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Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

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Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#91

Post by kodablah »

bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #14
bluetidepro wrote: post #5

> "We're sorry this happened." That about sums it up for all these privacy breaches these days. It's getting to the same level of "thoughts and prayers" for tragedies. No actual change or consequences for the problems happening, just empty "sorries" and "promises" that it won't happen again/they'll get it fixed. I don't know if this is a GDPR violation or not (as someone else asked), but if it is, I hope we start act…

Useless, repeatedly broken promises. It is time to see how much teeth the GDPR really has.

Can we look to any other similar regulation to estimate how much teeth it will have when actually enforced?

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#92

Post by [deleted] »

bluetidepro wrote: post #5

> "We're sorry this happened." That about sums it up for all these privacy breaches these days. It's getting to the same level of "thoughts and prayers" for tragedies. No actual change or consequences for the problems happening, just empty "sorries" and "promises" that it won't happen again/they'll get it fixed. I don't know if this is a GDPR violation or not (as someone else asked), but if it is, I hope we start act…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#93

Post by jeklj »

bluetidepro wrote: post #5

> "We're sorry this happened." That about sums it up for all these privacy breaches these days. It's getting to the same level of "thoughts and prayers" for tragedies. No actual change or consequences for the problems happening, just empty "sorries" and "promises" that it won't happen again/they'll get it fixed. I don't know if this is a GDPR violation or not (as someone else asked), but if it is, I hope we start act…

Nothing bad ever comes to companies as a consequence of these leaks, so what is their incentive to stop them? It happens so often that it goes down the memory hole after maybe a week or two, so even that isn't much of an incentive. We shouldn't be surprised about this.

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#94

Post by buboard »

bluetidepro wrote: post #5

> "We're sorry this happened." That about sums it up for all these privacy breaches these days. It's getting to the same level of "thoughts and prayers" for tragedies. No actual change or consequences for the problems happening, just empty "sorries" and "promises" that it won't happen again/they'll get it fixed. I don't know if this is a GDPR violation or not (as someone else asked), but if it is, I hope we start act…

Considering that gdpr doesnt contain a single technical requirement (in contrast to all food / safety / medical regulations) , typically anyone and anything or nothing can be a violation. Your guess is as good as mine

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#95

Post by elliekelly »

newsopt wrote: post #69
bluetidepro wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am suggesting that. I don't necessarily think jail time is the right thing, but I do think something like meaningful fines are more than reasonable for major software bugs that cause these kinds of breaches of privacy. It will make larger companies like this be much more careful when money is on the table for them to lose. To me, if we can criminalize something like a major oil spill such as BP/Deepwater Horiz…

Just a quick question, do you write software? Do you have a legal or economic background? It seems pretty clear to me that anyone suggesting that software bugs in applications that have no risk of causing physical harm should have criminal liability has no idea what they are talking about and what damage such a law would cause. Case in point look at the quality of medical software today. Hospitals still use windows x…

HIPAA only carries criminal penalties when someone knowingly discloses covered information - not a software bug. Until the bug is identified at least. For the most part HIPAA is enforced with civil penalties.

And your "nightmare" scenario of (civil) liability flowing from programming bugs already exists in the investment world and it hasn't come apart at the seams. Google Axa Rosenberg. A coding error in their trading algorithm went undiscovered for two years. Negligent for sure, but not why the SEC went after them. The problem was they didn't promptly disclose the error to investors and they didn't promptly correct it. Algorithmic trading firms should have mechanisms to catch errors, correct errors, and disclose those errors to investors. And after seeing Axa Rosenberg's $250 million fine and Rosenberg's lifetime ban from the industry guess what they all implemented?

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#96

Post by burkaman »

canttestthis wrote: post #44
lalaithion wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a plane crashed, and the company that manufactured the plane was fined because they had an engineering bug, no one would blink an eye.

The analogy doesn't work. Barring malicious intent or negligence leading to death I cannot imagine (or remember) a situation where the company would be fined for a software bug.

Financial regulators are happy to do it.

https://www.networkworld.com/article/2225633/software/knight...

https://www.qa-financial.com/articles/cftc-fines-societe-gen...

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/citigroup-fined-7m-over-software-b...

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-30125728

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/06/microsoft...

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#97

Post by newscracker »

If there’s one thing that Facebook has been highly successful at, it’s making people numb and uncaring about any of these “bugs”.

Like the saying goes, “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic” — Facebook has made all its privacy blunders and issues over many years a statistic...something people may nod their head at, feel bad for a moment and go back happily to the same company’s platforms.

Unless lawmakers around the world do something, nothing will materially affect Facebook (the company). Even if they do, I personally have no faith that the company is capable of changing unless people at the top, like Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, are out.

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#98

Post by rohan1024 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #76
aylmao wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google didn't shut down Google+ to preserve user privacy. Not sure if that's what you're implying with your comment-- I hope it's not.

> Google didn't shut down Google+ to preserve user privacy They accelerated the planned shutdown for exactly that reason.

They did that because cost of maintaining platform was higher than its ROI. If Google+ had like 300M-400M monthly active users I don't think they would have shut down Google+

Re: Facebook says new bug allowed apps access to private photos of up to 6.8M users

#99

Post by EpicEng »

newsopt wrote: post #69
bluetidepro wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am suggesting that. I don't necessarily think jail time is the right thing, but I do think something like meaningful fines are more than reasonable for major software bugs that cause these kinds of breaches of privacy. It will make larger companies like this be much more careful when money is on the table for them to lose. To me, if we can criminalize something like a major oil spill such as BP/Deepwater Horiz…

Just a quick question, do you write software? Do you have a legal or economic background? It seems pretty clear to me that anyone suggesting that software bugs in applications that have no risk of causing physical harm should have criminal liability has no idea what they are talking about and what damage such a law would cause. Case in point look at the quality of medical software today. Hospitals still use windows x…

> It seems pretty clear to me that anyone suggesting that software bugs in applications that have no risk of causing physical harm should have criminal liability has no idea what they are talking about and what damage such a law would cause.

So you're fine with financial losses, loss of privacy, and the material harm that goes along with both? Disregarding the impact that data breaches imply is just naive.

> Case in point look at the quality of medical software today. Hospitals still use windows xp and other completely insecure and outdated software. Because absolutely nobody wants to deal with the nightmare that is HIPAA.

I wrote medical device software for more than a decade. HIPAA has nothing to do with it. Many systems run on outdated platforms because the cost of replacing them is deemed to outweigh the benefits. That determination is debatable on a case by case basis, but in practice we see a hell of a lot more damage being caused by breaches of companies running on modern technology than we do e.g. hospital systems or LIMS.

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