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Never Trust Facebook

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Re: Never Trust Facebook

#151

Post by gohrt »

lukejduncan wrote: post #23

Facebook has value, but no matter what your privacy settings are set to, no matter what you delete, always assume that anything you write or do on Facebook - in any context - will be embarrassingly public. 1) Because it will and 2) because it just makes life easier. When my wife and I were first dating, for religious and cultural reasons her parents didn't know. Her parents are conservative Muslims and mine conservat…

> my wife

Even if Facebook hadn't exposed the photo -- would it have hurt in any way? Her parents surely would have noticed at the wedding that you weren't Muslim.

Facebook seems to have been a force for expediting a break through the impasse, in this case.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#152

Post by gtirloni »

john61 wrote: post #149
a3_nm wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this, but the truth is more complex. Facebook makes it easy for a lot of people to manage very large number of friends. If you're not using Facebook but most people around you are using it, even though your close friends would probably care enough about you to communicate with you through some other means, you will probably be missing out on a large number of distant acquaintances. The usual counter-a…

If you are not going to be happy if you are not honest to your beliefs.

Not true. You can be really honest to your beliefs and have a miserable life specifically because of that.

I have deleted by FB account twice and then I was spending lots of time explaining why, getting weird looks from people and being left out of comments (e.g. people would post something to FB and be laughing about it later but never explain about what.. really impolite of them but what can I do? engage in more arguments).

So yeah, be honest to your beliefs, just don't expect that will translate to happiness (unless you really work on telling yourself none of that unpleasant situations are really bad). We are human beings, how we interact with others matter (even if I didn't want any of that).

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#153

Post by gohrt »

Steuard wrote: post #135
sgrenfro wrote: post #132

My name is Scott Renfro, and I’m a software engineer at Facebook working on security and privacy. I thought I'd post the comment I submitted on the original blog post here as well. We’ve put a lot of work into making deletions permanent, so I can imagine how frustrated you must be. I’m pretty sure those story deletions are permanent, and I can’t think of any place where we can or do automatically restore user-deleted…

As long as you're here, any comment on the (current) top-rated comment by lukejduncan? How can we trust that our private information today won't be similarly exposed by a settings change tomorrow? (I hope that nothing I've posted would endanger my relationship with my family, but I know others aren't as safe.)

Random engineers, even awesome ones like Renfro, don't have anything useful to say about what the SVP of Product is going to decide about how facebook.com will behave.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#154

Post by gtirloni »

rickdale wrote: post #58
novum wrote: post #7

FB has, over the years, gradually lost my trust until I deleted my account in November 2010 after having been a member since late 2004 when FB was college-only. As a 20-something living in SF, it's a daily thing now: I don't get invited to parties, I don't know about birthdays, I don't see my friends' photos, I don't have any contact with anyone from high school or college anymore. There is a real social cost for som…

I had my account around the same times as you did. And deleted for various reasons. When I deleted my account people were up in arms, "Why would you get rid of facebook?" And I am more the type of "why would you want it?" Now I miss out on all sorts of stuff like new babies and marriages, but at least it means really catching up with people when we do get together. Facebook is what I was into when I was growing up on…

I was deleted my account only to recreated it months later due to social pressure (yeah, I'm weak). When I logged back in, FB was suggesting I add all my old friends... I was immediately angry because it seemed FB hadn't really deleted my account so they still had all that data. Then it downed on me that they didn't have to keep my data... all my other friends were sharing so much information about me that I didn't even have to do it. FB knew my college friends, girlfriend, parents, etc..

