Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#91

Post by calloc » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:03 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #81

roldon332 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So google is going to sell me out? But facebook isn't? What about Verizon? How do you know what companies to trust with private information?

That's not the point. Your friend made a decision to share their private data with you using Facebook, knowing that it was Facebook that would be holding the sensitive data. You are talking about sharing that data with other organisations, which your friend has no control over. The point isn't whether or not you trust those organisations, it's whether it's abusing the privilege of having access to your friend's data…

My friend has shared their contact information on Facebook, I decide to contact them using my iPhone, and save their contact information. That now gets sync'ed from my phone to my Mac, which is sync'ed with Google because I use gmail for my main email account and I like to have all of my contact information also available from within gmail and more importantly google voice so that I know when people send me text messages and when they call me.

If my friends have trusted me with their information they also trust me to make sure to keep it safe. What service I use to store my data should not be of any consequence for them. That is the same way with this Facebook exporter (BTW, the iPhone app allows one to sync contacts from Facebook to the iPhone address book, which can then get sync'ed to .Mac, Me, or the new iCloud, from there back to a Mac and then back up to Google), it allows the user to get the data from Facebook and store it in their address book. Instead of having to go through each entry one by one this plugin automates the process.

I don't see how my friends that clearly have made this data available to me (so I could contact them) should now have a say as to how and where I store said data. Just because I decide to store it in my address book on Google doesn't make much if a difference, if they didn't want me to have that data in the first place they should have A. never have given it to me, or B. ask me to please remove their information.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#92

Post by calloc » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:16 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #90

icebraining wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have friends using Gmail?

I do, and I dislike immensely the fact that this means Google may be data mining personal messages I send privately to friends and I have no way to no or avoid it. This is one reason all personal communications over the Internet should long since have defaulted to encryption. I don't mind Google offering a useful service, but there's really no (technical) need for them to have access to all that data while they're do…

There is no good way for Google to provide encryption within its gmail product without having the user provide the key to the browser/javascript (easily stolen) and or having the key stored on their servers (ease of use).

The unfortunate side effect of encryption is that it is not transparent, it requires users to be completely aware of what is and isn't encrypted and also to be completely aware of where their keys are stored and how they are treated. Defaulting to encryption would just make it so that the majority of the people are unable to communicate and or use the internet at large.

Most people do not use gmail with IMAP so suggesting client side is not going to really work. With encryption stuff like mailing lists will not work either, because you'd need to individually encrypt the message for each and every single recipient on the mailing list.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#93

Post by Silhouette » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:47 AM UTC

calloc wrote: post #91

Silhouette wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point. Your friend made a decision to share their private data with you using Facebook, knowing that it was Facebook that would be holding the sensitive data. You are talking about sharing that data with other organisations, which your friend has no control over. The point isn't whether or not you trust those organisations, it's whether it's abusing the privilege of having access to your friend's data…

My friend has shared their contact information on Facebook, I decide to contact them using my iPhone, and save their contact information. That now gets sync'ed from my phone to my Mac, which is sync'ed with Google because I use gmail for my main email account and I like to have all of my contact information also available from within gmail and more importantly google voice so that I know when people send me text mess…

I'm giving up on this thread now. The endless downvotes instead of replies and people missing the point are just disheartening.

One more time, for the record: Your friend trusted you with their personal data, not Google. You may not personally have a problem with sharing your own personal data with Google, but not everyone is like you, and some people do. That doesn't mean they have a problem with sharing the data with you in the first place or that it was somehow unreasonable of them to give it to you.

I really can't understand why so few people in this discussion seem to understand the distinction. We have multiple Acts of Parliament on the subject here in the UK and an entire government department whose primary responsibility is enforcing the rules, so I'm clearly not the only one who gets it or thinks it's important. Maybe it's a cultural/generational thing, and the average person on HN just sees the world differently or something. Then again, the average person on HN today downvotes rather than replying if they disagree, based on my experience in this discussion and what's happened to several other people in other discussions I've been following, so things have obviously gone way downhill.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#94

Post by Silhouette » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 1:55 AM UTC

calloc wrote: post #92

Silhouette wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do, and I dislike immensely the fact that this means Google may be data mining personal messages I send privately to friends and I have no way to no or avoid it. This is one reason all personal communications over the Internet should long since have defaulted to encryption. I don't mind Google offering a useful service, but there's really no (technical) need for them to have access to all that data while they're do…

There is no good way for Google to provide encryption within its gmail product without having the user provide the key to the browser/javascript (easily stolen) and or having the key stored on their servers (ease of use). The unfortunate side effect of encryption is that it is not transparent, it requires users to be completely aware of what is and isn't encrypted and also to be completely aware of where their keys a…

Oh, come on. Are you really suggesting that a world that managed to build the Internet, where the mathematicians developed concepts like public key encryption and password hashing, where many banks routinely issue physical tokens for two-factor authentication before access to secure systems, and where several nations run national ID databases, we couldn't manage to devise a system where every user has unique credentials to access sensitive systems without those systems themselves being able to decrypt the user's data?

