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Ex-WhatsApp cybersecurity head says Meta endangered billions of users

theguardian.com

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Re: Ex-WhatsApp cybersecurity head says Meta endangered billions of users

#81

Post by cryptoegorophy »

stingraycharles wrote: post #55
storus wrote: post #48

Didn't Hacker News feature an article on their home page at some point (10 years ago?) that at that time Facebook misconfigured something and users could observe their data being fed directly to some Israeli intelligence company? That was the day I deleted my FB account and never looked at anything they offer anymore.

At this point it’s best to assume that everything you communicate is being collected in some way. There are very, very few apps I really trust. E.g. the only mechanism I trust for communicating passwords securely is GPG, I wouldn’t even use Signal for that.

Unless you owner of the app and what they are doing exactly you can’t trust anyone. You don’t know what they are going through or if they sold the app to someone or had a certain code implementation that leaks all of your data. I stopped using Chrome when I had clear evidence of it leaking data - urls visited.

Re: Ex-WhatsApp cybersecurity head says Meta endangered billions of users

#83

Post by mikalauskas »

transcriptase wrote: post #80

Unsurprising given it’s been an open secret for over a decade that Meta employees will (if you have the right contacts or amount of money), orchestrate banning or seizing long-standing active accounts with desirable usernames and giving them to their friends or the highest bidder.

source?

Re: Ex-WhatsApp cybersecurity head says Meta endangered billions of users

#84

Post by sudahtigabulan »

saagarjha wrote: post #67
sudahtigabulan wrote: post #62

> In his whistleblower complaint, Baig is requesting reinstatement, back pay and compensatory damages, along with potential regulatory enforcement action against the company. If the company is so bad (it is), why does he want back?! 'Just pay me the salaries I "missed", and keep them coming.' The regulatory action is just "potential". I have no sympathy for Meta, but this guy...

Companies are not relationships where once they're your ex they are never worth interacting with ever again. If you are doing good work and then HR pushes you out, then it is reasonable to sue the company to get them to pay you damages and then go back to doing what you were before with the protection that they won't do it again.

The point I tried to make was not that he should be resentful about being kicked out, but that he doesn't really care that Meta is unethical and endangers billions.

Even if nothing changes (the regulatory action is optional), he's happy to contribute (he insists, in fact). Even among people who don't want him there.

Re: Ex-WhatsApp cybersecurity head says Meta endangered billions of users

#85

Post by SoftTalker »

oarla wrote: post #74
brazukadev wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy how an US company dominates the world's messaging market but not in the US

It’s not uncommon. Orkut back in the day was wildly popular in Latin America and India. WhatsApp is the same. I think users in NA have a lot of high quality options as against those in Asia and LatAm who don’t have much reliable options other than ones developed in NA.

You can get an android phone for about one tenth of what a new iPhone costs. That’s why android dominates lower income markets. Apple decided they just don’t want to be there.

Re: Ex-WhatsApp cybersecurity head says Meta endangered billions of users

#86

Post by United857 »

That's rather surprising about the accessing user data bit. When I was at Meta, the quickest way to get fired as an engineer was to access user data/accounts without permission or business reason. Everything was logged/audited down to the database level. Can't imagine that changing and the rules are taught very early on in the onboarding/bootcamp process.

Re: Ex-WhatsApp cybersecurity head says Meta endangered billions of users

#87

Post by transcriptase »

mikalauskas wrote: post #83
transcriptase wrote: post #80

Unsurprising given it’s been an open secret for over a decade that Meta employees will (if you have the right contacts or amount of money), orchestrate banning or seizing long-standing active accounts with desirable usernames and giving them to their friends or the highest bidder.

source?

Here’s one of many articles about the phenomenon:

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/11/17/meta-disciplined-or-fire...

A related scheme is the existence of brokers who will, for a fee, recover banned or locked accounts. User pays the broker $X, broker pays their contact at Meta $Y, and using internal tooling suddenly a ban or suspension that would normally put someone in an endless loop of automated vague bullshit responses gets restored.

Re: Ex-WhatsApp cybersecurity head says Meta endangered billions of users

#88

Post by mgh2 »

United857 wrote: post #86

That's rather surprising about the accessing user data bit. When I was at Meta, the quickest way to get fired as an engineer was to access user data/accounts without permission or business reason. Everything was logged/audited down to the database level. Can't imagine that changing and the rules are taught very early on in the onboarding/bootcamp process.

Do you have proof?

Re: Ex-WhatsApp cybersecurity head says Meta endangered billions of users

#89

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

rhizome wrote: post #59
ryandrake wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The metadata of someone's communications can be almost as damning as the content. I would guess that if the FBI could merely have a list of who their suspect contacted over an app, and when, they'd have 90% of what they wanted.

My understanding is that in the vast majority of investigations law enforcement will be satisfied in learning only who you're talking to, i.e. "just metadata" is fine, and dangerous.

It seems reasonable. Even those who are sloppy with their opsec probably do not detail the entirety of the plan via digital mechanisms. Being able to identify likely collaborators is probably sufficient to infer some specifics of an activity.

Re: Ex-WhatsApp cybersecurity head says Meta endangered billions of users

#90

Post by worthless-trash »

14 wrote: post #66
throw0101a wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were Evil-Tim-Cook, I'd have a deal with the FBI (and other agencies) where I'd hand over some user's data, in return for them keeping that secret and occasionally very publicly taking Apple to court demanding they expose a specific user and intentionally losing - to bolster Apple's privacy reputation. The FBI wants its investigations to go to court and lead to convictions. Any evidence gained in this way woul…

I imagine if you have the information parallel construction becomes trivial.

The killers app for ai.
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