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50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

theguardian.com

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Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#61

Post by ChicagoDave »

olivermarks wrote: post #44

My problem with this 'outing' of CA is that Facebook explicitly commercially exists to harvest user data for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fidelity etc etc so they can profile us. A million dollars is chump change in the crazy US election game. This all seems overly selective - it's ok for some people to profile but not for others. I'm not in favor of any of it to be clear but there is a definite political bia…

I could see a constitutional amendment barring psycho-graphic profiling from election advertising and intent. Not sure how it could be enforced because this is very technical.

Even so, there is a significant difference between Coke trying to sell me a flavored soft drink and a firm tweaking my emotions to get me to abstain from voting with false information or to vote against my best interests with false information.

There are definitely people who are susceptible to psycho-graphic warfare and we need to protect them in order to protect our democracy.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#62

Post by doubt_me »

olivermarks wrote: post #44

My problem with this 'outing' of CA is that Facebook explicitly commercially exists to harvest user data for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fidelity etc etc so they can profile us. A million dollars is chump change in the crazy US election game. This all seems overly selective - it's ok for some people to profile but not for others. I'm not in favor of any of it to be clear but there is a definite political bia…

1. It's not an "outing".

2. Johnson & Johnson doesn't work for Putin.

3. United States elections aren't crazy. Entire parties of Congress being blackmailed into submission by foreign influence is crazy.

4. It's not overly selective.

5. I hope it has an extreme political bias.

6. Facebook commercially exists because the United States has shit privacy laws.

7. How much did Putin pay you to gas light articles?

8. A million dollars is still a million dollars.

9. Let's not forget about that one time you tried to comment on HN to down play this article. When in fact I couldnt be happier to see this.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#63

Post by rpmcmurphy »

bredren wrote: post #56
patja wrote: post #28

I was curious how the figure leaped from the 270k cited in the Facebook press release to this 50M figure. It sounds like they never had full access to the Facebook profiles beyond the 270k who installed the app, but just harvested the friend lists of those 270k. This doesn't give the app developer full access to the friends' profile data, but I guess once you have the network of friend connections you can use other p…

From the very beginning there has been a rule that you were not allowed to persist data more than a few days in your own dB. But it was obvious there was no way for fb to verify what you did or did not keep. There has never been substantial control on profile data harvest on fb. It was whatever you could get users to okay, which was a lot given the value your app had to appear to provide.

A substantial percentage of the US population installed that "cow clicker" app at some point, and who knows what data they harvested. Even if they did not access your full profile, they could probably learn a lot about you based on when and how often you were clicking on cows.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#64

Post by John_KZ »

urlwolf wrote: post #42

OK, this feels like it will bring about the end. Of something. Facebook? Massive use of data for political campaigns? Anything? If we keep consuming news like this, and do nothing, it's going to scalate massively. Same way as when Snowden told people they were spyed on and they collectively shrugged and continued with their lives as if nothing had happened. We, people in tech, have a massive moral burden to educate '…

The problem is that regular people no longer have a place to communicate. It used to be that the workplace, church, neighborhood or union meetings were the place to socialize and discuss these issues and take collective action. Now we have nowhere to turn to. Modern nomadic culture alongside temporary jobs, low trust and personalized news all make sure that we cannot take collective action on anything.

We need to find a new way to communicate before this cancer becomes so widespread that the last bastillions are lost.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#65

Post by cryptoz »

UncleEntity wrote: post #40
cryptoz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are nitpicking a small part of an article (incorrectly) and it distracts from the main point: A foreign power is working with American billionaires to subvert democracy and install a dictator . This is a serious issue and one of the biggest news stories of our time. > This wasn't a data breach Yes it was. > it was a misuse of data by a third party. So a bank robber who gets into the vault just misused the locks?…

> A foreign power is working with American billionaires to subvert democracy and install a dictator. Seriously? I'm no fan of any politician (or really of "tyranny of the majority") but I was kind of impressed at how well it all worked out last time. An "unpopular" candidate won and the ruling elite turned over the reigns just like they're supposed to do trusting the checks and balances in the system to work. The qui…

That was not a peaceful transition. Trump said in plain language that he would not accept the results if he lost. He called on gun owners to shoot and kill his political opponents who he has also been trying to jail for the past many years.

If you are impressed with the level of functional elections and government in the US since the last election, I'm shocked. It is not a functional system. It is clearly disfunctional.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#66

Post by auntienomen »

nemothekid wrote: post #49
734786710934 wrote: post #2

This wasn't a data breach, it was a misuse of data by a third party.

It’s a data breach in the same way “social engineering” can still be considered hacking

I.e., prosecutors aren't really interested in the distinction.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#67

Post by mrtksn »

olivermarks wrote: post #44

My problem with this 'outing' of CA is that Facebook explicitly commercially exists to harvest user data for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fidelity etc etc so they can profile us. A million dollars is chump change in the crazy US election game. This all seems overly selective - it's ok for some people to profile but not for others. I'm not in favor of any of it to be clear but there is a definite political bia…

>This all seems overly selective - it's ok for some people to profile but not for others

What's the issue here? Selective information distribution is rooted in the society, people are O.K. with some information to be known to some people while kept secret from others due to implication differences.

I.E. I'm fine to be profiled for selling me chocolates but I'm not O.K. to be profiled to be manipulated to select public officials or to make my mind about controversial topics like the god, abortions, guns etc. I expect to be exposed in a proper way to these topics, i.e. proper journalism and discussions.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#68

Post by tialaramex »

urlwolf wrote: post #42

OK, this feels like it will bring about the end. Of something. Facebook? Massive use of data for political campaigns? Anything? If we keep consuming news like this, and do nothing, it's going to scalate massively. Same way as when Snowden told people they were spyed on and they collectively shrugged and continued with their lives as if nothing had happened. We, people in tech, have a massive moral burden to educate '…

The IETF's BCP#188 document is one of many consequences of Snowden, its title is "Pervasive Monitoring Is an Attack", and the text begins "Pervasive monitoring is a technical attack that should be mitigated in the design of IETF protocols, where possible".

Almost literally right now, IETF 101 is starting in London, and one of the things presented will be a series of proposals by people who claim they (or organisations they work for, the IETF is only for people, corporations can't participate they can just send people to it) have a legitimate reason to snoop on TLS traffic. TLS 1.3 is designed, following BCP#188, to make such snooping impossible without ongoing assistance from one of the endpoints (if the endpoint is co-operating with the snooping there's mathematically nothing anybody can do) and they would dearly like to return to an era when they could snoop with just a little one time assistance. Now, maybe this would have been stiffly resisted anyway, but BCP#188 means anybody who isn't sure has an existing IETF document telling them exactly why this is a terrible idea.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#69

Post by mattnewton »

olivermarks wrote: post #44

My problem with this 'outing' of CA is that Facebook explicitly commercially exists to harvest user data for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fidelity etc etc so they can profile us. A million dollars is chump change in the crazy US election game. This all seems overly selective - it's ok for some people to profile but not for others. I'm not in favor of any of it to be clear but there is a definite political bia…

People signed up to give it to Facebook, and whatever your views on that bargain, this wasn’t part of it.
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