Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#121

Post by emilsedgh » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 8:06 AM UTC

leCapitalist wrote: post #82

kyle-rb wrote: post #67

I just don't understand how this gets implemented without someone speaking up and saying "hey, wait, isn't this an insane thing to do?". I would guess it's some combination of the complainers being ignored, and people at a higher level thinking "well we're doing this in a secure way, as long as the user trusts us, and why wouldn't they trust us, we're Facebook!".

Easy. The engineers who built it care mostly about their total compensation and getting promoted. They therefore gleefully implement the product requirements. The PMs behind the idea also care about the above, except they are held to account by business objectives. By narrowly optimizing for a particular objective (reducing account fraud) in an unprincipled manner, they come up with an insane feature idea like this.…

This story you wrote seems like something that happened a couple of years ago at Lenovo.

Facebook's would most probably not call it off. Or just resurface the same thing at another time with another name or excuse.

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#122

Post by hasa » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 8:07 AM UTC

haraball wrote: post #77

kevsim wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a GDPR takeout request could answer this? Provided they’re doing things by the book.

Klarna seems to be under investigation currently for not complying with the GDPR: https://www.insidescandinavianbusiness.com/article.php?id=37...

1.4 ?

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#123

Post by emilsedgh » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 8:07 AM UTC

I think Facebook is very desperate and they don't seem to have a choice.

You see, Facebook has Facebook.com, Instagram and Whatsapp.

Facebook.com has already reached it's peak and is not going to grow.

Instagram is likely to have the same trajectory as Facebook.com and Whatsapp is not making them money anyways.

They failed to get into any new market or come up with any decent product.

And they are supposed to compete with Google, which is competing on all fronts with extremely competitive offerings.

* Google Search

* Gmail

* Android

* Youtube

* Chrome

* Chrome OS

* Google Drive

* Google Analytics

* Google Docs

* Google Cloud

* Google Apps

* Google Maps

And they seem to be constantly trying new things (Stadia seems to have a really good chance to compete with PS and Xbox and get them a holding in gaming)

And Facebook keeps pushing out pathetic moves like this and all their acquisitions that were supposed to help them get into new markets and sectors (Oculus, Parse, etc) seem like failures.

Acquisition of Instagram bought them another 10-15 years and they should be just very lucky to keep making the right call and buy the next Instagram)

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#124

Post by deanclatworthy » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 8:13 AM UTC

tragic wrote: post #117

deanclatworthy wrote: post #112

What am I missing here? I have to type my password when I log in to Facebook. They are probably storing a hash of each of the users passwords (after changes) and then comparing against index[0]?

They're asking for the password to your email account, not your Facebook account.

So what are they doing with that? How can they verify it? Are they actually logging into your email account with that? Surely (BigCompany) measures would prevent that?

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#125

Post by dunkelheit » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 8:16 AM UTC

x38iq84n wrote: post #116

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And having well-known entities ask for people's passwords normalizes such behavior and teaches users that this is normal and OK to do.

Does it really? It is wrong and the users need to know it.

Yeah, thanks facebook for doing all the wrong things so that users can have a clear example of what is wrong! (only half joking)

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#126

Post by helloindia » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 8:17 AM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #63

jammygit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'move fast and break things' ?

What’s the phase after you’ve moved fast and broken the things?

Done is better than perfect.

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#127

Post by passalong2019 » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 8:18 AM UTC

emilsedgh wrote: post #123

I think Facebook is very desperate and they don't seem to have a choice. You see, Facebook has Facebook.com, Instagram and Whatsapp. Facebook.com has already reached it's peak and is not going to grow. Instagram is likely to have the same trajectory as Facebook.com and Whatsapp is not making them money anyways. They failed to get into any new market or come up with any decent product. And they are supposed to compete…

> extremely competitive offerings

Chrome OS

Have you followed news recently? It's dead.

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#128

Post by thesimon » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 8:23 AM UTC

jks wrote: post #68

tapland wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swedish payment processor Klarna does something similar to this as well. If bying something through the platform by direct bank transfer you are asked to sign to your bank to accept the payment using BankID [0], which is normal. What is not normal is that they grab your personal identification number and send a login request using BankID before you open your app. When authenticating the login you authorize one of Kla…

Klarna tried to ask for people's bank access codes in Finland until Finland's Financial Supervisory Authority ruled it illegal. Seems like a shady business to me.

Will probably be legal again due to the PSD2.

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#129

Post by 26a2o4 » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 8:23 AM UTC

>Facebook is demanding some users fork over the password for their outside email account as the price of admission to the social network

What a dishonest article. Facebook is not demanding users to give them the password to their email to be able to use the network. Instead, it looks like they are giving the option of doing so to verify the email address, but you can still go the traditional route of verifying your email by clicking a link.

Re: Facebook Asking for Some New Users' Email Passwords

#130

Post by thinkingemote » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 8:27 AM UTC

26a2o4 wrote: post #129

>Facebook is demanding some users fork over the password for their outside email account as the price of admission to the social network What a dishonest article. Facebook is not demanding users to give them the password to their email to be able to use the network. Instead, it looks like they are giving the option of doing so to verify the email address, but you can still go the traditional route of verifying your e…

Interesting take. The article says what happens it doesn't hide the process. The user is presented with a dialog box asking for their external email password and the article states that the user by clicking the small "need help?" Link in the corner can ask for other traditional methods. Nothing dishonest in the article.