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Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads them to their server

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Re: Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads them to their server

#61

Post by 0x0 »

londons_explore wrote: post #29
beagle3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It likely constitutes copyright infringement, carrying a $100K or so civil payment without need to show any damages, if FB is subject to the law. If you hold the copyright to a library deployed on android, you might want to talk to a lawyer.

Not that many people do... This only includes system libraries which a phone OEM shipped. It doesn't include libraries which are bundled with an app.

If you build a custom AOSP from source and add a new system library or modify an existing system library that adds a proprietary algorithm or maybe even a poem/artwork that you wrote yourself and put a proprietary license/copyright on, maybe you could go after fb for illegally pirating/stealing your own copyrighted work? Probably wouldn't work if you do this just to poke fb knowing about this feature, but if you happened to work on custom AOSP roms for personal use before this feature became widely known, then it sounds like you might possibly have a good cause?

Re: Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads them to their server

#62

Post by brador »

shawnz wrote: post #52
brador wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harder to spoof, less likely to be faked, plus additional meta information.

For starters, I'm not convinced it would be harder to spoof that than the library information (which also seems pretty easy to spoof if not easier). But even if that were the case, why would they spend this level of engineering effort just to be able to fingerprint people in that extremely rare case of having a spoofed phone model? Do you think that kind of customer would even be receptive to targeted ads in the firs…

Tracking value increases with rarity. Data is packaged and sold, not simply stored and empty cells can go for crazy money if the target is hot enough.

How much would you pay for Elons verified personal number?

Re: Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads them to their server

#63

Post by leggomylibro »

ulfw wrote: post #23
gothack wrote: post #4

Another reason I'm glad I quit

Both. No point using an operating system that is a malware and privacy nightmare, just so I can fiddle with it more. It's not a computer, it's just a phone. And no point using Facebook, really. Still with Whatsapp (and passively Instagram) as my friends are massively on those.

Whatsapp and Instagram are Facebook. The same company owns and runs all three.

Re: Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads them to their server

#64

Post by number6 »

Shish2k wrote: post #59
lugg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is clearly not for crash reporting. They're sucking up libs to figure out what apps their users use. Could be a few reasons, could be boring metrics, could be anticompetitive identification of acquisition targets, could be oppo research, could be user profiling. None of these things I'm ok with Facebook getting off my phone.

> They're sucking up libs to figure out what apps their users use. Hypothesis 1, debugging: requires full copies of system libraries Hypothesis 2, fingerprinting: requires hashes of application libraries Evidence: full copies of system libraries are being uploaded How are you using that evidence to be so confident in hypothesis 2 and confidently against hypothesis 1?

Hypothesis 3: they do both

Re: Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads them to their server

#65

Post by [deleted] »

Shish2k wrote: post #59
lugg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is clearly not for crash reporting. They're sucking up libs to figure out what apps their users use. Could be a few reasons, could be boring metrics, could be anticompetitive identification of acquisition targets, could be oppo research, could be user profiling. None of these things I'm ok with Facebook getting off my phone.

> They're sucking up libs to figure out what apps their users use. Hypothesis 1, debugging: requires full copies of system libraries Hypothesis 2, fingerprinting: requires hashes of application libraries Evidence: full copies of system libraries are being uploaded How are you using that evidence to be so confident in hypothesis 2 and confidently against hypothesis 1?

[deleted]

Re: Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads them to their server

#66

Post by ulfw »

leggomylibro wrote: post #63
ulfw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. No point using an operating system that is a malware and privacy nightmare, just so I can fiddle with it more. It's not a computer, it's just a phone. And no point using Facebook, really. Still with Whatsapp (and passively Instagram) as my friends are massively on those.

Whatsapp and Instagram are Facebook. The same company owns and runs all three.

I am well aware of that. Thus I mentioned I am still with those apps (involuntarily). So still with Facebook Inc, but not Facebook.com/App

Re: Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads them to their server

#67

Post by amelius »

rocqua wrote: post #12
amelius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice angle but I guess the defense is that the user explicitly gave Facebook permission to read those files.

If I buy a book, I'm allowed to read that book, but I am not allowed to copy it.

Who says Facebook is copying it, not just reading it?

Re: Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads them to their server

#68

Post by cjhopman »

lugg wrote: post #56
js2 wrote: post #25

As someone who’s built my company’s mobile crash reporting solution, I have a guess why they might do this. It’s is extremely difficult to diagnose Android native code crashes. Unlike iOS where it is both straightforward to unwind on the phone, and where Apple makes the iOS system symbols available for symbolizing system frames in a stack trace, neither of these things are true on Android. My first approach for my co…

This is clearly not for crash reporting. They're sucking up libs to figure out what apps their users use. Could be a few reasons, could be boring metrics, could be anticompetitive identification of acquisition targets, could be oppo research, could be user profiling. None of these things I'm ok with Facebook getting off my phone.

It sounds like you don't understand what the term "system libraries" means. It's impossible to tell what apps people are using by uploading system libraries. You could probably tell what type of phone they are using by doing it, but that would be dumb since Android already tells you what kind of phone it is.
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