It is really hard to go off the grid. Does anyone know if I job change, city change plus a name change would help? :)

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#155

Post by gohrt »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #4

I deleted my Facebook account a few years ago. The whole deal - waited the requisite month or so to ensure that it was gone, and any further login attempts wouldn't re-instate the account. Six months later I signed up with a different email address, and Facebook forced me to confirm my account with my phone number. Javascript Error - that phone number is associated with another Facebook account. I click OK, and I'm r…

If you used the same computer, Facebook knows that people from your IP tend to communicate with those friends.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#157

Post by jamesaguilar »

sophacles wrote: post #36
dfc wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What data "leaks" that a moderately sophisticated/equipped adversary could not easily learn via other means? In 45 seconds I was able to learn your name, basic age/location, and email from this post, your hn profile and github profile. Another 45 seconds and I found your google+ and twitter accounts, with better location data, education history and employer.

Most people aren't moderately sophisticated/equipped adversaries. They are just people you think have no business knowing about (parts of) your life.

Anybody who could or would actually harm you with the knowledge can easily acquire it is the GP's point, I think. A Facebook account, ipso facto, adds no additional risk.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#158

Post by pjbrunet »

hannibal5 wrote: post #52
novum wrote: post #7

FB has, over the years, gradually lost my trust until I deleted my account in November 2010 after having been a member since late 2004 when FB was college-only. As a 20-something living in SF, it's a daily thing now: I don't get invited to parties, I don't know about birthdays, I don't see my friends' photos, I don't have any contact with anyone from high school or college anymore. There is a real social cost for som…

Growing number of my friends are in FB with fake names and identities. It's more complicated when you add new friends or they want to add you, but otherwise it's ok for keeping touch with close friends. Yes, its against FB user agreement but fuck that.

In theory it sounds like a good idea, but imagine a scenario where your bank needs to confirm your identity and they outsource this task to a 3rd party that has incorrect data about you (actually happened to me) and when you provide the correct information they tell you it's incorrect and conclude you are not who you say you are. In my particular case they just had old data that was simply inaccurate. Is it unlikely that 3rd party would buy data from Facebook or some entity that obtained the inaccurate data from Facebook? I don't know but I think you see my point. Incorrect data that was inadvertently connected to you could potentially come back to cause you frustration in the future. That said, I don't necessarily disagree with what you're doing and hope Facebook is soon replaced by P2P software.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#159

Post by russellsprouts »

SomeoneElsa wrote: post #118
greenyoda wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it." It would be interesting to try to send Facebook a DMCA take-down notice if they undelete your content.

"... unless your content has been shared with others, AND [not ' or '] they have not deleted it. " But wait. What if another person's privacy settings preclude one's ability to know if people have shared my content or not, and/or whether those people deleted it? Doesn't that place Facebook in a realm of ultimate deniability with respect to whether or not they are still in lawful possession of this implicit IP License…

> For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, SUBJECT TO YOUR PRIVACY and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

It says that their license to display the image is subject to your privacy settings. Simply setting the image to Only You doesn't remove the image, but would ensure no one can see it. It effectively revokes Facebook's license to show the image to all your friends. If none of your friends can view it, they cannot share it, and it should remove any of their previous shares. Then you can delete it.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I have a feeling that "unless your content has been shared with others" behaves more narrowly in practice than it could by reading the text. Probably, it would apply to edges cases beyond Facebook's reasonable control - like a notification of a picture to a phone. The app only checks for updates every so often, and it may be out of service for a while, but a thumbnail is sent. You could delete the image, but until they check Facebook's servers, the person has effective control over the thumbnail, which is a derivative work of your copyrighted image, legally. Facebook is just covering their bases there.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#160

Post by robryan »

russellsprouts wrote: post #159
SomeoneElsa wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... unless your content has been shared with others, AND [not ' or '] they have not deleted it. " But wait. What if another person's privacy settings preclude one's ability to know if people have shared my content or not, and/or whether those people deleted it? Doesn't that place Facebook in a realm of ultimate deniability with respect to whether or not they are still in lawful possession of this implicit IP License…

> For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, SUBJECT TO YOUR PRIVACY and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your I…

In practice does that happen? Does changing the settings on an image destroy previously made shares?
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