That's a load of nonsense. In the grand scheme of things, solving that problem is easy. We just haven't done it yet, because while Pandora's box is open, not enough people have yet come down with plague.

Sadly, that means things are going to have to get significantly worse before they get better. Still, as the ever-increasing leaks turn into more concrete problems like bad credit because your card was swiped, being arrested based on bad intelligence, or having your political career destroyed because the wrong private comments leaked out, sooner or later enough people with serious influence are going to get hurt for the situation to change.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#95

Post by chrischen » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 2:26 AM UTC

xtacy wrote: post #41

chrischen wrote: post #31

Can't you import friends by downloading your friends list using the facebook export tool? Google can use that to match people up with their friends as long as their friends have opted into Google+ with their facebook UID too.

This point was raised before; the Facebook export tool does not export your social graph!

You can use the API to export your friends list as facebook UIDs which can be used to reconstruct your graph assuming your friends have also opted into the third-party service with their facebook data/uid.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#96

Post by icebraining » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 2:32 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #94

calloc wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no good way for Google to provide encryption within its gmail product without having the user provide the key to the browser/javascript (easily stolen) and or having the key stored on their servers (ease of use). The unfortunate side effect of encryption is that it is not transparent, it requires users to be completely aware of what is and isn't encrypted and also to be completely aware of where their keys a…

Oh, come on. Are you really suggesting that a world that managed to build the Internet, where the mathematicians developed concepts like public key encryption and password hashing, where many banks routinely issue physical tokens for two-factor authentication before access to secure systems, and where several nations run national ID databases, we couldn't manage to devise a system where every user has unique credenti…

Well, here in Portugal (and I hear in Belgium they have a similar system) our national ID card can sign and encrypt data using an internal private & public keys. That could be used to encrypt email securely even on a rogue machine. The main technical problem is the lack of readers. The actual main problem is user education - nobody knows how to work with them.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#97

Post by calloc » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 3:15 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #96

Silhouette wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, come on. Are you really suggesting that a world that managed to build the Internet, where the mathematicians developed concepts like public key encryption and password hashing, where many banks routinely issue physical tokens for two-factor authentication before access to secure systems, and where several nations run national ID databases, we couldn't manage to devise a system where every user has unique credenti…

Well, here in Portugal (and I hear in Belgium they have a similar system) our national ID card can sign and encrypt data using an internal private & public keys. That could be used to encrypt email securely even on a rogue machine. The main technical problem is the lack of readers. The actual main problem is user education - nobody knows how to work with them.

How would it encrypt email on a rogue machine, securely? If the machine is rogue and has all key presses and has the plaintext how can it be secure then? Sure it is encrypted but it is already compromised.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#98

Post by roldon332 » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 3:17 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #93

calloc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend has shared their contact information on Facebook, I decide to contact them using my iPhone, and save their contact information. That now gets sync'ed from my phone to my Mac, which is sync'ed with Google because I use gmail for my main email account and I like to have all of my contact information also available from within gmail and more importantly google voice so that I know when people send me text mess…

I'm giving up on this thread now. The endless downvotes instead of replies and people missing the point are just disheartening. One more time, for the record: Your friend trusted you with their personal data, not Google. You may not personally have a problem with sharing your own personal data with Google, but not everyone is like you, and some people do. That doesn't mean they have a problem with sharing the data wi…

You really expect every one of your contacts to let you know before the buy an Android cell phone, or sign up for gmail or call you on google voice? What if one of your contacts doesn't trust ANY company other than Google? Using your logic, you shouldn't contact them on anything other than Google services.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#99

Post by calloc » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 3:19 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #93

calloc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend has shared their contact information on Facebook, I decide to contact them using my iPhone, and save their contact information. That now gets sync'ed from my phone to my Mac, which is sync'ed with Google because I use gmail for my main email account and I like to have all of my contact information also available from within gmail and more importantly google voice so that I know when people send me text mess…

I'm giving up on this thread now. The endless downvotes instead of replies and people missing the point are just disheartening. One more time, for the record: Your friend trusted you with their personal data, not Google. You may not personally have a problem with sharing your own personal data with Google, but not everyone is like you, and some people do. That doesn't mean they have a problem with sharing the data wi…

Unfortunately I am unable to remember any and all of my friends contact information. I store it somewhere for easy retrieval when I need it.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#100

Post by esrauch » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 3:46 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #86

alex_c wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they do, I'll be pissed at them, not at the technology they use to share my secrets.

But you don't have a problem with them sharing your information with anyone as long as it's a technology provider? Even if that technology provider has a fundamental interest in abusing that access and using your data for purposes far beyond than what you or your friend ever intended?

You are choosing to share the information with them. They can view your profile and see it and type it wherever else they want, the only thing that preventing automatic export achieves is making it inconvenient for someone to leave facebook, not prevent someone from taking any conceivable action they wanted with your information.