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Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#121

Post by hooluupog »

tuna-piano wrote: post #79

Facebook's dominance is even more pronounced in parts of the developing world. I've met people in Asia (Myanmar and Nepal) who have just accessed the internet for the first time in the past 12-24 months (through their Android smartphones). But they don't know the true internet - they only know the internet through the Facebook app. They use it like we use Google and web browsers. To them, Facebook is the internet. Th…

Absolutely agree with you.In china more and more people know the internet through wechat and do almost everything on wechat.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#122

Post by nine_k »

jngreenlee wrote: post #107
draw_down wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security breaches are bad for capital. Privacy invasions like this are good for capital.

Security breaches are bad for one party's capital, good for another party's capital. It's interesting to contemplate WHY is there a difference between the two. Security and Private both nasciently have something to do with "info I'd like to keep to myself", but I'm not sure I can come up with a hard delineation between the two, at least when you try to go above "A/S/L" and below "user/pass".

A security breach allows to use the victim's resources: from CPU and bandwidth to money directly on your bank account.

A privacy breach allows... what? Where's a direct threat?

A privacy breach can be a first step to a security breach, though. Social engineering is all about it. Social networks can be, too.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#123

Post by ihm »

makecheck wrote: post #72

In computer security, every time machines become fast enough to breach the limits of an algorithm we invent something new so that “hard” problems remain “hard” and therefore encryption is still secure. There has been no corresponding increase in the difficulty of invading privacy. 30 years ago, even though you probably “could” observe somebody for a long time and eventually connect some dots about them, it would not…

I would love if someone made a Chrome extension that encrypted all the posts and messages you put on Facebook. That is, any post you made would be made as a ciphertext, the extension would swap keys with all your friends in the background, and would decrypt their posts when displaying them to you.

Sure Marky Mark still sees when you post, who you send messages to, etc. but it's a much better situation than what's going on now. Plus it would probably put a dent in their bottom line, and so send them the message that privacy matters to people.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#124

Post by wordupmaking »

Waterluvian wrote: post #111
thr0waway1239 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unethical: lacking moral principles. Moral: of, relating to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong I think it is "clearly wrong" that Facebook creates shadow profiles, because it is violating the freedom of people who have not signed up for their service, in the same way that it is clearly wrong for me to take away your favorite pet for ritualistic sacri…

I can't claim it's wrong because I'm not a good ethicist. But I can say anecdotally that I feel upset and disgusted by the idea that even though I don't have Facebook, they may have a dossier on me. Simply because friends use my name or share photos including me. It's upsetting because I don't know what I can do about it. How do I protect my privacy in this world? Do I stop having friends? Do I wear a mask everywhere…

> I can't claim it's wrong because I'm not a good ethicist.

Even the best ethics expert in the world would just be one who knows how to describe a bunch of ethical systems and ideas that exist currently and historically. Other than that, they can help you exactly zilch with such decisions. I'm not a psychologist, but I'll claim if it makes you feel upset and disgusted, that means you did decide you consider it wrong. And if it helps, I agree.

As for how to change things, well, ask the EFF for example? There's things you can do which, apart from being a real help, also help you with the dread of this free floating vague blob of worries that you sometimes look at but as you said feel you can't do anything about.

One thing you can always do, is that not giving in. It just takes one person to prove the claim that everybody accepts or wants X wrong. When being that person seems scary, personally, when looking around, I'm not convinced at all that the people who fight no or trivial battles are less scared. It's not actually safer on the side of thugs, generally speaking, and life isn't more fun at mindless parties either, only those who don't have the comparison would think that. I'd rather say that's all built on sand, on holes that have to be temporarily filled with more and more material.

So keep on hanging on, because there might come a point where you feel less upset, more grounded, and the people who drift along will become more and more confused. Real things can hurt, sometimes badly, but real things also have longevity, they bring their own means and nutrients for growth.

At least, that's how I answer these questions for myself, that's how it ended up working out, and while I know that can't be generalized, sometimes it does get darkest before dawn. Don't let it drag you down (Sophie Scholl's outlook = best outlook).. but what you can shoulder, do shoulder. The only way out really is through, ultimately.

If worst comes to worst, don't get crushed when the screeching narcissism machine attempting to eat the planet drives itself and billions of people against the wall and implodes. Easier said than done, but change will come one way or the other. I'm not convinced it would leave spots of unscorched Earth, but that hope dies last, anyway.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#125

Post by theprop »

I do not use any Facebook mobile app (may track my microphone, location, etc...terrible!). I use Facebook's site in a browser (usually Chromium) in which I don't otherwise browse the net or do anything else except email. For browsing, I use the Epic Privacy Browser.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#126

Post by tzs »

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #93
baddox wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you pretend I either disagree or have yet to form an opinion, and explain why this is "clearly unethical"?

Unethical: lacking moral principles. Moral: of, relating to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong I think it is "clearly wrong" that Facebook creates shadow profiles, because it is violating the freedom of people who have not signed up for their service, in the same way that it is clearly wrong for me to take away your favorite pet for ritualistic sacri…

I doubt that he doesn't understand what "unethical" means. The question is how does what Facebook is doing qualify? You've said it is because it violates the freedom of people Facebook is making inferences about who are not users of Facebook's services.

