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Meta confirms 1000s of Instagram accounts were hacked by abusing its AI chatbot

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Re: Meta confirms 1000s of Instagram accounts were hacked by abusing its AI chatbot

#201

Post by brikym »

jjcm wrote: post #80
webbdev wrote: post #29

Meanwhile an account I created for a new product was permanently disabled by an automated system with no path for me to appeal to a human. (If anyone at Meta/Instagram sees this I wrote a brief blog post with the details. Please help! https://addisonwebb.com/blog/2026-06-05-Can%20Someone%20at%2... )

This is extremely common, unfortunately, to a point where it's a known/expected outcome when you're first creating a brand or product page among those in the biz. If this doesn't work, I'd encourage you to reach out to a brand/ad agency and pay them $100 to ask their meta contact to help you get unblocked. You pretty much have to know someone who knows someone at meta in order to create these. Tip: Do not post about…

I had a similar with Google. I couldn't verify my site for ads and there was no route to get a competent human. But it was fine when an agency did it for me. The problem is that agency take a 20% cut.

Re: Meta confirms 1000s of Instagram accounts were hacked by abusing its AI chatbot

#202

Post by Terr_ »

jjmarr wrote: post #183
Terr_ wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a false-dichotomy between two extremes when there's all sorts of space in the middle... It's also assuming developer-to-developer tools would have the same rules and exposure as in service-to-consumer. If I sell a physical motor (let alone plans for one) I'll have some liability for things like it Not Exploding. If someone buys a dozen of those motors to assemble a tragically unsafe "rollercoaster" of…

The United States/Canada don't have a "loser pays" rule, so this exposes me to legal fees. Right now, any lawsuit against me can be dismissed on summary judgement because even if my software causes harm, that's not a legal wrong to the extent I've disclaimed liability. If you adopt any fact-specific standard for liability, that needs to be adjudicated in a trial. The legal fees alone would surpass the actual liabilit…

> That kills hobbyist open-source development, since if your project takes off but a large enterprise finds it defective, they can threaten to sue you to enforce the "warranty" you were required to give.

I think you're assuming some kind of worst-possible outcome that hasn't been proposed and is unlikely to be enacted. To quote from earlier in the thread: "Disallow disclaiming liability on software used in a product."

I don't think that changes your hobby work on a rational-math library or an MVC framework or whatever, since you aren't making a business out of it. It will affect that large enterprise if they roll out their new product "Yearning 4 Mines: Gatcha Gig-work For Kids."

Re: Meta confirms 1000s of Instagram accounts were hacked by abusing its AI chatbot

#203

Post by fc417fc802 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #193
fc417fc802 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I broadly agree with you but TBF to the earlier comment consider what would happen if a FOSS author did something wrong and was found to be liable. How about curl for example? That sees use in car infotainment systems among other things and cars can be pretty expensive and there sure are an awful lot of them. The point is that we should be able to accommodate someone pushing a hobby project to github under a permissi…

I realize this is drifting off topic, and happy to talk more in email (address in profile), in the interest of sharing a bit more, consider this statement you paraphrase: "a FOSS author did something wrong and was found to be liable" In fairness, I not sure the earlier commentator really understood what they were saying, at least not as far as legal liability is concerned. The FOSS author simply wrote some code and s…

That's a really good point. Where I remain at least somewhat concerned is for example suppose that one day curl pushes a terrible bug to production that results in all sorts of nasal demons flying out of client devices. Is this free code that was picked up off the side of the road thus zero liability? Or is this a trusted product written and maintained by a professional that has stood the test of time thus there might be liability because there's an assumption that official updates will be fit for purpose?

Now if I were running a small business I might choose not worry about the tail risk of my product causing a few million dollars in harm or (more likely) I'd have insurance to cover that. But someone tossing code along the side of the road presumably doesn't have (and doesn't want to think about) insurance and meanwhile the tail risk has become nearly unbounded thanks to the effectively arbitrary number of deployed instances.

I think there's also some benefit to having a big fat NO WARRANTY clause at the top of the license file because it might give you a better chance of a summary dismissal (or even deter the other party from trying in the first place) since as we all know the process itself can be ruinous even if you eventually prevail.

Which is all to say that I share your view. Willingly negligent vendors that cut costs by omitting security while viewing the resultant mishaps as an inescapable reality ought to be held accountable. But I think it would also be a good idea to add an official exemption for software that's made available free of charge. It seems like if you pick something up off the side of the road any mishaps that follow from that should necessarily fall to you.

Re: Meta confirms 1000s of Instagram accounts were hacked by abusing its AI chatbot

#204

Post by zuzululu »

dylan604 wrote: post #192
zuzululu wrote: post #171

> as well as the ability to access the person's posts, direct messages god dang!! we are going to see some juicy stuff

Will we, or will we read a bunch of crypto requests to not see that juicy stuff and a lot of people paying?

huh? im more interested in what kind of DMs famous people are sending to each other

Re: Meta confirms 1000s of Instagram accounts were hacked by abusing its AI chatbot

#205

Post by oenton »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #150
aleqs wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a pattern I noticed, especially on this site, where people claim various VC/ad/tech dark patterns, enshitification, privacy violations, dishonest marketing, etc MUST be allowed, otherwise open source or 'the internet' will face some sort of existential risk. No bro - open source and the internet existed long before SV tech parasitism did and will exist long after.

