Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity • Hacker News Board

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#21

Post by Zenst » Thu, Jul 12, 2012, 11:58 PM UTC

FB has a terrible reputation with regards to privacy without real justification.

This is not supprising in any way.

If you don't like this then don't do FaceBook - realy that easy I have found.

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#22

Post by stfu » Thu, Jul 12, 2012, 11:58 PM UTC

rationalbeats wrote: post #12

I'm not a criminal, I am a a pretty mundane guy actually, but of course we live in a society that every single one of us breaks some small law every day. Which is why I stopped using Facebook. I also stopped using Twitter to tweet. I still use it to follow news sources, I just don't actively tweet. I did that after the NYPD won a court case to see all the private messages you send on Twitter. I also don't comment muc…

I am not (yet) at that point, nevertheless I understand your concerns. The most problematic thing to those scared like us is in my option the emerge of sentence/word structure analyses that will make it possible to draw our online identities together even when different ips, email, user, etc are used. I would love to see something like http://www.linguee.com/ that would help to "neutralize" language in such a way, that it seeks/suggests replacements for unique elements of phrases/words/etc.

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#23

Post by Zenst » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 12:03 AM UTC

What if Facebook make a mistake, do they get done for wasting police time? Monitoring is all fine but it needs to be done independantly, anything else is a conflict of interest and something that FaceBook staff can abuse.

You know it would not supprise me one bit if FaceBook had staff monitoring this modding down every post that holds them in true^H^H^H^HBAD light.

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#24

Post by Zenst » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 12:06 AM UTC

Zenst wrote: post #23

What if Facebook make a mistake, do they get done for wasting police time? Monitoring is all fine but it needs to be done independantly, anything else is a conflict of interest and something that FaceBook staff can abuse. You know it would not supprise me one bit if FaceBook had staff monitoring this modding down every post that holds them in true^H^H^H^HBAD light.

I rest my case.

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#25

Post by rosser » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 12:08 AM UTC

neo1001 wrote: post #17

I once made a joke on fb on a friend and posted "you smoke doobies" and he was so shit scared that he took it down. Lol

You do realize that could very well be more about his Mom being is among his FB friends, than out of any fear of Zuckerberg and crew calling the cops on them for what would amount to misdemeanor possession, at worst, yes?

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#26

Post by schiffern » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 12:09 AM UTC

rationalbeats wrote: post #12

I'm not a criminal, I am a a pretty mundane guy actually, but of course we live in a society that every single one of us breaks some small law every day. Which is why I stopped using Facebook. I also stopped using Twitter to tweet. I still use it to follow news sources, I just don't actively tweet. I did that after the NYPD won a court case to see all the private messages you send on Twitter. I also don't comment muc…

>I remember reading a story about a guy who posted a quote from fight club on his Facebook status and a few hours later in the middle of the night the NYPD was busting in his door and he spent 3 years in legal limbo over it.

Act 1 here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/r...

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#27

Post by katbyte » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 12:10 AM UTC

Is there any way to easily and securely encrypt Facebook chats? a quick google finds:

http://abine.com/facebook.php

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#28

Post by sp332 » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 12:12 AM UTC

cwe wrote: post #15

marshray wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a sincere question: Why would you think Facebook chat would be "private communication"?

Do you consider SMS private communications? Your cellphone carrier is just as likely to eavesdrop on your SMS history as FB does your chats.

I consider FB chats to be much less private because they actually get stored on a server somewhere by default. Also I can access them anywhere with an internet account. Neither of these things are true of SMS.

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#29

Post by delano » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 12:35 AM UTC

chrisballinger wrote: post #14

All the more reason to use encryption technology like Off-the-Record (OTR) Messaging ( http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr )! I've been working on an OTR-compatible iOS app called ChatSecure ( https://chatsecure.org ) that is capable of encrypting your Facebook chats (or any other XMPP service).

Also single view message services, like: https://www.thismessagewillselfdestruct.com/ https://onetimesecret.com/ https://pwpush.com/ https://whisperpassword.com/

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#30

Post by mahyarm » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 12:36 AM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #28

cwe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you consider SMS private communications? Your cellphone carrier is just as likely to eavesdrop on your SMS history as FB does your chats.

I consider FB chats to be much less private because they actually get stored on a server somewhere by default. Also I can access them anywhere with an internet account. Neither of these things are true of SMS.

There is nothing preventing your SMSs being saved in a telco DB. I'm fairly certain they are.