Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

identityblog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 222 posts

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#191

Post by ltamake »

gsmaverick wrote: post #92
ltamake wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Primary example: the Like button. Even when I'm not logged into Facebook the button tracks where I go. I never checked a box to have the like button shown to me. Also, agreeing to use a website does NOT give the website the ability to break the law. Otherwise, we could have drug-trafficking sites completely in the open with a box saying "By checking this box, you understand that we sell extremely illegal drugs, and t…

Don't visit sites that use the Like button, block the Facebook domain. It's not that difficult.

I shouldn't have to block the domain to stop them from tracking me. They just shouldn't track me.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#192

Post by Travisism »

bitops wrote: post #120
Travisism wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is 100% completely voluntary. Nobody is forcing you to use Facebook. It is not even remotely close to the only communication service. I don't personally use Facebook and have no problem leading an active social and business life. Sure, a large portion of my friends use Facebook, but they also make phone calls, send text messages, email (through multiple different services), LinkedIn, Flickr, etc etc etc. So how do…

Perhaps true in the US but not so in Europe. My 16-year old cousin in Denmark (the worlds most FB connected country in the world, 3M users out of 5M population) told me that it's basically impossible to have a social life without being on Facebook (at her age). Facebook also caters very much to US culture. E.g. In middle school and high school you move between different classrooms so you make lots of different friend…

I see where your cousin is coming from by thinking that if she isn't on Facebook, she's ostracized, however people tell me the same thing when trying to get me to sign up.

Thankfully, since I never actively used any social networks as a kid, they never became a crutch for me, and any time there's a party worth going to, I'll know about it either through text, a call, or (what most kids seem to avoid these days) face to face social interactions with my friends.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#193

Post by lemming »

Lukeas14 wrote: post #80
kisielk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook could make data removable by users if they engineered their site to allow that. The problem is that they haven't, and it appears they've in fact done the opposite. We need data protection laws like this to put the onus on the service providers to make giving users control of their data a priority.

Deleting data in a complicated system is not at all a trivial task as data integrity can easily be impacted. So Facebook's excuse that they can't delete data at their scale is probably not just PR speak. For them there is no downside to keeping data besides a minority of their userbase complaining. Meanwhile the downside to deleting data is potentially huge and a mistake would be nonrecoverable. I wouldn't expect the…

For them there is no downside to keeping data besides a minority of their userbase complaining.

Well, that and violatng the laws of some of the countries in which they operate.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#194

Post by Travisism »

sek wrote: post #71
Travisism wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is 100% completely voluntary. Nobody is forcing you to use Facebook. It is not even remotely close to the only communication service. I don't personally use Facebook and have no problem leading an active social and business life. Sure, a large portion of my friends use Facebook, but they also make phone calls, send text messages, email (through multiple different services), LinkedIn, Flickr, etc etc etc. So how do…

You are not using it? This is maybe the reason why you don't understand this. For most people like me it is a tool to communicate to over 150 people and they expect me to have it. With most of them i can't communicate with mail any more. Facebook himself says it's Messaging is replacing Mail for young people, now they have to act responsible about it. It is like a telephone number you give to all your friends and som…

> You are not using it? This is maybe the reason why you don't understand this.

Is this not word for word what a drug addict says to somebody who's clean?

I've used social networks and found all they did was replace real life social interaction with fake, scrubbed online interactions. I was never one of those "DELETE YOUR FACEBOOK PROFILE AND RUN" fad followers, I just found that I was able to get by and communicate just fine without it.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#195

Post by sixtofour »

jackgavigan wrote: post #164
sixtofour wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why is this not a 'just don't use the service if you don't like it' deal?" Because that's the law in Europe (according to the complainer). It doesn't matter that you're free to not use the service, the law says that if you do use it you have certain rights. You're free to not use any service anywhere in the world. But if you do use a service in some jurisdiction, that service is subject to the law in that jurisdicti…

> It doesn't matter that you're free to not use the service, the law says that if you do use it you have certain rights. Actually, the law says that you have certain rights whether you use the service or not.

That's a law I can [Like].

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#196

Post by access_denied »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #170
ordinary wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German word for octopus is indeed "Kraken", and looking at the pictures in the article linked by the GP, I'd bet on the former, rather than the latter.

There's a cultural connotation to the octopus: its tentacles reach everywhere. So, a likely translation for "Datenkrake" would be something like "data umbrella". We could also try "Big Data", in reference to "Big Pharma".

re cultural connotation: a Krake is also a type of a monster, that is somebody who intents evil.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#197

Post by dredmorbius »

rue wrote: post #181
dredmorbius wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, until it gets so cheap there's no way to know whose glasses or jacket contains a gun capable of shooting you dead on the street. This sort of thing is like the tide coming in: legislation against it can only ultimately be effective by severe restriction on allowed technologies for the people of the country. Substitute whatever anti-social mechanism you prefer. The drone wars are coming: pilotless aircraft, poss…

I certainly suspect that most people make a distinction between shooting someone, and videotaping someone. This leads me to believe that surreptitious surveillance would be a far more widespread problem than random shootings.

