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Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

forbes.com

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Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#231

Post by frosted-flakes »

motohagiography wrote: post #159
cj wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but only if everyone else was convinced it was malware, too. "Facebook invades privacy" is still a minority opinion among their user base (whether we like it or not).

Not sure you'd need everyone, it would be a product. Apple has been aiming to become that product, because I've said before that Apple is primarily a privacy company with a bunch of entertainment features. It also means that competing with Apple isn't about design, it's also mainly about providing privacy. Their whole recipe is the complementary packaging of the two orthogonal concepts of entertainment and privacy. I…

Apple is a hardware company that uses privacy as a selling feature. They don't sell privacy, they sell hardware.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#232

Post by frosted-flakes »

b3morales wrote: post #215
Nextgrid wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, this is more of a legal and ethical problem than a technology problem. Photo geolocation metadata has legitimate uses, the problem isn't that the metadata is there per-se but that it's being used for nefarious purposes without the user's knowledge nor consent.

Technology could help out here, though. It would be nice for there to also be an explicit switch in device settings allowing the user to choose whether the GPS data should be included when the camera takes a photo. This would be separate from location services being enabled.

All of my phones have had that setting in the camera app.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#233

Post by Nextgrid »

gligorot wrote: post #177
nickserv wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of my friends on FB know that their data is being harvested, and simply don't care. As for me, I would use an alternative platform in a heartbeat, but all the privacy focused ones so far have not gained any traction.

For me it's not that I don't care, but I reason the data stealing as their form of payment for providing a free useful service to me. I try to limit the data I give them, but I still see the data gathering as their win in our nonzero (win win) game.

> but I reason the data stealing as their form of payment for providing a free useful service to me

In this case, they could very well be transparent about it, and comply with local laws/regulations (such as the GDPR).

When companies comply (or Apple forces them to - like with App Tracking Transparency), it's clear that the majority of people do not consider this a fair deal and opt-out.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#234

Post by Nextgrid »

spideymans wrote: post #207

>“Facebook marketing is generally dominated by iOS,” one ad industry article laments, “it’s pretty safe to assume Facebook has lost at least half their data, arguably the most valuable half.” That's surprising. Facebook has a global reach and can run on damn near anything with a screen. I'm surprised iOS makes up such disproportionate part of its revenue.

This would make sense if Facebook's business model was selling communications services to people, in which case people would just pay and indeed it wouldn't really matter whether they're running an iPhone or something else.

The problem is that Facebook's business model is to sell out their userbase to the highest bidder, and the bids are significantly higher for iOS users who are considered good marks for ads compared to some generic feature-phone users.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#235

Post by artificialLimbs »

RyanHamilton wrote: post #210
motohagiography wrote: post #150

Beginning to think the reason security is so difficult is because ostensibly "good" companies do everything an attacker does and worse, but under the guise of EULAs. Here's a thought experiement: If Facebook were malware, could you get rid of it?

On my previous samsung phone I literally couldn't remove facebook. It claimed to be an OS level app and refused to uninstall.

You can remove it ‘for the user’ using ADB. This basically disables it unless you factory restore the phone. I believe you have to use ‘pm list packages’ and grep for anything with Facebook or Katana.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#236

Post by zepto »

thebean11 wrote: post #229
zepto wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you are saying this issue is irrelevant to the App Store. So how can it reflect badly on their case? The way it reflects well, is to notice that this is a small hole in their privacy measures which can easily be fixed, and the only reason we are talking about it is that for the most part their privacy controls work well . I.e. it demonstrates their seriousness about privacy.

> So how can it reflect badly on their case? Because these privacy violations are happening despite their locked down App Store. > The way it reflects well, is to notice that this is a small hole in their privacy measures which can easily be fixed Sure, it reflects well on Apple as a whole, but not on the app store . This issue is just as easy to fix for sideloaded apps because it's related to OS level permissions wh…

>> So how can it reflect badly on their case?

> Because these privacy violations are happening despite their locked down App Store.

That’s an obviously false comparison. You are comparing against a perfect world, not against the real world.

A valid comparison is against what privacy violations would be happening without the App Store.

