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Facebook Founder Accused of Hacking Into Rivals' Email
An anonymous reader notes a long piece up at BusinessInsider.com accusing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of hacking into the email accounts of rivals and journalists. The CEO of the world's most successful social networking website was accused of at least two breaches of privacy. In a two-year investigation detailing the founding of Facebook, Nicholas Carlson, a senior editor at Silicon Alley Insider, uncovered what he claimed was evidence of the hackings in 2004. "New information uncovered by Silicon Alley Insider suggests that some of the complaints [in a court case ongong since 2007] against Mark Zuckerberg are valid. It also suggests that, on at least one occasion in 2004, Mark used private login data taken from Facebook's servers to break into Facebook members' private email accounts and read their emails — at best, a gross misuse of private information. Lastly, it suggests that Mark hacked into the competing company's systems and changed some user information with the aim of making the site less useful. ... Over the past two years, we have interviewed more than a dozen sources familiar with aspects of this story — including people involved in the founding year of the company. We have also reviewed what we believe to be some relevant IMs and emails from the period. Much of this information has never before been made public. None of it has been confirmed or authenticated by Mark or the company." The single-page view doesn't have its own URL; click on "View as one page" near the bottom.
Facebook also had a thing "give us your gmail or hotmail password and we'll log in and retrieve your contact email addresses and offer you to add them as friends if they have a Facebook account already" - presumably they stored those passwords as well.
This doesn't surprise me, only confirms what I've thought about Zuckerberg.
1) I believe he stole Facebook from the ConnectU founders. I believe the assertions that he was hired as a developer and dragged his feet while forming his own company which eventually became Facebook.
2) I believe he has no scruples when it comes to Facebook users' data. He has publicly stated that he knows what's best for "his" users and this arrogance shines through every time the UI is abruptly changed.
3) I believe he will do whatever he pleases with users' information. I don't think that privacy laws provide guidance to him but instead are constraints that he will bypass given any opportunity.
I'm pleased to see that he is being publicly exposed - I doubt anything will come of it - but am glad for him to be seen as he truly is, an arrogant and unscrupulous bad person. This latest revelation may finally send him where he belongs . . .
banking.