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Facebook and Its Executives Are Getting Destroyed After Botching the Handling of a Massive Data Breach (businessinsider.com)
The way Facebook has disclosed the abuse of its system by Cambridge Analytica, which has been reported this week, speaks volumes of Facebook's core beliefs. Sample this except from Business Insider: Facebook executives waded into a firestorm of criticism on Saturday, after news reports revealed that a data firm with ties to the Trump campaign harvested private information from millions of Facebook users. Several executives took to Twitter to insist that the data leak was not technically a "breach." But critics were outraged by the response and accused the company of playing semantics and missing the point. Washington Post reporter Hamza Shaban: Facebook insists that the Cambridge Analytica debacle wasn't a data breach, but a "violation" by a third party app that abused user data. This offloading of responsibility says a lot about Facebook's approach to our privacy. Observer reporter Carole Cadwalladr, who broke the news about Cambridge Analytica: Yesterday Facebook threatened to sue us. Today we publish this. Meet the whistleblower blowing the lid off Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. [...] Facebook's chief strategy officer wading in. So, tell us @alexstamos (who expressed his displeasure with the use of "breach" in media reports) why didn't you inform users of this "non-breach" after The Guardian first reported the story in December 2015? Zeynep Tufekci: If your business is building a massive surveillance machinery, the data will eventually be used and misused. Hacked, breached, leaked, pilfered, conned, "targeted", "engaged", "profiled", sold.. There is no informed consent because it's not possible to reasonably inform or consent. [...] Facebook's defense that Cambridge Analytica harvesting of FB user data from millions is not technically a "breach" is a more profound and damning statement of what's wrong with Facebook's business model than a "breach." MIT Professor Dean Eckles: Definitely fascinating that Joseph Chancellor, who contributed to collection and contract-violating retention (?) of Facebook user data, now works for Facebook. Amir Efrati, a reporter at the Information: May seem like a small thing to non-reporters but Facebook loses credibility by issuing a Friday night press release to "front-run" publications that were set to publish negative articles about its platform. If you want us to become more suspicious, mission accomplished. Further reading: Facebook's latest privacy debacle stirs up more regulatory interest from lawmakers (TechCrunch).
For people who didn't see why they should care about who uses thier data or how it's used, thinking they had noting to hide and it wouldn't affect them, I hope you learned a lesson.
Dear Slashdot, please knock it off with the hyperbole in the headline. Unless the Facebook executives are literally being torn limb from limb or being ground into dust, I don't really find the over top headline informative or useful.
Who the hell would be worried about their data on Facebook?
This is a place where you tell the world about what you're doing and what's going on with your life.
What are you afraid of? Someone finding out about what you're trying to tell the whole world?
I suppose you could be a moron and tell Facebook things like your phone number, but who would seriously do that and then expect Facebook to keep that a secret?
What did you asshats expect from the (((Zuck)))?
I'm sure their tens in millions in stock options will soothe them. Give me a break.
I'm confused. The only thing they did was view 40 Million profiles on Facebook? Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo do more than that every single day.
Throw all the assorted persons associated with this affair into a prison and throw away the key.
I think its hilarious that Zuckerberg hates Trump and pulls this 'oh yeah well I'm gonna..' stunt and now it has drawn attention to what Facebook has become: Ugly and intrusive.
I want a Ferrari, but I'm not about to help the US Government nor a private company [insert terrible babies and pitchforks jokes here] to get one.
Does no one else think twice about this?
"""Facebook insists that the Cambridge Analytica debacle wasn't a data breach, but a "violation" by a third party app that abused user data."""
So, who owns the data?
Facebook says I own the data https://www.facebook.com/terms.php
But they are free to do what they want with it (Facebook is).
Like sell it.
I don't care for Facebook or what Cambridge Analytica is doing with user data, but just to see how it plays out:
I want Cambridge Analytica to be able to use my Facebook data for free, because it is mine.
Because Trump's campaign did it and Hillary didn't?
Who would have thought that a company founded on collecting people's personal data and selling it to third parties would be involved in a scandal about the collection of people's personal data without those people's permissions?
It's almost as if the people using FB had no clue what was going on.