That just shifts the question to how does it violate their freedom? That is not at all obvious to me. (NOTE: this does not mean that I'm saying it is OK...just that I don't see how it is a freedom violation).

My computer desk at home is near a large window, which I often look out while I am using the computer. From this window I can see people from my street walking dogs. I can see kids going to and from school. I see cars coming and going. My street is a dead end street about 1 km long, and I'm about 200 meters in. The street bends a little way past my place, so the last 700 meters or so are not visible from my place.

By casually observing people walk by, I've gathered data to make several inferences about people who live beyond the bend. I've figured out when some people are having house guests (by seeing people I've never seen before walking dogs that I recognize).

I've inferred sibling relationships among some of the children who walk by (by noticing dress and equipment patterns that clearly indicate that the same person is shopping for both).

I've figured out what kind of cars the parents of the some of the children drive (by seeing those cars stop when passing the children on the way home, and the children getting in, or seeing a strong correlation between days when particular children who walked by to school in the morning do not walk by in the afternoon and days when particular cars drive by in the afternoon).

Am I violating these people's freedom by making these inferences from what I see out my window?

If not, what is the fundamental difference between what I'm doing by observing people that walk or drive by on my street and what Facebook does by observing what its users do on its site?

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#127

Post by smcnally »

still_grokking wrote: post #117
hueving wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do these targeted ad's really work? The massive income Facebook has seems to imply so.

No, the massive income Facebook generates only imply that the people spending money on targeted ads believe (!) these ad are working. It is not a prove per se these ads really are worth their costs.

Buyers have access to a detailed audit trail of their ads and campaign activities. They see where ads they bought ran, the number of people who were able to see their ads, and clicks and other interactions with their ads.

If "these ads are working" is defined as "these ads are accomplishing what they were intended to when purchased," peoples' spend is founded more in data than belief.

Buyers have access to ~2BN people and tools to target them by age, interest, and geography -- much of that demographic and psychographic data is explicitly and freely given by those people themselves; tons more are derived and inferred. Buyers repeat their buys because these ads accomplish what they intended at purchase -- they can effectively drive traffic or commerce or whatever else.

This real power to generate revenue makes the issues around privacy, security, transparency, awareness, responsibility, ethics, laws, oversight more important than if it was created by ignorant beliefs. The latter would be temporary; the former generally strengthens as more data gets into the system.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#128

Post by wmeredith »

ihm wrote: post #123
makecheck wrote: post #72

In computer security, every time machines become fast enough to breach the limits of an algorithm we invent something new so that “hard” problems remain “hard” and therefore encryption is still secure. There has been no corresponding increase in the difficulty of invading privacy. 30 years ago, even though you probably “could” observe somebody for a long time and eventually connect some dots about them, it would not…

I would love if someone made a Chrome extension that encrypted all the posts and messages you put on Facebook. That is, any post you made would be made as a ciphertext, the extension would swap keys with all your friends in the background, and would decrypt their posts when displaying them to you. Sure Marky Mark still sees when you post, who you send messages to, etc. but it's a much better situation than what's goi…

Eh, your head is in the right place, but honestly if you have all the meta data, the message content almost isn't needed.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#129

Post by curun1r »

jacquesm wrote: post #55
curun1r wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. It has an MX record that will clue you into it being hosted by Google. It may be inconvenient, but "absolutely no way" is hyperbole.

Right, what's the last time you checked the recipients domain MX record before sending an email? That's just nonsense, nobody does this, people just send mail through some client and never ever check MX records by hand unless they are trying to debug some kind of problem, in fact, the vast majority of people have no clue that something like an MX record even exists. To them email is roughly equivalent to magic.

Perhaps its just the ex-sysadmin in me, but I've done it pretty frequently over the years. Pop open a terminal, host -t mx example.com, done. Mostly I do this when I think there's any chance that my email will get routed to a server in China (pipe the result of the host query through nslookup and eventually to a whois against ARIN to see whether the IP is allocated by APNIC), since I'd prefer to avoid that.

I get that it's not common or simple, but "absolutely no way" doesn't mean absolutely no way that's common and simple. It's doable and, if you want to avoid it, there's plenty of ways to ensure that you never send directly to a Google server.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#130

Post by Sparkesix »

tzs wrote: post #126
thr0waway1239 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unethical: lacking moral principles. Moral: of, relating to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong I think it is "clearly wrong" that Facebook creates shadow profiles, because it is violating the freedom of people who have not signed up for their service, in the same way that it is clearly wrong for me to take away your favorite pet for ritualistic sacri…

I doubt that he doesn't understand what "unethical" means. The question is how does what Facebook is doing qualify? You've said it is because it violates the freedom of people Facebook is making inferences about who are not users of Facebook's services. That just shifts the question to how does it violate their freedom? That is not at all obvious to me. (NOTE: this does not mean that I'm saying it is OK...just that I…

Not OP, but I think the fundamental difference is that you are, presumably, not selling everything you know to potential stalkers that wish to know everything about the people you mentioned.
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