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Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

washingtonpost.com

21–30 of 280 posts

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until consumers reveal that they care this is how it will be unless governments regulate/punish.

my response to this is always in the vein of, "how exactly should customers show they care?" "Well, leave!" isn't an option. They can't leave. Quitting Facebook when you're an active user means you lose a huge amount of social contact. I can think of a dozen people I know who are there because it's how they send baby pics and the like to family. They're non-technical and don't care about federated mastodons, they jus…

Most people I know are getting off of Facebook, or were never on it. The only people I know who are really still active are people using it to market themselves/their business, and are not there because they care about Facebook, but because they want to be findable there (and everywhere).

I guess I'm old, but I find that email is great for sending baby pics to friends and family, and for planning things.

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#23

“Private” photos that people uploaded to Facebook. Sounds like a good time to reiterate the advice: Don’t upload things to the internet that you don’t want to be on the internet. That way there won’t be any of your things on the internet that you didn’t want to be there.

Unfortunately, that advice is nearly useless on HN as the people who need it aren't on this platform.

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#25

> "We're sorry this happened." That about sums it up for all these privacy breaches these days. It's getting to the same level of "thoughts and prayers" for tragedies. No actual change or consequences for the problems happening, just empty "sorries" and "promises" that it won't happen again/they'll get it fixed. I don't know if this is a GDPR violation or not (as someone else asked), but if it is, I hope we start act…

Genuinely curious on your view: what is an appropriate response?

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#26
At which point should we stop treating these things as bugs and start treating them like features instead?

Not this particular thing per se but, you know, it's Facebook. As the recent history has proven these things kind of come with the package.

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#27
post #12

I think it should be clear to everyone at this point that nothing on Facebook is private. Don't put anything there you wouldn't post publicly.

Beyond that, nothing online is private. And generally, nothing can be removed. There will always be bugs, mistakes, new vulnerabilities. Eventually it will get out.

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#28
post #15
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In so much that they let you delete your account.

If they aren't actually deleting accounts then they are going to end up with a hefty fine under the GPDR one day...

Given that it's known that Facebook builds shadow profiles of non-users it seems hard to believe that they would give up the data of ex-users.

https://www.bustle.com/p/what-are-shadow-profiles-facebook-c...

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#29

“Private” photos that people uploaded to Facebook. Sounds like a good time to reiterate the advice: Don’t upload things to the internet that you don’t want to be on the internet. That way there won’t be any of your things on the internet that you didn’t want to be there.

Except that your friends, family, and others can upload private photos with you in them.

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#30
post #25

> "We're sorry this happened." That about sums it up for all these privacy breaches these days. It's getting to the same level of "thoughts and prayers" for tragedies. No actual change or consequences for the problems happening, just empty "sorries" and "promises" that it won't happen again/they'll get it fixed. I don't know if this is a GDPR violation or not (as someone else asked), but if it is, I hope we start act…

Genuinely curious on your view: what is an appropriate response?

Not the op, but meaningful fines, executive jail time for gross negligence and especially for intentionally taking inappropriate risks, breaking up or closing companies that are shown over time to be unable to safely handle sensitive information. Proper regulation. Consequences that can't be cynically taken as the cost of doing business.
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