods that facebook uses to spy on their users and the public.

TL;DR seems to be that lots of apps include the Facebook SDK and when you initialise the SDK it always sends your device ID back to Facebook. Most negative news about Facebook is nonsense but this does seem to be pretty shady on Facebook's part.

Just speculating, but they might just need this information to combat bots actually.

Think about it, they already know who you are because you are logged in with your account.

They don’t need more info than that to run targeted ads.

Re: How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]

#62

Post by jklinger410 »

zozbot123 wrote: post #43
javajosh wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you watch the talk, that's not good enough. Any app you've installed that includes the FB SDK is leaking your data back to FB. And, according to the talk, that's a majority of popular apps.

F-Droid apps aren't going to include proprietary SDKs. Yet another reason to use F-Droid (on Android/AOSP).

Tracking may be reduced, but being in F-Droid doesn't really mean anything. Take this on a per-case basis. You would need to check the traffic of each app that you use.

Re: How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]

#63

Post by zozbot123 »

paulcole wrote: post #56
zozbot123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS apps have similar issues, actually. On the Android side, you can at least use free and auditable apps from the F-Droid repository, and buy your device from an OEM vendor which will let you unlock it and install google-free LineageOS. (More speculatively, the community is now working on replacing AOSP altogether with the usual Linux desktop stack, via PostmarketOS. Not usable right now, but it's progressing rather…

> iOS apps have similar issues, actually. Which issues specifically?

Being non-free and non-auditable, including proprietary SDKs that can gather tracking info/IDs, connecting to Facebook (even when the app is something other than a FB client)... Stuff that's quite comparable to what the video is talking about.

Re: How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]

#64

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

javajosh wrote: post #44
product50 wrote: post #40

This is not unique to Facebook and is true for almost all SDKs, which can track the same events (which this talks mentions), that the app has. Google tracks exactly the same events which FB does as well. Also, the same thing happens on iOS too - not sure why the talk avoided it. Once the app has the SDK for a third party (regardless of OS), tracking all events within the app is fair game.

What is your motivation posting this? Because it sounds like a great example of "whataboutism". Just because an evil is done a lot, and in different contexts doesn't make it not evil.

Every other comment here boils down to "get an iPhone". If the claim that this is also happening on iOS is true then it's highly relevant to the discussion.

Re: How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]

#65

Post by PavlovsCat »

blfr wrote: post #32
nly wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're not disagreeing with me, but the issue you raise only distracts and lends ammo to the defenders of these prolific tracking mechanisms. It's the Nirvana fallacy. I'm sure there's a Google rep somewhere that will tell you that their "advertising ID" is better than the status quo on the web because the user can rotate it and, because it's reliable and easy for app devs to use, they are discouraged from bei…

I didn't disagree with your original comment by I do disagree with the follow-up. It's neither a distraction, nor a fallacy. First, our computing devices do not protect our privacy and security sufficiently. It's a general problem, not limited or even particularly affecting Android. And you deal with general problems differently than with incidental ones. You don't tell people in an epidemic to "just go see a doctor.…

I upvoted you because while I disagree that browsers are the bigger issue (many people use mobile devices for important things, and the less tech literate, the higher the chance they do all their online stuff with them, I'll just claim that), you didn't bring browsers up, you just responded to that with a fair point... and the comment you responded to didn't mention browers to distract either, so it seems silly to me that there's now this hot potato of who distracted from what in play. Good points all around, that's what I'm seeing.

Re: How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]

#66

Post by lern_too_spel »

scarface74 wrote: post #60
lern_too_spel wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are some applications that have a real need for knowing the actual MAC address or the IMEI.

Which applications would that be? I’m sure there are applications that need unlimited access to your file system, read your text messages, and read your call logs. How has that worked out for the privacy and security of Android users?

Much better than the privacy and security of iOS, which has had hundreds of millions of users infected with XCodeGhost. All while allowing much more useful applications to be built.

The fact that the application must request permission to see that data gets those applications extra scrutiny from not only the user but the app store and third party security researchers as well.

Re: How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]

#67

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

dirkgently wrote: post #53
GraemeL wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kindle app on iOS gets blocked attempting to connect to Facebook every time I open it.

You are wording this in a way that it implies that this (block) happens by ios. That's not true and you know it.

Did you not see the follow-up sibling comment clarifying this? (That was posted 2 hours before yours)

Re: How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]

#68

Post by gvurrdon »

zozbot123 wrote: post #63
paulcole wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iOS apps have similar issues, actually. Which issues specifically?

Being non-free and non-auditable, including proprietary SDKs that can gather tracking info/IDs, connecting to Facebook (even when the app is something other than a FB client)... Stuff that's quite comparable to what the video is talking about.

Indeed. I don't have a Facebook account and yet various apps on my iOS devices still attempt to connect to graph.facebook.com (amongst other servers I'd rather they didn't, e.g. flurry).

Re: How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]

#69

Post by pavanred »

I am surprised that on opting out of ad tracking in Android, they found that the opt-out flag was set to true, but the size of the tracking payload shot up i.e. more attributes being tracked. Not sure what to make of it? Is it possible its a legal thing that once you opt-out of ads, it enables less risk for the company and therefore more tracking, perhaps?

Re: How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]

#70

Post by bubblethink »

jklinger410 wrote: post #62
zozbot123 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F-Droid apps aren't going to include proprietary SDKs. Yet another reason to use F-Droid (on Android/AOSP).

Tracking may be reduced, but being in F-Droid doesn't really mean anything. Take this on a per-case basis. You would need to check the traffic of each app that you use.

Being on official f-droid categorically means no proprietary sdks. The app could still make calls to random servers, but that would be in the open since the app needs to be open source.
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