Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance • Hacker News Board

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#21

Post by aaron-lebo » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:51 PM UTC

I'm sorry, coming from Zuck, this statement means very little to me.

I guess I'm old school, but Zuck has shown disdain for the privacy of users in the past, FB actively tracks the movement of users across the net (likely without many realizing), and I'm under the impression that this culture that emphasizes sharing every fucking thing is more dangerous to people than the US government trying to get at data that they probably already have.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like that the US government is doing this, but I don't trust FB at all.

Nothing to see here folks. Just the old tug of war between governments and corporations for power, while the actual citizens get trampled.

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#22

Post by adityab » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:52 PM UTC

  When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government.

Why?

Any company that cares about 'security' and controls such a massive amount of personal data would know that governments do not always behave morally/legally.

This excuse should not work; we the public should expect better.

Yahoo did not use https. Facebook scans your IMs and tracks your website visits for ads. When do we reach the point when plausible ignorance of governmental overreach and the need to 'monetize' are no longer considered valid excuses for compaines to be lax with the data they hold about you?

As an aside: as far as I can tell these are just crododile tears - if Zuckerberg truly cared, Facebook would back off from generating ad revenue off IM and would enable OTR.

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#23

Post by AndrewKemendo » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:52 PM UTC

zachrose wrote: post #16

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. This is why I am leaving government. I am about the same age as Zuck and have been working in government at many levels for about 12 years now and I work with people who have been working policy for over 40 years. The president couldn't care less what most of us think think...but because Zuck has sh…

It's not just because Zuckerburg has personal wealth. It's also because Facebook directly employs thousands of people, pays corporate taxes, enables new markets that rely on Facebook, and sells advertising to all those other corporations. His age has nothing to do with it.

No doubt about that, I only mentioned age because it hits home there. He's a job creator which is why he has a voice.

Don't overlook the personal wealth aspect though because he was able to start that PAC fwd.us.

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#24

Post by rhizome » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:53 PM UTC

zaidf wrote: post #14

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. This is why I am leaving government. I am about the same age as Zuck and have been working in government at many levels for about 12 years now and I work with people who have been working policy for over 40 years. The president couldn't care less what most of us think think...but because Zuck has sh…

it's just illuminating who the government listens to If Obama and the gov actually listened to Zuck, the problem would be fixed. Heck at this point, it is not too farfetched to think that parts of the government don't listen to the President, even.

Zuck is the wrong person to make entreaties to the President about this because it doesn't affect Zuck personally. As far as the Executive Branch is concerned, Zuck is just expressing an opinion about policy the way an airline CEO might about the FAA: as a business concern, not a legal nor civil liberties one. Obama already knows that the only thing Zuck is talking about is money, not people.

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#25

Post by byoogle » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:53 PM UTC

> That’s why at Facebook we spend a lot of our energy making our services and the whole internet safer and more secure. We encrypt communications, we use secure protocols for traffic, we encourage people to use multiple factors for authentication and we go out of our way to help fix issues we find in other people’s services.

I have to call “bs” here. It took Facebook nine years – nine years! (2004–2013) – to turn HTTPS on by default (http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/11/19/facebook-https-t-...). Beforehand, anybody on your network could trivially hijack your Facebook session to gain access to your account (I made a video two years ago about how easy this attack was [and is] if you don’t know what I mean: http://youtu.be/g5mFbgxMHqQ?t=1m33s).

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#26

Post by MadManE » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:54 PM UTC

zachrose wrote: post #8

> When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government. Does it really matter who they're protecting us from?

More to the point, what's the difference between the government and criminals?

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#27

Post by Zikes » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:54 PM UTC

johnnyg wrote: post #9

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. This is why I am leaving government. I am about the same age as Zuck and have been working in government at many levels for about 12 years now and I work with people who have been working policy for over 40 years. The president couldn't care less what most of us think think...but because Zuck has sh…

How should they do it? Do you listen to everyone equally? Can it even be done?

I'm pretty sure listening to everyone equally is the definition of democracy.

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#28

Post by rayiner » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:54 PM UTC

zachrose wrote: post #16

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. This is why I am leaving government. I am about the same age as Zuck and have been working in government at many levels for about 12 years now and I work with people who have been working policy for over 40 years. The president couldn't care less what most of us think think...but because Zuck has sh…

It's not just because Zuckerburg has personal wealth. It's also because Facebook directly employs thousands of people, pays corporate taxes, enables new markets that rely on Facebook, and sells advertising to all those other corporations. His age has nothing to do with it.

"It's also because [] directly employs thousands of people, pays corporate taxes, enables new markets that rely on []..."

Insert {Halliburton, Exxon, AT&T, Comcast, BP, etc} into those brackets and you'll get a much better idea of the nature of political influence and lobbying in the U.S.

This is why I think all the bluster around Citizens United and the influence of money in politics is overblown. Because at the end of the day, a post-card listing the number of employees Exxon has in a Congressman's district is just as effective as a check.

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#29

Post by Zikes » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:55 PM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #21

I'm sorry, coming from Zuck, this statement means very little to me. I guess I'm old school, but Zuck has shown disdain for the privacy of users in the past, FB actively tracks the movement of users across the net (likely without many realizing), and I'm under the impression that this culture that emphasizes sharing every fucking thing is more dangerous to people than the US government trying to get at data that they…

I suppose doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is something, at least.

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#30

Post by Zigurd » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:56 PM UTC

Facebook was listed as one of the companies participating in PRISM, with a specific start date.

None of the denials or other announcements made by any of the companies the NSA seemed pretty sure were collaborating addressed why they appeared on that list. Until there is a good explanation for why the NSA thinks they were collaborating, denials ring pretty hollow.