As a simple example, we know for certain that Facebook would be a doing a lot more tracking without the App Store, because they have told us in public that they would.

Therefore the App Store is in fact protecting users against large categories of privacy concerns, and this easily corrected hole doesn’t change that.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#237

Post by gligorot »

Nextgrid wrote: post #233
gligorot wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's not that I don't care, but I reason the data stealing as their form of payment for providing a free useful service to me. I try to limit the data I give them, but I still see the data gathering as their win in our nonzero (win win) game.

> but I reason the data stealing as their form of payment for providing a free useful service to me In this case, they could very well be transparent about it, and comply with local laws/regulations (such as the GDPR). When companies comply (or Apple forces them to - like with App Tracking Transparency), it's clear that the majority of people do not consider this a fair deal and opt-out.

Yep that's fair.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#238

Post by thebean11 »

zepto wrote: post #236
thebean11 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So how can it reflect badly on their case? Because these privacy violations are happening despite their locked down App Store. > The way it reflects well, is to notice that this is a small hole in their privacy measures which can easily be fixed Sure, it reflects well on Apple as a whole, but not on the app store . This issue is just as easy to fix for sideloaded apps because it's related to OS level permissions wh…

>> So how can it reflect badly on their case? > Because these privacy violations are happening despite their locked down App Store. That’s an obviously false comparison. You are comparing against a perfect world, not against the real world. A valid comparison is against what privacy violations would be happening without the App Store . As a simple example, we know for certain that Facebook would be a doing a lot more…

> That’s an obviously false comparison. You are comparing against a perfect world, not against the real world.

No I'm not, I'm comparing against a world where Apple allows sideloading, and this privacy issue exists in both.

> because they have told us in public that they would.

Source? Apple's new add tracking opt-in thing is on the OS level the same way this location tracking issue is. It would still work if the Facebook app was sideloaded from what I understand.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#239

Post by zepto »

thebean11 wrote: post #238
zepto wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> So how can it reflect badly on their case? > Because these privacy violations are happening despite their locked down App Store. That’s an obviously false comparison. You are comparing against a perfect world, not against the real world. A valid comparison is against what privacy violations would be happening without the App Store . As a simple example, we know for certain that Facebook would be a doing a lot more…

> That’s an obviously false comparison. You are comparing against a perfect world, not against the real world. No I'm not, I'm comparing against a world where Apple allows sideloading, and this privacy issue exists in both. > because they have told us in public that they would. Source? Apple's new add tracking opt-in thing is on the OS level the same way this location tracking issue is. It would still work if the Fac…

> Source?

You can trivially check this yourself.

> Apple's new add tracking opt-in thing is on the OS level the same way this location tracking issue is.

This is a complete misunderstanding of how it works. Apple provides a mechanism for apps to use to identify users who opt-in.

The only thing preventing developers from just ignoring this and using fingerprinting or other identifiers is the App Store rules. A whole bunch of apps have been banned or otherwise forced to stop doing this.

€ It would still work if the Facebook app was sideloaded from what I understand.

No. If the app were sideloaded, Facebook would just implement a fingerprinting solution or provide their own identifier, and ignore Apple’s mechanism.

Re: Facebook still ‘secretly’ tracks your iPhone

#240

Post by tracer4201 »

speedgoose wrote: post #10
saos wrote: post #3

Or just delete Facebook apps.

Unfortunately it's not that simple for everyone. I personally would lose contact with a lot of people if I delete Messenger or Whatsapp. On all my contacts, I have two on Signal, zero on Matrix.

With respect, I don’t understand your comment. You’re saying Facebook provides you utility. Well, FBs business model is they provide you a service in exchange for your data. You have the option of engaging in that transaction — using their service in exchange for your data. Or you have the option of not using their service.

Legally, I’m not sure how you can have it both ways, aside from either FB offering a paid tier (you pay cash instead of providing your data), or we shut FB down entirely.

What exactly do you believe is the solution?

Personally, I think social media is more harm than good. I don’t want to ban or control social media companies (my local officials aren’t even capable of keeping drugs and homeless addicts off school grounds, let alone dictating internet regulation). My personal choice is to not use it.

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