The problem is that FB quietly gives all their user's data to the DNC and are angry that any of the same sorts of data they give to the DNC was obtained by non-Leftists.
SEC should investigate FB for acting as agents of the DNC. A Congressional investigation of Zuckerberg and FB is needed.
And get on with our lives? Or how about we create a pros and cons list, I'll start...
Pros: Well nothing really comes to mind.
Cons: Where do I start?
The only website you can trust is a dead website.
Using Facebook as intended doesn't make it a data breach, as facebook quite clearly told everyone.
The "other" political party using facebook for their own ends is the reason for this autistic screeching.
Another example of the simple fact that morality and ethics are things you are born with, or not. You cannot "learn" ethics if you don't have it in you. Things like elaborate "codes of conduct" or "ethics training" are absolutely useless to those born without the ability to grasp those concepts.
They're not necessarily bad people, they're not "evil". They just don't "get it", often despite their best efforts. If it wasn't so sad, it would be quite amusing to see some people (business men, politicians, reporters, etc) continuously strugle, and fail, to grasp simple moral and ethical concepts that are so instantly obvious to some of us.
We see perfect examples of this in the comments section of /. almost everyday, when some people comment that they see nothing wrong with some piece of news that's been published. Often these people are not trolls, you can really sense the complete honesty and confusion when they post things like "I really don't see anything wrong with this; Am I missing something ?"
A company that worked for TRUMP, the EMBODIMENT OF GREAT EVIL OF THIS WORLD (worse than PUTIN!!!!), did data mining.
When companies that only work for pure, innocent DEMOCRATS do it, it's OK. At least with the management of Facebook.
The troubling part is trying to explain how they're fair and unbiased when publicly shown to be strongly biased.
I just want my data to be sold to everyone.
Except to Trump.
The old rule still applies: don't post ANYTHING on the internet that you would be upset to seeing printed in the newspaper that next day! I'd advise against taking any digital nudes or videos in the first place; no telling where they will end up. Don't google anything that would trigger NSA keywords, no matter how interesting the subject of homemade explosives is. Avoid watching kitty porn. Don't mention online how much you would love to see Trump have a heart attack. Probably need to avoid monitored keywords in your phone conversations as well.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
If malware is used to download FB's internal profile of you using your credentials, it's not access as intended by the user.
This is an EU company, EU laws hold. Including the computer misuse act and the data protection act. As does the right to be forgotten, along with various pieces of human rights legislation.
This is a criminal enterprise and Cambridge University should be shut down until its role is established.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
A breach has a specific technical meaning. This is a technical site. This wasn't a breach, this was at most a contract violation. This page does a decent job of describing incidents, breaches and the like:
https://iapp.org/news/a/is-it-...
This isn't CNN, these things matter. Please keep your politics out of our technology news site. Is that too much to ask?
I see this as non partisan. Iâ(TM)m a republican who is not shy about saying I voted trump but this is unacceptable. Trump campaign paid a research firm for info they apperantly got legally. What law was proven here exactly? Maybe a contract was violated but what law was broken? The answer appears to be none and that is a huge problem.
I am confounded as to why this is even news. This organization has been associating "likes" with types of people/sexual orientation/political affiliation, since at least 2013 when articles came out sharing how the process worked and providing some typical examples (ie, the user is likely straight if they "like" Wu-Tang Clan)
All that matters is the stock price. If the stock does not go down nothing will change. Who cares about public opinion?
Changing the word from breach to violation does not absolve FB of responsibility. They basically gave everyone the ability to do this and then asked them to pinky swear that they wouldn't. The ability should not be there in the first place.
Part of the business model? Take a lesson from ssh: limit the rate of possible requests to something human that spoils the mass harvesting done by a bot. Detect such attempts and block that IP, or in this case FB account.
Are people outraged because of a leak or because of a design flaw or because they so detest the current POTUS and possibility that the campaign made use of the available data?
Story of Sanders campaign doing the same thing, or much worse depending on your point of view.
I'm not sure you can say no one raised a stink, but it was only in the news shortly and I think Sanders fired 1 guy. I don't think anything else came of it.
Copyright infringement also has a specific definition in law
Copyright piracy does not have a legal definition - but the term is often used when convenient by entities that do not like the law.
