Facebook iOS SDK Remotely Crashing Spotify, TikTok, Pinterest, Winno and More

Post by sakarisson » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:24 AM UTC

cpv wrote: post #289

Maybe this will motivate product owners, developers, marketers, to start thinking before implementing a dozen of SDKs in a mobile app (or website). It's understandable when you need some analytics/crash reporting, but it becomes a privacy and ethics question when a lot of data is wandering around, and even better, crashes your app. And the users will blame you, they don't even know how many SDKs are there and what th…

Post by favorited » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:28 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #81

favorited wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better: don't override +load or use static constructors!

Eh, I wouldn't go that far; they do have their uses. But for a SDK author, it pays to be excessively cautious when putting things on the application startup path. (Something which the Facebook is well aware of, as the dyld session is always full of their company's engineers, and the architecture of their app shows that put effort into meeting launch deadlines…)

Post by gpderetta » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:32 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #228

Nicksil wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Software developers want to know whether their existing marketing methods are effective. The FB SDK helps with this. As you mention, this is something the software developer want, not necessarily the user . >You always have the choice to not install the app (if you don't want to). This argument may have some teeth if directed toward a user in our industry. Depending on the scope of the particular software in questio…

This very same argument would apply to, say, "5% of the price of my dinner goes towards healthcare for the waitstaff. That's something the company wants, not something I want." There are much better argument for it being spyware, e.g., that it spies. It's not a very strong argument that a thing is bad simply because it helps the provider of the thing.

Post by mschuster91 » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:39 AM UTC

bitcrazy wrote: post #143

fooey wrote: post #39

Seems to be some suggestions now that apps were continuing to crash even after commenting out the FB implementation because FB is managing to do remote API calls just because the framework is linked. https://github.com/facebook/facebook-ios-sdk/issues/1373#iss... > It does not matter. Their libraries are dynamic, and they abuse +load functions for classes with some business logic calls. So, +load will be called anywa…

The Facebook SDK does make some calls on init. https://developers.facebook.com/docs/app-events/gdpr-complia... From them: "The Facebook SDK automatically initializes when the app is opened. When the SDK is initializing, it fetches app settings from Facebook. If you want to block all network requests to Facebook, you can disable automatic initialization." If you want to turn it off, you're supposed to set in your app'…

Post by gpderetta » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:45 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #195

Nicksil wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Having a government full of technical lot illiterate politicians regulating digital advertisement - what could possibly go wrong. I'm not sure that argument works. If we expand a bit, It wouldn't be difficult to find that governments are mostly comprised of illiterate politicians. There is no need for a government to be comprised of digital advertisement industry specialists in order to pass meaningful industry regu…

Those who don’t learn from history.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A... And a few where we dodged a billet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Act