221–230 of 230 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From a certain size on they need each other. Apple can’t afford to lose Facebook and Facebook can’t afford to lose apple.
You'd be surprised. Apple has $245 billion cash on hand. That's enough to build their own feature equivalent social network and give $20 to anyone who signs up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From a certain size on they need each other. Apple can’t afford to lose Facebook and Facebook can’t afford to lose apple.
God I wish Apple had the balls of suspending the developer account and withdrawing the Facebook app from the app store. It's infuriating that most likely Facebook will again get away with a slap on the wrist. How will they make the next morally relevant decision?
It sucks huge amounts of power, I assume the facebook app is collecting all sorts of nefarious metadata off phones at no benefit to the user. Fine grained controls would allow users to prevent facebook from accessing their information without the user's explicit choice, which would be a huge improvement.
There should be a big "Facebook wants to read and analyze ALL of your contacts. OK or Cancel" prompt before each read, or you should have to explicitly allow "Allow Facebook to read and analyze all of your SMS messages at any time"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certainly nobody was forced to do it, but it is more than likely that nobody understood what they were being asked to do. Not only that, children were being targeted by this scheme. Lastly, the implementation on iOS circumvented rules relating to an app distribution which shows Facebook’s proclivity for flouting the rules. Pushing the app distribution thing aside, being aboveboard in every other respect is still insu…
Well, I am not a big fan of telling people what to do or what not to do. Do you want to sell your private info to some corps? Feel free to do so. Will it blow up in your face? Perhaps. I could not care less. It's your problem. You didn't know what you were being asked for? Again - it's your problem. People agreed to do that on their own, they got paid for that, and, most likely, they don't care if FB knows what kind…
That isn't the point. The point is that Facebook preyed on technical illiteracy and a general and widespread lack of understanding of the implications of participating in the program. Effectively, the majority of participants were tricked. The age range for participants also included people who were not of age, and therefore not legally responsible for their actions. Facebook must accept that responsibility.
The point is that Facebook flouted Apple's guidelines for the distribution of apps outside the App Store, showing a blatant disregard for the protections put in place to protect consumers from bad actors. Facebook has positioned itself as a bad actor through their actions, not only in the questionable collection of data the implications of which the users will likely be unaware, but also in how such a program was distributed: in direct violation of the protections offered by the App Store.
The point is not about the choices made by the end users, but rather the unscrupulousness of a big company that knows better — but has done this before, far too many times.
Finally, the very nature of online interactions in the modern era means that people aren't just signing away their own privacy but also, to a lesser extent, the privacy of those with whom they interact. Facebook is perfectly aware of this potentiality, but users are not and, on the whole, will never be because it isn't their job to understand the technical dimensions of online communication. A big company like Facebook, however, does know and should have behaved accordingly.
> [...] is irrelevant in this argument. Is war ethical? Is spying honourable?
What do these two examples have to do with the actual circumstance? "Market research" is not war, and it certainly should never be construed as synonymous with spying. Do not construct a strawman against which to argue, it demeans your argument.
> Requirement? You can just tell them to fck off.
You could, but then you would not be adequately participating in the research. You would not be using the VPN as described. You would not earn the $20. There would be no discussion.
Of course, you're failing to account for the fact that none of the participants will have had the privacy and security implications of the root certificate explained to them in a way that made sense to them. They'll have simply followed instructions to get their money.
I do not think that people should ever be blamed for being deceived as to the severity of their actions in situations such as this; a big company like Facebook does not escape scrutiny here. Clearly you believe differently, although the downvotes will tell you how well-received such a laissez-faire attitude to other peoples' private lives and preying on their technical ignorance is seen, so I shan't bother to comment any further.
> what annoys me is the people that pretend to be super-nannies that gonna save the world by telling what the others should do
Thankfully, that's not the situation at all*, and I fear you're simply projecting some negative feelings on to this article in order to justify having an unjustifiable gripe.
Here's what's happening:
- Facebook previously had a VPN service that it advertised as being for market research purposes. It was removed from the App Store.
- Facebook then started using Apple's alternative app distribution method intended only for use in enterprise situations, not for the general public.
- They were found out.
- Facebook voluntarily ended the program for iOS users.
- Apple revoked Facebook's certificate as punishment for flouting the rules.
Who is tell whom to do what, here? Facebook did many things wrong, were found out, and were punished appropriately. The technical details of their actions were analysed and found to be vastly overstepping their bounds, yet in step with their continual and repetitive breaches of personal privacy.
There's nothing more to it than that, so put the strawman back on the farm where it belongs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"First, they're almost certainly not making that deal from an informed position" After spending an hour reading similar comments to yours, I have to ask this question. How informed should the user be? What qualifies as an informed user? This is getting into some dangerous territory because it because implies so some sort of contract literacy. >The second issue is that MITMing all network traffic on a phone will neces…
When one facebook user messages another both users have consented to trust facebook for good or ill. The question is actually much more interesting when you consider a federated network like email.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>can't prove a negative. Then why do you assert it as being truthful? The history of FB's data collection practices is replete with "harm".
I didn't assert that anything was truthful? And prove the "harm" in its data collection practices. Since you've been very specific in data collection, I will expect your response to be about data collection.
Fb is only "shutting down" it's iOS Spyware due to "bad press" not due to a sudden realisation that spying on children who are incapable of understanding the long-term consequences of the privacy invasion is fundamentally wrong/evil. Fb only stop doing things that are obviously morally reprehensible when they get caught or called out in the media. They never proactively doing the right thing. :-(
Not really. Apple banned the app -it clearly violated their developer terms of service so they couldn’t continue with it anyway https://www.recode.net/2019/1/30/18203231/apple-says-its-ban...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to articles I saw in the last few hours, their "certificates" have been pulled. So this has likely already happened. Also, Google updated API certificate behavior to only trust built in roots by default. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/07/changes-to... might explain why "project atlas" is only available for Android devices marshmallow and earlier (they can't snoop encrypted app traffic on lat…
Nice! Glad Apple caused them some massive chaos. I'd forgotten about that roots thing, it's actually really nice albeit a little annoying for debugging/reverse engineering.
Everyone pin your certificates. If this was standard practice none of it ever could have happened.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every day I am happier having switched to iPhone after being an Android fanboy for ages.
You could of course just continue not to install obvious spyware just like you presumably do on your desktop computer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about their dubious involvement in recent elections does that bother you? > literally killing someone You’ve presumably not read about Myanmar or fbs involvement in organising genocide?
>What about their dubious involvement in recent elections does that bother It mostly bothers because it seems like a great deal of the recent hate towards FB is because people blame them for Trump. If Clinton wins I don't think people care. That said, yes I think FB should do a better job of "know your customer" when selling ads. Obviously they shouldn't sell ads to Russian intelligence. But it doesn't bother me all…
In relation to fb, do you see any problem with what happened in Myanmar? They allowed the organising of a genocide.