I don't disagree, that pattern exists, but it is essentially true. Just not in the way the folks saying it is true understand it. If the "VC/ad/tech dark patterns, enshitification, privacy violations, dishonest marketing, Etc." wasn't allowed then their job might not exist. That can be true. What is missed is that if there is value in the thing, then it will exist. When I reflect back to someone making this argument…

"Its a very common rhetorical technique to argue that the status quo cannot be changed."

Thank you for putting this so eloquently into words. This rigid thinking is also common in topics such as working conditions, collective bargaining, on-call time, parental leave, healthcare, and effectively (unintentionally or not) shuts down conversation.

I've come to realize the objections from people who think this way all effectively boil down to 'Be grateful for what you have because any alternative would be worse.' But if you pry and ask that they expand you'll find there really isn't any there there, because it's black and white thinking. It isn't rooted in fact, it comes from fear. I sure hope we haven't collectively forgot how to even imagine a system that functions better than the one we have today.

Re: Meta confirms 1000s of Instagram accounts were hacked by abusing its AI chatbot

#206

Post by n0on3 »

reaperducer wrote: post #176
Gigachad wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US car deaths stat is also completely insane and way higher than other countries. I can recognize that at scale, securing every account is a very difficult task, but with scale comes responsibility. Meta plays fast and loose rushing in unsupervised vibeslop agents to save a penny. They should be significantly penalized for such a massive failure, particularly for how long this exploit was live and for how the vic…

way higher than other countries You must live in Monaco. Wikipedia has the United States #80. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

Sure, but #80 out of 190, still not great ain’t it?

Re: Meta confirms 1000s of Instagram accounts were hacked by abusing its AI chatbot

#207

Post by Polizeiposaune »

dgoldstein0 wrote: post #18
Cpoll wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument here is that the AI is a glorified input page. The input field asks for your username and email and sends it to a backend function. Such an input page is working as intended. The problem is when the backend function doesn't verify that the email matches the username.

Why on earth would the backend function even take an email? Or perhaps said different: use the submitted info to identify the account; send any sensitive messages (recovery codes, password resets whatever) to only the contact info on file. If the chat bot can send such email it should do so via an API that sends only to contact info on file for the associated account and not to an email that's provided by the bot.

When such systems are hooked up to a web page they often will ask which contact should receive the reset code

(Pick one:

"send text to number ending in -1234"

"send text to number ending in -5678"

"send email to jo......th@gmail.com" )

Re: Meta confirms 1000s of Instagram accounts were hacked by abusing its AI chatbot

#208

Post by oenton »

Cpoll wrote: post #10
Cyan488 wrote: post #3

> "The tool itself worked properly and functioned as intended; however due to a bug in a separate code path, the system did not properly verify that the email address provided by the individual requesting a password reset matched the email address associated with that user’s Instagram account," said Meta in its breach notice. I'm not sure "worked properly" and "as intended" accurately describe this situation.

The argument here is that the AI is a glorified input page. The input field asks for your username and email and sends it to a backend function. Such an input page is working as intended. The problem is when the backend function doesn't verify that the email matches the username.

Okay, I hear you. I do. From a technical viewpoint, that may very well be how their systems are implemented. But this still doesn't answer the question of why the fuck this matters to these states' AGs and the people they represent.

Re: Meta confirms 1000s of Instagram accounts were hacked by abusing its AI chatbot

#209

Post by eddyfromtheblok »

simpaticoder wrote: post #142
Gigachad wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twenty _thousand_ people had their personal data stolen, many of them relied on these accounts to run their business, many put at risk of hackers impersonating them. Meta in a fair world should be forced to financially compensate these people. They built a world where many people basically have to use their products for their jobs and then failed to look after the data because they wanted to replace customer support…

Over forty _thousand_ people die every year in the US from car accidents. Plenty of other preventable injustices happen in all areas of life. I wonder how many fathers are unjustly taken away from their children by a corrupt family court system, how many people die of treatable diseases denied treatment by insurance companies, how many kids lose interest in school because of bad teachers, how many customer service wo…

ok, but we, as engineers, can do better. rather than leaning on lawyers as a crutch to eschew liability.

Re: Meta confirms 1000s of Instagram accounts were hacked by abusing its AI chatbot

#210

Post by Terr_ »

oenton wrote: post #205
ChuckMcM wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, that pattern exists, but it is essentially true. Just not in the way the folks saying it is true understand it. If the "VC/ad/tech dark patterns, enshitification, privacy violations, dishonest marketing, Etc." wasn't allowed then their job might not exist. That can be true. What is missed is that if there is value in the thing, then it will exist. When I reflect back to someone making this argument…

"Its a very common rhetorical technique to argue that the status quo cannot be changed." Thank you for putting this so eloquently into words. This rigid thinking is also common in topics such as working conditions, collective bargaining, on-call time, parental leave, healthcare, and effectively (unintentionally or not) shuts down conversation. I've come to realize the objections from people who think this way all eff…

With respect to the need/impossibility of change, the "Politician's Fallacy" seems related:

1. Something must be done.

2. This is something.

3. Therefore this must be done!

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