What's funny is that the engineers who implemented this are probably one of us here on HN. I don't think Zuck implemented this himself
"Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B
81–90 of 286 posts
Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B
#82Every story like this has me thinking about two things: 1. Companies have no soul. They are, by design, just chasing revenue. Everything else is just a risk to be factored. 2. There are real humans at these companies who choose to take part in the business and design and engineering, etc. I don’t think these humans have no soul (though some won’t), and I don’t think they’re stupid (though some are). I think it’s just…
I think (haven't actually watched it, but on my watchlist) this is exactly what the movie "The Corporation" (2003) [1] lays out. [1] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0379225
Yes you are right. I owned the DVD twenty years ago! It blew my mind at the time...
Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B
#83Every story like this has me thinking about two things: 1. Companies have no soul. They are, by design, just chasing revenue. Everything else is just a risk to be factored. 2. There are real humans at these companies who choose to take part in the business and design and engineering, etc. I don’t think these humans have no soul (though some won’t), and I don’t think they’re stupid (though some are). I think it’s just…
Look at atrocities of animal agriculture and all difficult engineering done to scale massive slaughter.
For some its evil, for others its an interesting itch to scratch.
Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> To make that concrete - if Mark Zuckerberg found out about the above activity and was appalled and sacked everyone involved that would send out a very strong signal. We know from another case that the opposite culture is true: when told to break the law and use copyrighted material, the engineers feel uneasy - they were not stupid and understood what they were going to do, and for a similar-in-nature-but-a-few-orde…
Exactly. People made that decision.
This is a grey area. Yes people are people, but when they work for corporations they are given a green light to do things that they normally morally wouldnt do. The ability to blame it on superiors, brush it under the carpet, or hide evidence amongst billions of pieces of normal data allow 'People' to make abhorrent decisions in the best interest of making the company money. These decisions may even be incentivised by bonuses etc.
People are human beings, and we are all prone to bias and bribery nwhen big sums of cash are dangled in front of us.
Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B
#85Very impressive but not surprising coming from Meta. They have an history of doing this kind of things. Back in the early 2010s, they found a way to spy on HTTPS traffic on the iOS App Store to monitor which apps were getting popular. That's what allowed them to know WhatsApp and Instagram were good acquisition targets. At this point, I think the race for Zuckerberg is, can Meta survive long enough for the next platf…
Companies have been trying to make AR/VR the next platform shift but I'm not super convinced that people actually want or desire this outside of a few niche games. To me it feels like it has about as much staying power as 3D glasses in movies.
The window of opportunity already closed for AR/VR. AI dealt the death blow.
Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B
#86If it does not cost them everything, they will not stop.
Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B
#87This is one of the reason you need to segregate your whole LAN. At the bare minimum, use VLANs to knock off these ruthless scanners. And obviously, this wouldn't be possible if you used a strong adblock list on whatever DNS you're running. They cannot touch the people who take proper measures. I also do not believe people who use Facebook really care about privacy. I am well aware of how mean this sounds but they fully deserve to be tracked
Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B
#88"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product" - anonymous. Why is this very news is not in the HN front page for considerable amount of time is beyond me. It has the right recipe for top HN post namely users deception, sandbox bypass, privacy or lack thereof, web browser, Meta, etc.
"If you're paying, you're still the product", so apparently other factors anon didn't mention are involved
Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not asking about browsers, I'm asking about a search engine. How could a search engine block a tracking pixel? You click a link in the search engine and go to a website. The search engine can't control the website after you go there, can it?
DuckDuckGo and Brave have browsers on Android
Are you being intentionally obtuse? Read the quote again,
>You’re not affected if (and only if) ...
>You always used the Brave browser or the DuckDuckGo search engine on mobile
Re: "Localhost tracking" explained. It could cost Meta €32B
#90What's funny is that the engineers who implemented this are probably one of us here on HN. I don't think Zuck implemented this himself
That's what they need AI for. It won't say no.