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"Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B

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Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B

#221

Post by account42 »

penguinjanitor wrote: post #214
mzajc wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock Origin ships with a "Block Outsider Intrusion into LAN" filter that I believe is enabled by default. I don't know if it works on the neutered Chrome version, but on Firefox it works so well I've had to add a few whitelists for cases where I do want access to LAN or localhost.

disabled by default, because it can break stuff which is not explicitly allowlisted

And even if you enable it, it has an extensive allowlist that probably includes things you don't want.

Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B

#222

Post by account42 »

extraduder_ire wrote: post #146
kccqzy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you actually leave the Facebook or instagram apps running in the background. Some people hate apps running in the background and they terminate all apps as soon as they are done using them.

Android apps can continue running software in the background even if you dismiss them from the switcher. It's up to the OS to decide when to kill them, unless you go into the settings and press force stop.

And force stop doesn't mean they won't restart after reboot or receiving a push notification or whatever. Absolutely sucks how little control you have about what goes on in your phone.

Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B

#224

Post by account42 »

brookst wrote: post #37
genocidicbunny wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it’s just very, very easy to create a system of people collectively doing evil things where no one person carries the burden of evil individually enough to really feel sick enough with what they’re contributing to. Which is why I don't think punishing just the company itself is enough. The engineers, designers, PM's that implemented this should also receive punishment, sufficient enough to make anyone think…

Definitely a good way to drive talent overseas. Get the low level people to assume all of the risk with none of the upsides; ask recent grades and junior people to do E2E ethical analysis on every project in addition to their 60 hour/week job, give the truly evil people convenient, lower-level scapegoats.

You don't need to invest significant time to realize that working around privacy restrictions is wrong and you shouldn't do it.

Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B

#225

Post by account42 »

throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #40
genocidicbunny wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it’s just very, very easy to create a system of people collectively doing evil things where no one person carries the burden of evil individually enough to really feel sick enough with what they’re contributing to. Which is why I don't think punishing just the company itself is enough. The engineers, designers, PM's that implemented this should also receive punishment, sufficient enough to make anyone think…

LLC - Limited liability company GmbH - Society with limited liability (german, translated) This liability shield is by design.

Limited liability doesn't mean no liability. It means that you don't personally pay for damages due to mistakes not that you get to wantonly do crime without personal consequences.

Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B

#226

Post by jaks6 »

jmward01 wrote: post #39

I'm just confused why Meta needed to do this. Isn't fingerprinting good enough to not risk building this? All I can think is they use something like this to prove out their other tracking tech is working (this is the test set effectively). It is obvious that they really have several of these types of tracking technologies so that if one gets found out/patched they can switch it off and say 'look we stopped' all while…

This provides them an easy way to build a labelled dataset for training the fingerprinting ML models.

Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B

#227

Post by account42 »

brookst wrote: post #41
ryukoposting wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.2B is less than 1% of Meta's revenue in FY2024. Maximum fines for infractions like these should exist on a sliding scale, as some percentage of prior revenue.

Probably best indexed to profit rather than revenue. 10% of revenue would be a one quarter’s profit for meta, but more than a year’s profit for Amazon and about 9 years of profit for Otto. Higher margins / profits should mean higher fines.

Profit doesn't include employee and especially executive compensation, i.e. what the perpetrators were paid.

Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B

#228

Post by 1oooqooq »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #205
1oooqooq wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is still perfectly legal and allowed. every app can scan your apps and recently opened ones "for security". same for your contacts. whatsapp (only meta product i need to touch in our fleet) will do both at very fast intervals, and upload a contact list diff if it detect changes. the whole issue here was that meta bypassed the user matching on the web without paying google "cookie matching" price

"Legal" is missing the point by a mile and is irrelevant.

ok, get the point of being enraged by the one thing while ignoring the same other 4 things that are above board and do the same thing

Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B

#229

Post by markus92 »

pesus wrote: post #144
acatnamedjoe wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't America fine them? Surely this is illegal there too?

There is probably little to no chance of that happening in the current political climate.

I can see the California or maybe even Texas AG go after them, wouldn’t be the first time.

Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B

#230

Post by sevensor »

globalise83 wrote: post #124

This system was designed and implemented by engineers who committed code in a source control system with their name attached, and the changes were requested by product managers in tickets in the ticketing system with their name attached. Those engineers and product managers should be personally liable for an equivalent % of their annual salary as Facebook is liable for a % of its annual revenue.

This is the company that abetted genocide in Burma. Their programmers are outside EU jurisdiction. You expect them to do anything other than pay the fine, shrug, and continue to set the world on fire?
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