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

Meta in row after workers who saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 463 posts

Re: Meta in row after workers who saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs

#351

Post by donkey-hotei »

dntrkv wrote: post #264
KaiserPro wrote: post #196

Ex Meta employee here (yes you are right to boo): The thing that really gets me is that internally there are 4 levels of data 1 being public domain shit (the sky is blue) up to 4 which is private user data, or something that is sensitive if leaked or shared. I was told that by default all user data is level 4, as in if you do anything without decent approval, you're insta fired. There are many stories about at least…

> I was told that by default all user data is level 4, as in if you do anything without decent approval, you're insta fired. There are many stories about at least one person a month during boot camp accessing user data and getting escorted out of the building within hours. Given the size and nature of Meta's business, I would assume they would have better systems in place. SWEs should only have access to PII with exp…

This is bogus. Meta doesn't have bootcampers escorted out of the building for accessing PII all the time. PII is locked down behind ACLs which are not auto-granted for just anyone asking.

Re: Meta in row after workers who saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs

#352

Post by reliablereason »

pfortuny wrote: post #299
reliablereason wrote: post #78

I wonder under what circumstances footage from the glasses are uploaded for classification. Probably this is people asking the glasses something about what they see and the glasses uploading video for classification to generate an answer. People think it is "just AI" so are not very concerned about privacy.

Always by default I assume.

Unlikely. That would be extremely expensive in bandwidth, storage and compute. Deciding to build the product like that would be an engineering decision that i would fire someone for.

Re: Meta in row after workers who saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs

#353

Post by bpt3 »

freejazz wrote: post #320
red_admiral wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of CSAM online is completely out of control. There's already nation-level and sometimes international cooperation to catch any known images with perceptual hashing (think: the opposite of cryptographic hashing) as well as other automated and manual tools. My impression is it would take Manhattan-Project levels of effort and funds to come close to "solving" this problem, especially without someone getting o…

>I will reluctantly grant Meta that they're up against a really hard problem here. It is a problem of their own making.

They created the concept of CSAM?

Re: Meta in row after workers who saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs

#354

Post by pfortuny »

reliablereason wrote: post #352
pfortuny wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always by default I assume.

Unlikely. That would be extremely expensive in bandwidth, storage and compute. Deciding to build the product like that would be an engineering decision that i would fire someone for.

Well, say a frame per second. Also: how many of these are there today?

You can discard them after tagging+using them for learning.

Re: Meta in row after workers who saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs

#355

Post by KaiserPro »

dntrkv wrote: post #264
KaiserPro wrote: post #196

Ex Meta employee here (yes you are right to boo): The thing that really gets me is that internally there are 4 levels of data 1 being public domain shit (the sky is blue) up to 4 which is private user data, or something that is sensitive if leaked or shared. I was told that by default all user data is level 4, as in if you do anything without decent approval, you're insta fired. There are many stories about at least…

> I was told that by default all user data is level 4, as in if you do anything without decent approval, you're insta fired. There are many stories about at least one person a month during boot camp accessing user data and getting escorted out of the building within hours. Given the size and nature of Meta's business, I would assume they would have better systems in place. SWEs should only have access to PII with exp…

> I would assume they would have better systems in place.

They did when I was there. every time you got close to user data an "interstitial" would pop up asking you for a ticket number and justification. There were a bunch of tools that ran searching for people accessing user data.

For example in boot camp you'd create a page that pulled your profile details. this was to introduce the idea of "ents" (the API that manages the social graph) and mercurial. You could, if you wanted to then traverse your friend graph. as soon as you did that, it'd trigger one the automated rules and your account would be suspended and you'd be yeeted within hours.

The point was, if you were doing something legitimate it was fine, but if you stepped out of line, the automated systems would find out and fire you on the stop.

also as everything is done through remote dev boxes, _everything_ is recorded (along with all the files on your laptop, and the regular screenshots, plus all the browser history and keystrokes) Data exfiltraition is super hard, hence why there are hardly any "angry nerd extorts girl" type stories. Its not because meta isn't full of angry nerds, it because its really really difficult to get at user data without getting caught.

Re: Meta in row after workers who saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs

#356

Post by prmoustache »

devilbunny wrote: post #344
prmoustache wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And therefore anything that is remotely questionable will be blocked. Not just kiddie porn. Pissed off a local business with a bad review? Blocked. This is already the case. There is a lot of lawful, useful, medical or educational content that is actively censured on social medias because they include words or pictures of organs while same social medias actively encourage and develop algorithm to push underage girls…

> a lot of lawful, useful, medical or educational content Like what? It’s all there on Wikipedia, and for all of Wiki’s faults, I have trouble imagining what kind of useful, educational, medical information you will find on social media that is better than that.

You don't necessarily reach the same population and some people, believe it or not, are afraid, unable or have difficulties to read yet are online.

Re: Meta in row after workers who saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs

#357

Post by KaiserPro »

theplatman wrote: post #261
KaiserPro wrote: post #196

Ex Meta employee here (yes you are right to boo): The thing that really gets me is that internally there are 4 levels of data 1 being public domain shit (the sky is blue) up to 4 which is private user data, or something that is sensitive if leaked or shared. I was told that by default all user data is level 4, as in if you do anything without decent approval, you're insta fired. There are many stories about at least…

have always wondered about this especially post Cambridge Analytica where Meta imposed really stringent requirements for API use even for personal things while it was blatantly obvious that internally it was a different story

But thats the thing internally it wasn't. The user dat controls were really quite good.

Its not a mistake that this data got into contractor hands, it was a decision that took lots of time, numerous legal reviews and signoff from Zuck himself.

Re: Meta in row after workers who saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs

#358

Post by intended »

arowthway wrote: post #350
salawat wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't care. Or they refuse to realize that tech isn't the solution to it, but an amplifier of it's scale. Can tell you that my urge to take photos/record drastically dips around other people. Particularly if it were meant for any sort of commercial exploitation. Stephenson called people wired for max indiscriminate data collection/processing "gargoyles". Personally I prefer glassholes. https://www.tabletmag.com/…

I admit it's hard to care for what you people can't even articulate

Why dont you state what it is you think isn’t clear?

That way we can figure out what it is that’s confusing or unclear and then see it you find it has any moral moral significance.

Re: Meta in row after workers who saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs

#359

Post by arowthway »

intended wrote: post #182
arowthway wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because person wearing glasses usually can move and video surveillance cameras usually can't? If that's not it then spell it out for me, please. Also, why would i be deceptive in this discussion? I feel like I missed some ideological conflict.

Imagine someone pulling up a smartphone and then recording everything that happens around them. Contrast that with someone wearing smart glasses and doing that exact same thing. On a separate note, (and this is a genuine question) are you by any chance aware the term Non-consensual intimate imagery / NCII? I am beginning to suspect that the average HN goer isn’t aware of the scope and scale of the Trust and Safety pr…

Someone pulling up a smartphone on me would feel hostile because it's violating a social contract. Maybe I'd feel betrayed and attacked if it turned out someone was recording me using glasses, but I don't know, I don't care about dashcams and this is not that much different. I imagine it feels bad and scary for women when someone takes creepshots of them, and this tech does open opportunities for that. Maybe that would be enough for me to hate glasshats if I had a bit of empathy. But isn't the genie already out of the bottle with 'deep nude' models available for everyone forever?

No, i don't think I've heard about NCII before, and Trust and Safety sounds like some corporate PR whitewashing term to me.

Post reply on HN