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Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

forbes.com

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Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#171

Post by chickenmonkey »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #143
seoaeu wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Be the change you want to see" doesn't really work for society level collective action problems. My concern with Facebook isn't that they have too much information about me, it is that they know too much about my country's citizens in aggregate (and thus can manipulate them). Whether I opt out has a real impact on me, but zero impact on whether they can run disinformation campaigns and swing elections.

>Whether I opt out has a real impact on me, but zero impact on whether they can run disinformation campaigns and swing elections. Being the change you want to see doesn't automatically mean the world changes. It just means live with principles regardless of external factors. You don't like Facebook? Then don't use Facebook. It's as simple as that. Others can take it or leave it. I just see it as people complaining ab…

The two actions people can take are: 1. Delete Facebook apps, Whatsapp and IG. This can have low to high utility loss for you, but has negligible effect on Facebook. It would have a bad effect for me, who has many family members and friends connected on whatsapp and needs whatsapp to connect to anyone whom I meet in my country.

2. Lead a movement to switch away from these apps. This has an insanely high overhead, and requires significant organisation of people and a large individual commitment. This would have a significant effect on Facebook.

This is how I view the problem. This is not an example of people being unwilling to act on their ideals. It's a situation where acting on their ideals would cause them a significant burden with no effect, and causing the intended change would require ridiculously large effort.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#172

Post by S_A_P »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #132
speedgoose wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it's not that simple for everyone. I personally would lose contact with a lot of people if I delete Messenger or Whatsapp. On all my contacts, I have two on Signal, zero on Matrix.

It is though. It's astonishing how little people are willing to sacrifice for their ideals. If you don't have an issue with Facebook then disregard and continue using their services. If you do have a problem then try being the change you want to see. Tend your garden. You cannot control other people but you can control yourself.

I deleted all social about 5 years ago I did notice a narrowing of my friend circle. However, I also noticed a net uptick in my own personal happiness. There will be tradeoffs that you have to consider and figure out what is best for you. I personally believe that social media in general is responsible for a lot of the problems in our society, so take my opinion with appropriate grains of salt.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#173

Post by dylan604 »

sp332 wrote: post #154
api wrote: post #142

Not if you don’t install any of their apps. I use it as a web site which is enough to post pics of kids for relatives, pretty much my only use for it.

That actually doesn't stop either of the tracking methods mentioned in the article. FB still gets your IP address and EXIF data that way.

You have to specifiy any app to access Photos. By default, that access of through a non-Photos app should strip any location data. If this is not true, then I feel less tin hatty about my decision to not allow any apps access. I also feel that copying a photo from Photos should also strip location data.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#174

Post by ignoramous »

shawnz wrote: post #163
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp is closed source, so you have no idea what it's doing. And they can push an update doing whatever they wish to you at any moment. You have to rely on Facebook pinky-swearing that it is what they say it is. And I promise you it isn't what they say it is.

Being open source isn't necessary or sufficient to be able to audit a piece of software. Software can be audited even if it's closed source (for example by reverse engineering, although it's more difficult), and even if it's open source it might still be impractically difficult for non-experts to audit.

A 5B install-base would invite all sorts of experts to review an OSS codebase, I'm sure.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#175

Post by philjohn »

korla wrote: post #41
freebuju wrote: post #24

Yeah. This is not particularly a Facebook problem. And it certainly is not an iPhone exclusive one. I would be willing to bet my 2¢ that Apple photo backups store your photos with exif data. Should be trivially easy to strip this info and "track" you as well. Am not seeing anyone crying over this.

I'm guessing here, but perhaps that is since apple revenue isn't ad-driven in the same sense Facebook is?

Yet.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#176

Post by sp332 »

dylan604 wrote: post #173
sp332 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That actually doesn't stop either of the tracking methods mentioned in the article. FB still gets your IP address and EXIF data that way.

You have to specifiy any app to access Photos. By default, that access of through a non-Photos app should strip any location data. If this is not true, then I feel less tin hatty about my decision to not allow any apps access. I also feel that copying a photo from Photos should also strip location data.

GP said they're not using the app. This is about uploading photos via the web browser.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#177

Post by gligorot »

nickserv wrote: post #170
motohagiography wrote: post #150

Beginning to think the reason security is so difficult is because ostensibly "good" companies do everything an attacker does and worse, but under the guise of EULAs. Here's a thought experiement: If Facebook were malware, could you get rid of it?

Many of my friends on FB know that their data is being harvested, and simply don't care. As for me, I would use an alternative platform in a heartbeat, but all the privacy focused ones so far have not gained any traction.

For me it's not that I don't care, but I reason the data stealing as their form of payment for providing a free useful service to me. I try to limit the data I give them, but I still see the data gathering as their win in our nonzero (win win) game.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#178

Post by nr2x »

motohagiography wrote: post #150

Beginning to think the reason security is so difficult is because ostensibly "good" companies do everything an attacker does and worse, but under the guise of EULAs. Here's a thought experiement: If Facebook were malware, could you get rid of it?

Any sufficiently advanced form of advertising is indistinguishable from malware.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#179

Post by nr2x »

cj wrote: post #151
motohagiography wrote: post #150

Beginning to think the reason security is so difficult is because ostensibly "good" companies do everything an attacker does and worse, but under the guise of EULAs. Here's a thought experiement: If Facebook were malware, could you get rid of it?

Yes, but only if everyone else was convinced it was malware, too. "Facebook invades privacy" is still a minority opinion among their user base (whether we like it or not).

Opt-out rates clearly say otherwise.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#180

Post by tgragnato »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #133
soziawa wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they very publicly state that they do not have access and I have yet to see a reason to not believe them in that regard. All big Facebook data leaks and hacks have just exploited not very well known APIs or badly set privacy settings. But nothing that was secret.

They are lying when they say this. I promise you Facebook MITMs WhatsApp communications for oppressive regimes.

I think someone caught the app dumping private keys to crashlogs.whatsapp.net

But a MITM should still be visible

More details?

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