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Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

nytimes.com

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Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#171

Post by esturk »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #64
sp527 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they’re not. They’re in denial. I used to work there as an intern, so I get a front row seat to how a lot of employees are reacting. The word I would use is: indignation. I’ve seen this us-against-them mentality play out elsewhere in various toxic cult-like organizational cultures. The NSA was a great public example of just how manifestly horrifying things can get with tens to hundreds of decent people willfully p…

Agreed. I've never been at FB, but been at a similarly big "darling" software company (don't want to go into specifics for identification reasons) and it largely is about creating an internal "us-vs-them" mentality and a culture that lionizes the good deeds over the bad. Don't think of the employees as evil, they are probably legitimately not aware of the entirety of what's going on. Like soldiers in a war, they only…

Are you suggesting they aren't even aware of these issue because there's a big difference for one to look for answers and stay educated and one who chooses to stay ignorant knowingly. No one will empathize with the latter group because that's how most weak people in history become complicit to great atrocities.

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#172

Post by esturk »

legostormtroopr wrote: post #148
Mc_Big_G wrote: post #34

I hope anyone worth their weight in salt leaves Facebook as an employee and as a user. Employees should already feel shame since the election. They all know what Facebook is built on and what they've done and what they're doing.

Which election are you talking about? The 2016 one where everyone cares about Facebook helping elect the US president, or the 2008 and 2012 elections where everyone was ok with Facebook helping elect the US president?

Why `or`? why not all 3? Because FB's role in all 3 elections has been disgusting and has made modern election into a degenerative state than it once was.

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#173

Post by patmcc »

harryh wrote: post #5
mehrdadn wrote: post #2

I feel like someone should also give Zuckerberg the memo that it's only a matter of time before an insider also goes rogue and abuses data access (edit: or otherwise; see below). Facebook fundamentally seems to trust itself way too much, and it worries me that it thinks the only threats are external entities... to me, this is another silently ticking time bomb. EDIT: And don't forget that going rogue is just one scen…

You'd think so, but most companies have pretty strict internal controls for this sort of thing. Access is also carefully logged so a leaker is pretty much guaranteed to get caught at which point they'd immediately lose their job and likely face criminal prosecution. With so much to lose and so little to gain internal leaks of this sort are extremely rare.

In any organization there is some number of people, who, if sufficiently motivated, could work together to pull off a 'data heist' and not be immediately uncovered. At a good company that number is high, at a bad company that number is 1.

What do you think the number is at facebook? At google? At your bank? At your healthcare provider?

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#174

Post by SirLJ »

tehlike wrote: post #111
SirLJ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a shareholder I do, this kid works for me and it is time to take full responsibility and go home...

You knew he had majority of voting control, and yet, decided to buy into it.

LOL, I got 1 share so I can watch the whole thing unfoldes from the front seat ;-)

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#176

Post by jhayward »

KMag wrote: post #66
debacle wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect Google and their engineering chops as much as the next person, they are truly world class programmers, but how the holy hell is everyone daydreaming that they don’t work for an advertising company? You sell and use people’s data to get money: this is the business plan. Are people working there really so nieve(sic) as to believe that this is surprising?

Former Googler here. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Googlers understand they work for an advertising company with a gigantic and generally well-run software "engineering" department. I don't mean that in any derogatory sense. Well-regulated advertising is important in helping consumers make informed purchasing decisions.

> Well-regulated advertising is important in helping consumers make informed purchasing decisions.

Citation needed.

This statement is just the pablum that people in the industry repeat to help assuage their guilt at what they are doing. I say this as someone who worked on ads for a company that had more than half of all US internet ad spend at the time.

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#177

Post by jhayward »

noxecanexx wrote: post #164
joshjdr wrote: post #125

How fast can I kill all my karma by pointing out that the 3 of the top 4 articles on HN are some realization that Facebook does not give an ef about anybody's privacy?

It's been almost a week of this. Actually wondering when we'll get back to interesting tech

It is attitudes like this that created the problem in the first place.

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#178

Post by spc476 »

sulam wrote: post #137
bigiain wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence suggests it wasn't true at the NSA five or so years back... It's _probably_ true that things in general have gotten better since then, and it's probably true that they're better at _some_ companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon - but I'd tend to agree that it's very unlikely to be true for "most companies".

The Snowden case is an interesting example. He went out of his way to get access to information, going so far as to transfer into a role that had more access (I don’t recall all the details but I remember that much). Every company has some category of employee whose job it is to ensure enforcement of policies, for instance, and if these people set out to subvert the system you should expect them to be able to do so.…

The right person with the right access can do a tremendous amount of damage. 14 years ago some servers I was hired to maintain (marketing sites for a gambling site out of Costa Rica) were wiped out as part of an inside job: http://boston.conman.org/2004/09/19.1

Who watches the watcher indeed.

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#179

Post by surferbayarea »

mehrdadn wrote: post #2

I feel like someone should also give Zuckerberg the memo that it's only a matter of time before an insider also goes rogue and abuses data access (edit: or otherwise; see below). Facebook fundamentally seems to trust itself way too much, and it worries me that it thinks the only threats are external entities... to me, this is another silently ticking time bomb. EDIT: And don't forget that going rogue is just one scen…

Wait till there is a REAL data leak. Just your facebook profile data is 1% of the data they have about you. Using the cookies they have all over the internet as well as partnerships with offline pos transaction systems, they know almost anything you do online/offline. So all websites you have ever visited, things you buy online, the sandwich you buy with your credit card in a local store etc etc. Imagine all that being leaked.

Re: Zuckerberg Takes Steps to Calm Facebook Employees

#180

Post by spc476 »

tmuir wrote: post #118
pbalau wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you don't know how google handles this, but you are suggesting everybody should do what google does. Are you trolling?

He is not trolling. His core point is that there is no sufficient amount of training, or expertise, or monitoring, or punishment, or trying harder the 17th time you've been caught. If you are leaving the decision up to enough/too many humans, then you are by definition providing inferior security. The real education from this story is far deeper than just Facebook. It is that Facebook employees, and Google employees,…

Reminds me of an apocryphal story (can't find a reference but it appears to be reasonable): FCC was investigating the sale of illegal tv satellite descrambers when they confiscated a unit. Upon investigation, it was found to have been manufactured by IBM! Further investigation revealed it was manufactured at a secure IBM facility used for top-secret ("need-to-know", etc.) type projects. The manager responsible had split the work up such that no single employee there knew what they were building (because they didn't need to know---they just knew enough to do their bit).

I know it's not the same, but this reminds me of that story.

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