So is Facebook possibly guilty of inducing Cambridge Analytica to commit massive copyright infringement of facebook user data? Afterall the users create the data, and an author has an implied copyright for all of his writings. This seems to be a underdeveloped area of law ripe for lawsuits. Implied License Saves the Day (But it Doesn’t Always) April 22, 2015 by Rick Sanders |. It is difficult to consider that such a massive misuse of facebook user data would be considered to be either an implied license or fair use.
As much I dislike facebook. I don't really see an issue here that's public themselves in the making.
1. People freely share their own personal information on facebook
2. People lack of technical setting on some of the privacy setting available
3. Recent Linkin court ruling means that 3rd party can access user public information without facebook consent
4. People too easily install app giving away their information without reading the actual fine print
I would be shock if this is the only app sharing information with another party that they weren't suppose to. I really wish the outrage isn't political charged and policy review it through more technical aspect of what should be done.
That's because it wasn't a data breach, it was a data sale, which they were caught red handed.
Sadly the age when most people felt inclined to not share every aspect of their lives is past. The new impulse is to share every thought, image and opinion with the world for attention - and social media companies sell what is given to them to the highest bidder. That's the world we live in, that's the Social Network business model.
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
It's a nail-biting election. Do you think he'll win?
*beep* "your Facebook executive has been arrested, you have 2 hours to bail him out"
*beep* "you have 30 minutes to bail out your Facebook exec or he will be crushed into a cube"
*beep* "your exec has been crushed into a cube"
*beep* "you have 30 minutes to move your cube"
Just Don't... Joust Don't put your life on Social Media. It is there for pretty well anyone to mine any use for their own purposes and there is SFA that you can do about it.
If you do carry on exposing your life to the world then frankly you deserve whatever grief falls on you. You asked for it.
You won't find me on any Social (or should that be Anti-Social...????) Media site. I never was and never will be.
I'm aware what sh*tstorm this may bring, but I have to say, this is your/our fault. The US has basically no data and user privacy protection laws whatsoever, companies allowed to essentially do as they see fit with the data they gather. Why some get suddenly surprised that the companies actually do what they are allowed to do? Yes, you can get enraged, but unless you actually do something, it's really your fault this has been allowed to get this far. It's been already time - and time, and time - that people learn.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Because putting together a readable summary rather than a list of tweets is too frigging hard.
applies to phone conversations. If a .com company is selling me a service that is supposed to be secured then I have the same expectation of privacy. Most states have pretty strict laws about wiretapping. Just because its "on the internet" doesn't make it anything else when you listen in on my private conversations without notice or perimission.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
They only did what every app on Facebook does, and what Facebook is explicitly set up to do. The whole point of Facebook is to gather user data and sell it to people who want to target ads. There is nothing special here, nothing unique. This is a bunch of bluster over nothing, unless you're going to get mad at all forms of targeted advertising.
You're on the right track, generally speaking. But the biggest danger with all of this information culled from social media sites is the potential to mis-use it by taking it out of context.
Anything I was willing to post on Facebook under my name is a statement I'm willing to stand up and take the credit for posting. Therefore, if someone published it in the local newspaper? I'd be fine with that too. (Why you'd find it worthy of an article in the paper, I'm not quite sure? But for the sake of argument ... let's say I became famous and people suddenly care about details of my life, like where I go out to eat and what I think about things. Ok .... publish away and attribute what I typed to me. I can handle that.)
What scares me is the ability to selectively seek out certain tidbits of information on people that can be spun in some way to use it against them.
A whole lot of things that aren't particularly meaningful, in context of hundreds or thousands of random posts, can suddenly SEEM relevant if they're quoted out of context.
EG. Say I'm upset with poor customer service at a chain store, so I rant about it online one day? Maybe I just wanted to vent, or hoped someone in a position to improve things at that location might see it and have it serve as a "wake up call"? But let's say a year goes by, and all of a sudden I'm trying to get a job with a firm that has that chain store as one of their clients? Someone on a mission to show why they shouldn't hire me could hunt down that one rant and position it as proof that I'm going to badmouth their client.
