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Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page was hacked by an unemployed web developer

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page was hacked by an unemployed web developer

#131

Post by rohunati »

short_circut wrote: post #7
chrisacky wrote: post #2

Although this is blogspam, it's a blogspam that I can actually support... This is being covered a lot more widely because FB didn't just pay the guy. I know it wasn't about money for FB, but this is easily done a lot more damage then they would have expected and because of their inadequate handling of a single bug report, I can only feel satisfied as I think this will go down as a good case study of how not to be so…

Dismissive and ignored? Did you read what he submitted to them? It made no sense. He vaguely stated that there was a bug and his education. His bug report was nonsensical. I am not even slightly surprised they ignored it. And he violated the TOS before he even ever tried to post to Zuckerberg's wall.

his first language is Arabic.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page was hacked by an unemployed web developer

#132

Post by gnaritas »

webvictim wrote: post #79
gnaritas wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crime does pay, that's rather the point of crime, it doesn't really need proving.

In that case, crowdsourcing a way to pay this guy $5k for the vulnerability he found and abused would be counterintuitive.

I see no abuse. Secondly, the publicity of this will probably land the dude a job.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page was hacked by an unemployed web developer

#133

Post by Gigablah »

cliveowen wrote: post #119
walid wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because everyone on the web corrects everyone else, English is not the most spoken language in the world. It is the third most while Arabic is the fifth to my surprise: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_...

Jesus, now I know why everyone is so lazy to learn a new language: you're lazy enough to not read a comment let alone learn an entire language. I already said it: yes, English it's not the most spoken language, but it's the dominant in that it transcends cultures and countries. Saying that Chinese is the dominant language because is the most spoken is like saying that ants are the most influential beings because they…

Did you just compare the Chinese to ants?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page was hacked by an unemployed web developer

#134

Post by AsymetricCom »

lttlrck wrote: post #80
efuquen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having dealt with fellow developers that don't have perfect english or thick accents I think it's quite unprofessional to dismiss someone's complaint without even trying to understand them. It's great for us native English speakers that it's such a dominant language but I think we should all give a little more respect for others where it's clearly not their first language and they're the ones having to go out of thei…

I agree with that completely, however, common-sense should have told him that demonstrating an exploit on third-party was a really dumb idea. It has nothing to do with TOS or language barriers. That is why he isn't getting paid (yet?)

I think it's more telling that the lack of professionalism displayed by an unemployed developer is the focus, and not the fact that an unemployed developer with a lack or professionalism discovered this hack. This could have been exploited so much worse than it was. Just because he didn't follow unwritten rules of disclosure, doesn't mean that Facebook didn't majorly mess up here. The details of the dev and his behavior are quite trivial, in this case.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page was hacked by an unemployed web developer

#135

Post by nwmcsween »

dsl wrote: post #68
wereHamster wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To all hackers: If you speak perfect english, please proceed to submit exploits to the FB security team and collect $5k on your way out. If not, post to blackhat forums and receive $10k. Or use the exploit to manipulate FB stock price (I'm sure posting as Mark would move the stock price significantly, if only for a few minutes. But that's enough to earn a lot more than $5k).

He posted on Mark's wall, not as him. Also, relative to other places you could be spending your time, FB security issues yield relatively little in the blackhat market because of their highly responsive abuse and security teams.

It depends on the bug, automate account creation and spam some links could add a few million bots to a bot net.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page was hacked by an unemployed web developer

#136

Post by gedrap »

efuquen wrote: post #38
short_circut wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dismissive and ignored? Did you read what he submitted to them? It made no sense. He vaguely stated that there was a bug and his education. His bug report was nonsensical. I am not even slightly surprised they ignored it. And he violated the TOS before he even ever tried to post to Zuckerberg's wall.

Having dealt with fellow developers that don't have perfect english or thick accents I think it's quite unprofessional to dismiss someone's complaint without even trying to understand them. It's great for us native English speakers that it's such a dominant language but I think we should all give a little more respect for others where it's clearly not their first language and they're the ones having to go out of thei…

I am not a native English speaker. Although I study in England (University of Manchester), I believe half of my course mates are not native speakers either. At least the ones who turn up to lectures. People try to explain their algorithms, ideas in broken English with damn thick accents but they DO explain. They put effort.

