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Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

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Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#91

Post by fl3tch »

sugarmountain wrote: post #82

Can any attorneys out there explain how altering computing devices to redirect and intercept email is not a criminal act when done without the knowledge or consent of the owner? If any of us pulled the same stunt, even if authorized to access the system for other reasons, would we not be subject to prosecution? Hopefully, the same will happen to FB. In addition to the Federal communications and cybercrime statutes, t…

Well, "Knowingly accesses and without permission... uses any data" would make the accessing and transmission of contacts (a la Path and many other apps) illegal. Except there's probably a clause somewhere that you agreed to without reading which lets them do that, and the same may be true here.

Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#92

Post by rjsamson »

wtallis wrote: post #63
crazygringo wrote: post #53

The more important question is, what are Apple and Google doing allowing apps write access to a user's address book?? I can't believe anyone at Facebook was dumb enough to think this was a good idea. But at the same time, I can't believe some "rogue engineer" did this by accident. I'm curious to see what Facebook says about it.

It sounds like this is iOS's built-in Facebook integration that was blindly trusting Facebook's data.

FB integration isn't coming until the fall - it is currently only available in developer builds of iOS 6.

Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#93

Post by chernevik »

graeme wrote: post #89
MichaelApproved wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

December 2nd, 1998? I'm curious how you had that handy. Have you always liked this comic and finally found a relevant place for it? Was it something you vague remembered and Googled it?

Dilbert has full text search. Remember part of any phrase from a relevant comic, and you can find it in short order. Not sure how the grand-parent poster found it of course.

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-02-11/

Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#94

Post by horsehead »

horsehead wrote: post #78
Achshar wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Is this Reddit now?

So I hold an opinion and do have substantial intellectual abilities. Does that mean I must be erudite in every post? <-- rhetorical answer because the answer is an assumed "No."

Lolz. Even a reasonable post gets downvoted.

Now I'm just itching for downvotes. GIVE ME THEM.

Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#95

Post by sugarmountain »

fl3tch wrote: post #91
sugarmountain wrote: post #82

Can any attorneys out there explain how altering computing devices to redirect and intercept email is not a criminal act when done without the knowledge or consent of the owner? If any of us pulled the same stunt, even if authorized to access the system for other reasons, would we not be subject to prosecution? Hopefully, the same will happen to FB. In addition to the Federal communications and cybercrime statutes, t…

Well, "Knowingly accesses and without permission... uses any data" would make the accessing and transmission of contacts (a la Path and many other apps) illegal. Except there's probably a clause somewhere that you agreed to without reading which lets them do that, and the same may be true here.

While it's probably true that the EULA permits FB to read the contact list, and update it in expected ways, there are many points covered in those statutes: interception and destruction of data, making the system unavailable for its intended use, etc.

Can anyone find language permitting FB to destructively alter the contents in profoundly unusual ways so that email is redirected to FB servers for interception and delivery as FB deems appropriate?

I'd really like to see an informed legal opinion on the possible criminality of their actions.

Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#96

Post by cjdavis »

codeka wrote: post #73

I've been complaining for ages that Facebook's contact sync was broken in Ice Cream Sandwich. I only had the app installed so I could sync my friend's contacts details with Facebook anyway, and every update I'd check to see whether they'd fixed it. But it was still broken, even after dozens of updates. Now I'm glad it's broken!

Agreed. I paid a buck for HaxSync to get sync working on ICS, looks like it wasn't able to overwrite the email addresses I had for people. I just disabled contact sync for HaxSync and Facebook (in case they actually decide to get it working with ICS)

Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#97

Post by at-fates-hands »

The funny part is my friends thought I was crazy NOT to sync my Facebook contacts with my gmail contact list.

This is a great example of why I continue to keep my information segregated across different networks. For all of the nonsense Facebook keeps pulling, I continue to have a healthy does of scepticism when allowing them access to ANY of my information - let alone letting these networks interact with each other.

Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#98

Post by californian »

codeka wrote: post #73

I've been complaining for ages that Facebook's contact sync was broken in Ice Cream Sandwich. I only had the app installed so I could sync my friend's contacts details with Facebook anyway, and every update I'd check to see whether they'd fixed it. But it was still broken, even after dozens of updates. Now I'm glad it's broken!

Just in case you were being serious... Facebook sync wasn't broken in ICS. Google intentionally disabled the feature in Gingerbread.

"Google says it is removing Facebook contacts because they are not stored locally on the phone like other contacts. This means that, unlike your Google contacts, the Facebook listings aren’t exportable so, if users decide to close their Facebook accounts, those contacts will disappear from the address book, something which violates Google’s notions of data portability."

http://blog.laptopmag.com/google-removes-facebook-contacts-f...

Re: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered, e-mail lost

#100

Post by vibrunazo »

About an year ago, when the story blew up about the Facebook app sneaking through your phone contacts and adding friends numbers' to your Facebook account. I instantly deleted the Facebook app from my Android, and told my friends Facebook was clearly not reliable to have an app privilege on your phone. I called it that they would eventually do even worse, if you let them have an app in your phone. The general consensus was that I was an alarmist doomsayer extremist exaggerating over nothing.

Well, who is crazy now? :) And I repeat what I said before. If you don't delete your Facebook app. They'll keep pulling stunts like these over and over again. It's very clear from their history that they have extremely little care for customer interests.

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