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Ever wonder why Facebook is giving everyone on earth so much free software and processing power? They seem to be making money, how do they do it? [10 minutes of deep thought] Ok, we get it. If someone offers you something of value for free, politely say "no thanks" and run the other way. Edit: If a for-profit company offers you something of value at no cost, you or someone else will end up paying for it later. Advert…
Ever wonder why Facebook is giving everyone on earth so much free software and processing power? They seem to be making money, how do they do it? [10 minutes of deep thought] Ok, we get it. If someone offers you something of value for free, politely say "no thanks" and run the other way. Edit: If a for-profit company offers you something of value at no cost, you or someone else will end up paying for it later. Advert…
The scariest thing about Facebook is that they allow advertisers to target by e-mail. This has a number of implications. Say I want to target a specific individual. I create a bunch of fake profiles to meet the minimum number of required e-mails for an ad and then launch it. This way the only real person who's gonna see it is the one I'm targeting. Now imagine running this scheme with everyone you know. Your ex, frie…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Cambridge Analytica is not defunct, but rather changed its name to Emerdata. Not technically correct, but basically the truth. Cambridge Analytica declared bankrupcy in May of last year and the creators of that company created Emerdata and rehired many previous employees of Cambridge Analytica. Their HQ is even in the same exact building. They're just playing the shell game, really. "Oh no, we're not the bad guys,…
The trouble is, it works. Depressingly well. Every story out there is about Cambridge Analytica, only a tiny proportion have been written recently enough to mention the phoenix. Yet they often won't, or give entirely the wrong impression like TFA here (defunct - oh that's a relief it's all over then). The number of old pieces that have had an update is so low as to be effectively none. So we have to wait for the next…
Ever wonder why Facebook is giving everyone on earth so much free software and processing power? They seem to be making money, how do they do it? [10 minutes of deep thought] Ok, we get it. If someone offers you something of value for free, politely say "no thanks" and run the other way. Edit: If a for-profit company offers you something of value at no cost, you or someone else will end up paying for it later. Advert…
> "The report said that the company can access data in some cases even when the user is not signed into Facebook or does not have a Facebook account." I realize frivolous comments on HN are frowned upon but frankly this leaves me speechless.
They're called "shadow profiles". https://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/18/1429223/facebook-is-...
If your ad content is on lots of different web properties, you can "track" a user across each one, inferring data about the user one piece at a time, until you have a large profile. Then you use that profile to target ads/marketing. They never have to directly give you any data, but you can make money off of what you learn.
That's the entire reason "tracking" on the web exists. To build shadow profiles for direct marketing. Nobody thought Facebook was doing it too?
Ever wonder why Facebook is giving everyone on earth so much free software and processing power? They seem to be making money, how do they do it? [10 minutes of deep thought] Ok, we get it. If someone offers you something of value for free, politely say "no thanks" and run the other way. Edit: If a for-profit company offers you something of value at no cost, you or someone else will end up paying for it later. Advert…
Ever wonder why Facebook is giving everyone on earth so much free software and processing power? They seem to be making money, how do they do it? [10 minutes of deep thought] Ok, we get it. If someone offers you something of value for free, politely say "no thanks" and run the other way. Edit: If a for-profit company offers you something of value at no cost, you or someone else will end up paying for it later. Advert…
The scariest thing about Facebook is that they allow advertisers to target by e-mail. This has a number of implications. Say I want to target a specific individual. I create a bunch of fake profiles to meet the minimum number of required e-mails for an ad and then launch it. This way the only real person who's gonna see it is the one I'm targeting. Now imagine running this scheme with everyone you know. Your ex, frie…
So you have to design a series of ads that are enticing enough to click on, and the victim will click on it. When they realize they clicked on a fake site, they'll exit it. How many people here have clicked on Facebook ads in the last week?
It seems incredibly time consuming, costly, and ineffective. It seems easier just to send some fake emails and check if they opened the email.
> "The report said that the company can access data in some cases even when the user is not signed into Facebook or does not have a Facebook account." I realize frivolous comments on HN are frowned upon but frankly this leaves me speechless.
They're called "shadow profiles". https://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/18/1429223/facebook-is-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The scariest thing about Facebook is that they allow advertisers to target by e-mail. This has a number of implications. Say I want to target a specific individual. I create a bunch of fake profiles to meet the minimum number of required e-mails for an ad and then launch it. This way the only real person who's gonna see it is the one I'm targeting. Now imagine running this scheme with everyone you know. Your ex, frie…
I'm not following this. So we have some victim's email that they've linked to Facebook, and we add some fake emails to pad out the minimum number of required emails. So you have to design a series of ads that are enticing enough to click on, and the victim will click on it. When they realize they clicked on a fake site, they'll exit it. How many people here have clicked on Facebook ads in the last week? It seems incr…
As for the rest, sure it's time consuming if you want to target 50 individuals. If you're aiming for one or two it's 10 minutes work.
Here's a relevant thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17110385