well, there goes three of my albums. I really hope this gets resolved.
Facebook bans KDE application, deletes user photos
31–40 of 45 posts
Re: Facebook bans KDE application, deletes user photos
#32I'm going to assume this was a mistake. However, I have been seeing quite a few "mistakes" similar to this from Facebook lately. They have a legitimate problem with application spam, but if they are going to try and fight that by banning applications, they better be damn sure they are getting the right ones. But, they don't seem to be doing a particularly good job of that, at least from what I've seen. However: maybe…
"they better be damn sure they are getting the right ones." No, see, the problem is you're not in control of FB. They are still a private company and they get to do what ever they want, obviously within the confines of US Laws and, obviously, to the benefit or detriment of their company. Life is simple: If you don't agree with their practices, then you have the power to chose to stop using their services. Why is that so hard for people to understand?
Re: Facebook bans KDE application, deletes user photos
#33While putting an API key like that inside code is pretty silly, and the ban makes sense, I don't understand why our content had to disappear along with the app. All the photos were in normal facebook photo albums. Bad customer service play.
Re: Facebook bans KDE application, deletes user photos
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does this avoid embedding keys in the application itself? IMO it's kind of impossible to reliably 'authenticate' a desktop application.
Yes: this flow does not involve putting your secret key into your application. From Facebook's documentation: "The app secret is available from the Developer App and should not be shared with anyone or embedded in any code that you will distribute (you should use the client-side flow for these scenarios)."
Only if you setup a server and create your own API to talk to Facebook's API.
As far as I know, a lot of iPhone apps are shipped with App key and secret key. (For example, an open source project for sharing requires you to put your app's secret key: http://getsharekit.com/)
Re: Facebook bans KDE application, deletes user photos
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes: this flow does not involve putting your secret key into your application. From Facebook's documentation: "The app secret is available from the Developer App and should not be shared with anyone or embedded in any code that you will distribute (you should use the client-side flow for these scenarios)."
Only if you setup a server and create your own API to talk to Facebook's API. As far as I know, a lot of iPhone apps are shipped with App key and secret key. (For example, an open source project for sharing requires you to put your app's secret key: http://getsharekit.com/ )
I seriously don't understand why people keep saying "everyone does it", as if that makes it secure or even allowed by Facebook. Facebook's documentation clearly states you should not do that, one developer here even said it was against Facebook's terms of service, and Facebook's documented mechanisms for allowing desktop applications to access their service does not involve doing so.
Regardless, if you read the documentation that I keep referring (and even linking to), it has a very clear (if arguably stupid seeming) mechanism for desktop applications to operate: you use the OAuth 2.0 flow, but have the landing page be a specially designated page on Facebook's server. Then, as you are running in an insecure web browser (as you are inside of a desktop app), the desktop app can notice that URL being hit and steal the session token, and at no point did this require a secret key.
Now, if you have a session token, and for some reason you need a secret key for the API you are working with, as you cannot use your secret key (as that would involve disclosing it, which Facebook is very clear you should not ever do), you need to obtain a "temporary session secret key", which you can do by "promoting" your session token, using the client API flow that Facebook tells you to use at this point.
Documentation for the way I happen to know of for promoting a session token is at the following link. (Whether there is a newer way to do this that does not involve activating "legacy APIs" for your application, I do not know.) https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/rest/auth.pro...
Re: Facebook bans KDE application, deletes user photos
#36While putting an API key like that inside code is pretty silly, and the ban makes sense, I don't understand why our content had to disappear along with the app. All the photos were in normal facebook photo albums. Bad customer service play.
They may have thought something like: Someone could have taken advantage of the API key and used it to upload content for not-so-good reasons and rather then checking all content uploaded using that key, they removed it all.
Re: Facebook bans KDE application, deletes user photos
#37I'm going to assume this was a mistake. However, I have been seeing quite a few "mistakes" similar to this from Facebook lately. They have a legitimate problem with application spam, but if they are going to try and fight that by banning applications, they better be damn sure they are getting the right ones. But, they don't seem to be doing a particularly good job of that, at least from what I've seen. However: maybe…
"they better be damn sure they are getting the right ones." No, see, the problem is you're not in control of FB. They are still a private company and they get to do what ever they want, obviously within the confines of US Laws and, obviously, to the benefit or detriment of their company. Life is simple: If you don't agree with their practices, then you have the power to chose to stop using their services. Why is that…
People expect others not to jerk them around. They will bitch about how they've been jerked around long before they'll cut the jerk from their life. Hopefully, because said jerk will change their behaviour, in a perfect world.
There is also a lot of inertia created from using Facebook for a little while. You can't just pretend that inertia doesn't exist.
Re: Facebook bans KDE application, deletes user photos
#38I'm going to assume this was a mistake. However, I have been seeing quite a few "mistakes" similar to this from Facebook lately. They have a legitimate problem with application spam, but if they are going to try and fight that by banning applications, they better be damn sure they are getting the right ones. But, they don't seem to be doing a particularly good job of that, at least from what I've seen. However: maybe…
Unfortunately, I cannot write this off as another "mistake". If I didn't have employees I talk to on Facebook, this would be the point at which I would delete my account.
Facebook had its chance to redeem itself in my eyes. The attempted Google slander was a tipping point for me, but hearing that my fellow developers are having their apps shut down and their data deleted finally did it for me. I wouldn't have cared if they had just deactivated the app. If it was clear that KDE was leaking its API credentials, I would have done the same thing. But deleting user data is unacceptable.
Yes, you shouldn't rely on Facebook for image storage. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't worry about your data being randomly deleted.
Re: Facebook bans KDE application, deletes user photos
#39From the error, it actually sounds like the application had an API key distributed inside of it... which means that anyone, anywhere, could pretend to be the application.. and could use its credentials to upload anything they want. Yeah, right here: fbtalker.cpp: m_apiKey = "bf430ad869b88aba5c0c17ea6707022b"; fbtalker.cpp: m_secretKey = "0434307e70dd12c414cc6d0928f132d8"; To be honest, as much as I hate Facebook's de…
I understand that Facebook had a reason to disable API access, but pulling all photos is unacceptable, like I said below. They should have been reviewed manually and cleared out. Blaming users because an application is insecure is like blaming someone for using a faulty power tool: you don't know when it's going to fail as much as they do.
But of course, this is 2011 and we can't rely on a real person being there at all anymore. Companies are lazy and just "flip the switch" without consideration for users. :(
Also, I never knew you lurked HN, saurik! ;P
Re: Facebook bans KDE application, deletes user photos
#40It's simple, you get your own site, which you pay for if you have to, then add one of the countless plugins that automatically share you content to Twitter, Facebook, etc. If all you do is upload your primary content directly to Facebook and nowhere else, you're just asking for trouble.
If I'm not mistaken, in case that plugin you have used gets banned, all your posted links should also disappear.