Logging out of Facbook is not enough • Hacker News Board

Re: Logging out of Facbook is not enough

#111

Post by Mithrandir » Mon, Sep 26, 2011, 12:47 AM UTC

codedivine wrote: post #3

dchest wrote: post #2

In Chrome 15 there's a flag (in about:flags) to disable third-party cookies from being read: Block all third-party cookies. When the option to block third-party cookies from being set is enabled, also block third-party cookies from being read. (Don't forget to activate blocking in Preferences > Under The Hood > Content Settings... > Cookies.)

Thanks for the tip! Anything equivalent for Firefox (and maybe IE and Opera too)?

I use Cookie Monster (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-monste...) as it allows more dynamic blocking of cookies.

Re: Logging out of Facbook is not enough

#112

Post by zinkem » Mon, Sep 26, 2011, 1:14 AM UTC

Aviwein77 wrote: post #77

Let me get this straight, this guy posts about how logging out of Facebook isn't enough, and how Facebook learning things about you that you don't want it to. The majority reaction is to adblock them and disallow them to do that to you. But this isn't right. Go on Facebook and tell me how many of your friends wouldn't even know the first thing to do with one of these extensions. So now the computer literate people kn…

Adblocking is a practical solution to something we see as a problem. Many people don't even think this is a problem and actively ignore people trying to educate them, so what do you propose the right thing to do here is?

> So now the computer literate people know how to do X, but what about everyone else?

This is only a problem that will get worse with time. Computer literacy is important to contemporary society.

Re: Logging out of Facbook is not enough

#113

Post by X-Istence » Mon, Sep 26, 2011, 3:17 AM UTC

1880 wrote: post #22

dchest wrote: post #2

In Chrome 15 there's a flag (in about:flags) to disable third-party cookies from being read: Block all third-party cookies. When the option to block third-party cookies from being set is enabled, also block third-party cookies from being read. (Don't forget to activate blocking in Preferences > Under The Hood > Content Settings... > Cookies.)

But then some sites stop working, like Twitter and even some parts of Google :(

I use Safari and that is the default setting, and I have not had any issues at all ... could you provide more information?

Re: Logging out of Facbook is not enough

#114

Post by fjarlq » Mon, Sep 26, 2011, 3:38 AM UTC

X-Istence wrote: post #113

1880 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then some sites stop working, like Twitter and even some parts of Google :(

I use Safari and that is the default setting, and I have not had any issues at all ... could you provide more information?

Isn't Safari's option the same as Chrome's main "Block third-party cookies from being set"?

Chrome's about:flags option also blocks third-party cookies from being read.

Re: Logging out of Facbook is not enough

#115

Post by mildweed » Mon, Sep 26, 2011, 4:52 AM UTC

veyron wrote: post #29

Zakuzaa wrote: post #8

I think there's a start up opportunity - "A dead simple way to take control of your privacy". Perhaps a native tool for windows, mac and linux. Just install it, set the settings and forget it.

Expand on this more. How does this differ from privacy mode (at this point most browsers have a "InPrivate" browsing or "Incognito" or "Private" mode

"A dead simple way"

Re: Logging out of Facbook is not enough

#116

Post by barbazfoobuzz » Mon, Sep 26, 2011, 6:01 AM UTC

so if someone introduced a way to be on a small local area network with just you and your friends/family, without involving any third party servers (no xmpp or whatever else), would you guys be interested? encrypted of course, but based on "real world" trust (you already know each other in real life, you share a passphrase in person, the old fashioned way, no online pki conundrums).

is there a demand for this?

are people annoyed enough with facebook that they're ready for this?

Re: Logging out of Facbook is not enough

#117

Post by devraj » Mon, Sep 26, 2011, 7:37 AM UTC

I am not aware of any problem this has caused me for a long time, including on the sites you mentioned. Maybe there is some useful feature I'm not seeing at all because of the cookie restrictions I impose, but maybe they've just got better over time at not relying on cookies for things they shouldn't?

Re: Logging out of Facbook is not enough

#118

Post by yuliyp » Mon, Sep 26, 2011, 8:05 AM UTC

lansing wrote: post #86

In fact, deactivating/"quitting" your FB account is not enough, either. I deactivated my FB account several weeks ago, not so much for privacy issues directly but out of concern of the overall psychological effect of so much sharing and the emphasis on superficial identity (something I don't see discussed much). Anyway, I checked my cookies after reading this piece and, not surprisingly, FB didn't remove my old auth…

datr is not an auth cookie. xs is an auth cookie, and c_user is the cookie which stores your user ID. datr is a machine identifier, not a user identifier (multiple people using the same computer share a datr, but don't share accounts, while a single user using multiple computers or browsers will have a single account, but one datr per machine).

Re: Logging out of Facbook is not enough

#119

Post by mziulu » Mon, Sep 26, 2011, 8:15 AM UTC

hunter42 wrote: post #93

Between Google Analytics (which everyone seems to have nowadays), Adsense and now the +1 button, Google has been master of user tracking. Facebook only has things I chose to share, but Google can tie everything to my private emails through Gmail and all the creepy search terms I might have ever used. How do we stop them?

The point of this article is precisely that they know/have MORE than what you explicitly give them.

Re: Logging out of Facbook is not enough

#120

Post by lawnchair_larry » Mon, Sep 26, 2011, 9:47 AM UTC

beaumartinez wrote: post #16

> The entire process was so flaky and frustrating that I haven't bothered sending them two XSS holes that I have also found in the past year. You realise you're hurting innocent users much more than Facebook itself by not reporting them, right?

He didn't put the bugs there, he only discovered information that already existed. He can't be blamed for hurting anyone.

It's easier to work for free like this if it is an open source group or a non-profit. It's a bit harder when it's a $100 billion company. If they don't compensate security researchers, let them find their own bugs.