From what he managed to write in the blog post, he CAN write English which is not THAT bad.

But this dude doesn't really bother. Hey Facebook, there's a bug. Wanna know it? How about you... beg me to tell you?

I am quoting him: whatever , i dont care for miss spelling , just the idea , i never correct an underline red word ;)

Did FB treat it properly? No. Did he act properly? Not either. But since it's FB... THEY ARE EVIL!!!!111!

Re: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page was hacked by an unemployed web developer

#137

Post by jack-r-abbit »

AsymetricCom wrote: post #134
lttlrck wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with that completely, however, common-sense should have told him that demonstrating an exploit on third-party was a really dumb idea. It has nothing to do with TOS or language barriers. That is why he isn't getting paid (yet?)

I think it's more telling that the lack of professionalism displayed by an unemployed developer is the focus, and not the fact that an unemployed developer with a lack or professionalism discovered this hack. This could have been exploited so much worse than it was. Just because he didn't follow unwritten rules of disclosure, doesn't mean that Facebook didn't majorly mess up here. The details of the dev and his behav…

> Just because he didn't follow unwritten rules of disclosure

Are you refering to those unwritten rule that are written here: https://www.facebook.com/whitehat

Re: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page was hacked by an unemployed web developer

#138

Post by anigbrowl »

gedrap wrote: post #136
efuquen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having dealt with fellow developers that don't have perfect english or thick accents I think it's quite unprofessional to dismiss someone's complaint without even trying to understand them. It's great for us native English speakers that it's such a dominant language but I think we should all give a little more respect for others where it's clearly not their first language and they're the ones having to go out of thei…

I am not a native English speaker. Although I study in England (University of Manchester), I believe half of my course mates are not native speakers either. At least the ones who turn up to lectures. People try to explain their algorithms, ideas in broken English with damn thick accents but they DO explain. They put effort. From what he managed to write in the blog post, he CAN write English which is not THAT bad. Bu…

You do make a good point, but at the same time I was easily able to understand his original bug report. I agree that both sides should be making a little more effort, and engaging in a bit less drama.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page was hacked by an unemployed web developer

#139

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

webvictim wrote: post #88
Oculus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree with you on this. The response from the engineer could've been better. Some sort of canned response would have worked. IMHO, the whole ToS business was a way to give him a slap on the wrist for embarrassing them.

Embarrassment is a very relative thing - it looks to me like the majority of comments on this HN post are saying the guy was in the wrong for breaking the TOS and I have to say I agree. Facebook haven't been embarrassed, they've just upheld a policy which says that they won't pay anyone who doesn't play by the rules. Quite fair, in my opinion.

>they've just upheld a policy which says that they won't pay anyone who doesn't play by the rules. Quite fair, in my opinion.

My first thought is to say to facebook "Oh, I thought you were interested in fixing bugs. I'll know better what to do next time." Are you forgetting that the purpose of the bounty program is to protect facebook users by discovering and fixing bugs before spammers get the chance to use them? And that spammers pay real money for bugs like this one?

It's an awfully high standard to hold people to, considering the fb ToS is not translated to the guy's native language.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page was hacked by an unemployed web developer

#140

Post by ceol »

beat wrote: post #100
ceol wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your replies in this thread have been piss poor, anti-corporation, anti-media, hyperbolic shitposting. Please take it back to /r/technology.

If the media hasn't consistently presented "hacker" as negative, why is it seen as such? After all, everyone who actually knows what hacking is a: sees it as positive, and b: is irritated at the media presentation. Facts is facts, man. Sorry if you don't like the snark, but I'm not sorry for telling the truth.

It's the general public's opinion about "hacker", not just the media's. Connotations change. Everyone here knows "hacker" to mean "someone who finds a simple solution to a complex problem" but everyone elsewhere uses "hacker" to mean "someone who breaks into another person's computer system." It's not even the wrong usage; it's just a usage you don't personally like.

That's not touching on the rest of your posts. They've all been hyperbolic bullshit, and I hate seeing it bleed over from the political discussions.

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