Surreptitious surveillance to what ends?

If the use of any of that data -- for profiling, legal process, advertising, contact, etc. -- is prohibited, and the action of performing the surveillance exposes the entity to plausible legal consequences and/or obligations (notification, deletion requests, etc.), then its practice will be limited. Undisclosed phone recording in some states, for example (not admissible in legal processes, a violation of law of itself, etc.).

Much crime is economically motivated (not all, but much). Part of criminal theory revolves around making crime more expensive (to greater or lesser success, depending). There's an economic study of criminal activity as well.

Businesses tend not to undertake activities for which there isn't a net economic benefit. Shareholder obligations and all that. So yes, with an appropriate legal framework in place, it's quite likely that incentives for engaging in certain behaviors will be limited.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#198

Post by AppSec »

anigbrowl wrote: post #111
Jach wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think taking the discussion to rights is just a bad idea in the first place. Stick with what's in the law, and argue morality without appealing to rights.

The rights are in European law. They're called 'fundamental rights' and are quite explicit. EU citizens have a lot of individual constitutional rights that Americans do not. They're fundamental because they can't be signed or bargained away, and the reason for that is to reduce the inventive of firms or governments to employ trickery to that end.

I really wonder how much of that is because the EU is made up of many countries and these countries want to protect their own. It's kind of similar to how the breach disclosure rules are significantly different from state to state.

The other thing that I wonder is how much of the US not having the strict laws is due to Corporate Personhood. I honestly don't know, I'm just throwing it out there.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#199

Post by AppSec »

anthonyb wrote: post #72
count wrote: post #14

Maybe it's my unenlightened American perspective coming out here, but why is this a big deal? You chose to use the Facebook service, you chose to provide this information to them, and you chose to agree to their terms of service. Facebook isn't a government agency, it's a private organization that has persuaded people to give it armloads of data about themselves, and uses that for whatever completely legal purposes i…

The crux of the issue as far as I see it is that Facebook aren't exactly being open and transparent about the data that they're holding on you, or how it's being used. If you don't know that, there's no tradeoff being made. And in a lot of cases, there's data being gathered about people who haven't opted in. Seriously, read through the list of complaints: Shadow Profiles Facebook is collecting data about people witho…

Messages: This is the implementation issue and one of rights anyway. If I send a message to a friend, what right do I have to delete it from their in-box or sent items if they save a copy of it? The deletion is a view deletion, not a physical deletion. A large number of deletes work this way (at least initially they go to an archive and then are either time removed or can be manually removed).

Data Security: Anyone who says your data secure is bluffing. Your data is never secure, and people need to stop thinking it is. It's out there. Backups, in transit, in DB, on file system. There is going to be whole. Think about it. Encrypted backups - they are never updated and eventually that encryption is going to be easy to crack. FB could be taking the answer to the extreme, but it is actually a smart answer.

Applications: FB doesn't develop them. It would be similar to MS guaranteeing apps written by third parties. It can't do it. Apple can't even do it. Linux doesn't do it.

FB has it's issues. It's constant update of privacy and not letting the user to choose to expose what data they want. But this is no different than any other system thrown out there.

FB isn't the only one creating shadow profiles (how many tracking websites are out there that companies use to determine site usage). Do you think they are really being transparent? Don't you think the shadow companies could build a shadow profile if they wanted to?

My issues with FB is that when they release new features or alter settings ability they make it the least secure possible.

If they are violating the laws, then they need to be reprimanded for it. But this just has the feel of the MS monopoly issue. Where people are only going after them because they are so big when others are out there doing it as well.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#200

Post by anigbrowl »

Derbasti wrote: post #163
anigbrowl wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a law student, as it happens. How do you mean?

As far as I can see, there is not much risk involved in asking Facebook/Google/Dropbox/Yahoo/Microsoft/Whatever to give you "your" data, as per European law. Then look at it and see what is wrong with it. Then file a complaint. What can they do? It's the law. Then make the thing public, disclose all your communication with your target, post the story to Hacker News and Reddit, maybe even get picked up by some importa…

It would look good to be hired for that purpose, and win. Litigious lawyers can easily end up looking petulant, though; if the complaint is trivial or frivolous, the lawyer in question risks being regarded as a bottom feeder. It's better to bring something new to the table, like a winning argument that hasn't been employed before. Of course, I may not be so idealistic in a few years' time :-)
Post reply on HN