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Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#41

Post by [deleted] »

zilchers wrote: post #37
fooey wrote: post #17

There's breaking reporting that Facebook just had personnel in the Cambridge Analytica offices before the UK authorities could get there with warrants. https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/975844154361221121 > BREAKING: Facebook WAS inside Cambridge Analytica's office but have now "stood down" following dramatic intervention by UK Information Commissioner's Office.. https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/9758…

I seriously feel like I’m missing something here, why isn’t Facebook fully behind getting to the bottom of this? Going back even further, why was it so difficult for them to even admit they had a problem during the election? I don’t think it’s as simple as “more money,” but maybe as simple as people too close to the problem and too enamored by what they’ve created?

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#42

Post by fooey »

zilchers wrote: post #37
fooey wrote: post #17

There's breaking reporting that Facebook just had personnel in the Cambridge Analytica offices before the UK authorities could get there with warrants. https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/975844154361221121 > BREAKING: Facebook WAS inside Cambridge Analytica's office but have now "stood down" following dramatic intervention by UK Information Commissioner's Office.. https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/9758…

I seriously feel like I’m missing something here, why isn’t Facebook fully behind getting to the bottom of this? Going back even further, why was it so difficult for them to even admit they had a problem during the election? I don’t think it’s as simple as “more money,” but maybe as simple as people too close to the problem and too enamored by what they’ve created?

Because the "breaches" and "abuses" aren't breaches or abuses, it's Facebook's business model working as intended.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#43

Post by mattnewton »

On the CA story, I get where the guy is coming from with the “It was not a breach.” He’s a technical guy, and this wasn’t a technical hack. It’s like a lock manufacturer wanting to let everyone know that the customer had the door open, and their locks weren’t broken.

But in this case, he wasn’t just a lock manufacturer, he was in charge of security for the home.

I can’t help but think of Steve Jobs parable of the Janitor and the Vice President[0]. Reasons stop mattering at his level. Part of the job was to convince Facebook that these permissions were bad for privacy.

Stamos likely knows this. To me, it looks like he resigned when he realized he couldn’t persuade the other executives of things like this.

[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-on-the-difference-...

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#44

Post by celticninja »

netsharc wrote: post #39
fooey wrote: post #17

There's breaking reporting that Facebook just had personnel in the Cambridge Analytica offices before the UK authorities could get there with warrants. https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/975844154361221121 > BREAKING: Facebook WAS inside Cambridge Analytica's office but have now "stood down" following dramatic intervention by UK Information Commissioner's Office.. https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/9758…

I'm no fan of Facebook, but if they have some sort of contract with CA, isn't it within their right to audit them? And if one company wanted to invite another for whatever collaboration, they should be allowed to. And if the collaboration is doing something illegal, obviously personnel from both companies should be charged. And FB can do whatever investigation it wants (as long it's legal) and the authorities are fre…

if there has been a breach of the law that takes precedence over contract law. If a criminal prosecution takes place and results in a conviction then it makes the civil case a much easier win (and less costly to as the government is doing the majority of the work).

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#45

Post by threeseed »

tootie wrote: post #23
Twisell wrote: post #9

> Facebook’s chief information security officer, Alex Stamos, will leave the company after internal disagreements over how the social network should deal with its role in spreading disinformation, according to current and former employees briefed on the matter. This opening sentence is frightening, I would rather have learned that FB executive disagree about how to deal with FB "role in NOT spreading disinformation"

FB is big enough to have developed factions and I can totally see Zuck not being up to the task of controlling them.

You really the CEO and COO aren't capable of controlling employees despite the company growing to the size it is and having to deal with contentious issues in the past. That's a bit ridiculous.

The fact is that on an issue like this there is no way that the executive team didn't sign off it.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#46

Post by evgen »

While it is buried in the article, an interesting data point that I noticed as a former alum of the team is that the FB security team has apparently been picked apart and divided up between the prod and infra orgs. Being able to stand apart from these two massively powerful entities within FB and tell them when they were screwing up had been one of the moderating influences between the desire of the prod team for 'increase engagement, fuck privacy', and the desire of the infra team for 'move fast, screw safety.' This will not end well...

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#47

Post by gowld »

fooey wrote: post #42
zilchers wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously feel like I’m missing something here, why isn’t Facebook fully behind getting to the bottom of this? Going back even further, why was it so difficult for them to even admit they had a problem during the election? I don’t think it’s as simple as “more money,” but maybe as simple as people too close to the problem and too enamored by what they’ve created?

Because the "breaches" and "abuses" aren't breaches or abuses, it's Facebook's business model working as intended.

How? Facebook doesn't get paid when app-developers access users, do they? Wouldn't facebook make more money if CA was forced to go through FB's ad-targeting systems instead of CA's own offsite ad campaigns?

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#48

Post by [deleted] »

minimaxir wrote: post #3

Stamos had been actively engaging with security researchers on Twitter over the past few days about CA with heated discussions: > I have deleted my Tweets on Cambridge Analytica, not because they were factually incorrect but because I should have done a better job weighing in. https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/975069709140877312 Archive of those deleted tweets: https://twitter.com/aprilaser/status/975078309930311…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#49

Post by dragonwriter »

mattnewton wrote: post #43

On the CA story, I get where the guy is coming from with the “It was not a breach.” He’s a technical guy, and this wasn’t a technical hack. It’s like a lock manufacturer wanting to let everyone know that the customer had the door open, and their locks weren’t broken. But in this case, he wasn’t just a lock manufacturer, he was in charge of security for the home. I can’t help but think of Steve Jobs parable of the Jan…

> On the CA story, I get where the guy is coming from with the “It was not a breach.” He’s a technical guy, and this wasn’t a technical hack.

“Not a technical hack” and “not a breach” are hardly even related concepts, and anyone, in a technical role or not, working around private data ought to understand that.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#50

Post by gowld »

threeseed wrote: post #34
gdulli wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can easily see how FB wants to throw CA under the bus and make it look like data theft while the truth FB wants to draw attention away from is that this is the system working as intended. Or if not technically "intended" then well within the boundaries of what FB is willing to tolerate as long as it's making them money.

Cambridge Analytica took data from a third party app against the terms and conditions and has alleged to have wilfilly lied both to Facebook and congressional committess about what they did with the data. They absolutely deserve most of the blame.

There's "willfully lied" and there's "played the game by the unwritten rules"
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