Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zoom iOS app sends data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 375 posts

Re: Zoom iOS app sends data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account

#221

Post by wideasleep1 »

st3fan wrote: post #26

EVERY. SINGLE. APP. THAT. INCLUDES. THE. FACEBOOK. SDK. Even if you don't log in. The Facebook SDK sends data back. Hook your device up to an intercepting proxy and start up a few apps. 99% of them do this. I really wish Apple would put an end to this.

Examples on Android for 'an intercepting proxy' are No Root Firewall, and even better, the paid/donate version of Netguard, which allows you to permanently kill these errant calls. Additionally, you can disable Google Services Framework with it too, if you'd like to try running your Android without Google tethered and watching, while you enjoy sweet, well-designed FOSS apps and services.

Re: Zoom iOS app sends data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account

#222

Post by godelski »

valuearb wrote: post #211
godelski wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like they are fingerprinting the device. Which means that if you have facebook but don't install the phone app, that your phone can be connected with your account and then you can be tracked across the web. There are also, of course, the facebook shadow accounts. Information connected with fingerprints, but not associated with a facebook account.

If they are it's against Apple's rules. Not sure what they are using to fingerprint anyways, given Apple has blocked access to the older system values that were being used.

> Not sure what they are using to fingerprint anyways

>> The Zoom app notifies Facebook when the user opens the app, details on the user's device such as the model, the time zone and city they are connecting from, which phone carrier they are using, __and a unique advertiser identifier__ created by the user's device which companies can use to target a user with advertisements

Re: Zoom iOS app sends data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account

#223

Post by jmiserez »

rococode wrote: post #200

If you have a Facebook account and are curious what other apps and websites are sending data about you to Facebook, check out this link: https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/activity_list (click the area with the various app & website icons to expand into a more detailed view) I was pretty surprised the first time I came across that list, there are a lot of apps on there that I never did a Facebook login wi…

You can disable it under: More Options -> Manage Future Activity: https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/future_activi...

Re: Zoom iOS app sends data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account

#224

Post by mehrdadn »

godelski wrote: post #186
gowld wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are allowed to look at you and take notes and sell them.

Stalking is considered illegal in most states and countries. Frankly I can't figure out why stalking a single person is illegal but stalking a billion people is considered good business.

I understand stalking involves more than taking notes and selling them though. The other person has to feel threatened or such. Now maybe you can/make the case that you feel threatened by Facebook, and maybe you can sue them individually (good luck), but I doubt you can make the case most people feel this way.

Re: Zoom iOS app sends data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account

#225

Post by arielm »

Legogris wrote: post #181
arielm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (Appfigures) are scanning apps for SDKs so we know which trackers, analytics, location trackers apps are using. We’re working on a way to make that data accessible to app developers so they can learn from competitors, but having a simple way to tell if an app tracks you that doesn’t require signing up or anything like that could be an interesting idea. Would you actually check an app before downloading/using it?

Personally, I'd want to have the source and run that software myself - how else could I trust that the app developer didn't bribe you or find an easy way to subvert your detection?

Valid point. Getting something you can scan for installed SDKs is pretty darn hard in many cases, so I doubt most people would want to set up and maintain something to do that for a few apps...

Re: Zoom iOS app sends data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account

#226

Post by searchableguy »

gentleman11 wrote: post #147
dahfizz wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've missed your parents point. The problem they point out is that well intentioned businesspeople who want to provide you a useful service and store your data correctly are priced out. If you want to deal with medical data of any kind, you need a lawyer. Full stop. It doesn't matter how good your intentions are, or how many "best practice" blog posts you follow. You need to hire a lawyer, and lawyers are i…

We are trading the personal information of billions of people for the ability for tech startups to iterate quickly, who will for the most part decide on a freemium business model revolving around mining and selling private data

And may be trading away our ability of choice in the future and being stuck with a monopoly.

Nobody talks about regulated industries with duopoly or monopolies that everyone has to deal with. Tech industry is exotic ain't?

Big companies will still find a way to track you. That won't change. You can pull up a list of all the privacy focused laws released recently and you can still see Facebook and all their products working fine but you never hear about someone who wanted to bootstrap an idea and couldn't invest much upfront to deal with slow expensive law system.

We don't need more regulations. We need more selective punishments proportional to the damage and presence. Not a lame fine that is not proportional to what companies are profiting from . And if you know anything, Facebook is the one lobbying for privacy these days. They are pushing for some of the requirements they are already compliant with to be put into law .

Re: Zoom iOS app sends data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account

#227

Post by arielm »

somethoughts wrote: post #124
arielm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (Appfigures) are scanning apps for SDKs so we know which trackers, analytics, location trackers apps are using. We’re working on a way to make that data accessible to app developers so they can learn from competitors, but having a simple way to tell if an app tracks you that doesn’t require signing up or anything like that could be an interesting idea. Would you actually check an app before downloading/using it?

Ideally the certification would be made visible by the app creator when the upload the app to Apple/Android App Store so people downloading it would be able see the designation.

The problem with that is that do you really believe the developer? It needs to be a 3rd party. Ideally the store itself, but there’s no incentive for the big stores to do that.

Re: Zoom iOS app sends data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account

#228

Post by arielm »

Nextgrid wrote: post #107
arielm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (Appfigures) are scanning apps for SDKs so we know which trackers, analytics, location trackers apps are using. We’re working on a way to make that data accessible to app developers so they can learn from competitors, but having a simple way to tell if an app tracks you that doesn’t require signing up or anything like that could be an interesting idea. Would you actually check an app before downloading/using it?

I am very shy of downloading apps because I expect most of them to stalk me or rat me out to Facebook and don't have the time to check for myself (by using Charles Proxy or Burp Suite). I would definitely appreciate it if there was a service that allows me to quickly check if an app is safe.

Noted!

Re: Zoom iOS app sends data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account

#229

Post by wideasleep1 »

cpv wrote: post #145
fmjrey wrote: post #17

On Android the first thing you notice when you install a firewall such as NetGuard is the amount of applications that try to access facebook servers. It's mind boggling, probably 50% are doing so. And I'm not even on facebook at all.

Apps like netguard open the eyes. And it was sad to see in facebook offline activity how much data was linked to me, from apps which have the sdk. And you don't even need to log in via facebook or like/share. The sdk being present and working is enough.

Netguard proved to me that, despite never having a FB account, I surely had dozens upon dozens of shadow accounts. Pretty much any new hardware that had vanilla Play Store apps were ratting me out the entire time.

Re: Zoom iOS app sends data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account

#230

Post by andrepd »

godelski wrote: post #2

> There is nothing in the privacy policy that addresses [that data is being sent to Facebook] > The Zoom app notifies Facebook when the user opens the app, details on the user's device such as the model, the time zone and city they are connecting from, which phone carrier they are using, and a unique advertiser identifier created by the user's device which companies can use to target a user with advertisements So Zoo…

>Can we just stop sending data everywhere? If you don't need it, don't gather it.

We're not gonna get there with asking nicely. We need legislation, with teeth (read, fines worth 6 months or 1 year global turnover)

Post reply on HN