Love how this asshole threatens to sue someone for the use of the word breach, despite being a security professional. Letâ(TM)s remind outselves this was Yahooâ(TM)s Chief security shithead before over s billion passwords were leaked and he jumped ship to this nice job upgrade. Now he gets paid to leak your information for money instead of on accident
I worked for a couple different public companies on some marketing software products. (One of those companies is large enough that I'm sure most of you have heard of it.) In both cases there was a push to harvest facebook data in violation of their terms of service. In both cases, I refused to push that initiative forward and was fired. I'm sure both companies are now happily violating away.
Now I work on finance software. It's a different kind of dirty, but somehow I feel better about myself.
I have to use Facebook, in order to keep in touch with a group of people. So I have a Facebook account. This account includes a fake name, fake birthday, fake picture of me, etc. I don't talk about politics on Facebook, so Mark Z doesn't know my politics.
But here's one thing that really annoys me: Before I switched to the "Epic Privacy" browser, before and after logging on/off of Facebook, I would empty my browser's cache, history, etc.
Once I spent some time reading reviews on Amazon and other book sellers, about a particular IT book. Then I cleared my cache, etc., then logged onto Facebook. I was surprised and upset to see that book advertised on Facebook. (The group of people that I correspond with on Facebook aren't technical, so the book wasn't advertised because of those people.)
The hackers will get in no matter what people do. We have had some of the best world companies hacked, and if they, with their -billions- of dollars earmarked for security can get hacked, anyone can.
We have the cyber-equivalent of moats, firewalls and castles, while the enemy has cannons, bombers, and ICBMs. No company, or GOVERNMENT can win this.
They're getting destroyed, are they?
Okay, so is it a ritual hanging for the executives, or will fire be involved? Will they make it public or more of a behind-closed-doors event?
And as for Facebook, I guess the userbase will migrate to something else over the next few days. A pity, as some of my elderly relatives would use it to keep in touch with various hobby groups.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
First of all, you mindless sheep willingly handed over your personal information to a public forum... how shocking that it should used for nefarious activities... The business model of FaceBook is to sell you. Don't be surprised about anything they do with you, ever.. Once you give it away, it's not yours anymore.
Maybe you should just get off FB and go explore meatspace... There's real flowers, roads, mountains, rivers, and people out there. Your social skills might improve too!
Your mac address is tracked, your modem ip etc all tracked, logged and geolocated. Cross compiled with neighbors geoinfo, many of whom use active tracking via phone and Facebook app. It's like jury duty, doesn't matter if you pay attention if the other 11 just want to get it over with and get rid of the other looking fella.
Another example of the simple fact that morality and ethics are things you are born with, or not.
[Citation needed]
(IOW you're wrong: We're born knowing that sucking on something does something about that bad feeling inside, and that's about it.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) police on state breaking-and-entering charges, after connecting a computer to the MIT network in an unmarked and unlocked closet, and setting it to download academic journal articles systematically from JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT. Federal prosecutors later charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release.
He hanged himself while under federal indictment for his alleged computer crimes. Swartz declined a plea bargain under which he would have served six months in federal prison. Two days after the prosecution rejected a counter-offer by Swartz, he was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment, where he had hanged himself.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
If the DNC et al were behind this, would it be being feted as sheer genius and the best thing since sliced bread.
They repeatedly violated user privacy rights, changed settings without warning, and I finally cut ties with them. I've never gone back.
They are not trustworthy.
You are the product being sold.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
More like a misuse of the data... pay FB for it, and it'll still happen again.
That's the answer. Only from your food habits one can tell all kinds of things about you....from health to finance to political preferences... it might seem tedious and useless to a human to sift through all that boring data but the machine does not care and does it millions of times faster.
100 likes and they know you better than your friends. 300 likes and they know you better than you know yourself. That's proven BTW....
Point #1: Screaming about Cambridge Analytics helps distract from the fact that Facebook collects data on all its users and sells it to anybody with cash. At a moment when its users are starting to pay attention, shifting attention like this serves Facebook.
Point #2: The Trump-Putin thing flamed out, and the more generic Trump-Russia thing is clearly flaming out, and people have started noticing that all Meuller's indictments so far have nothing to do with Trump-Russia. This gives Democrats in congress a new talking point, that Trump somehow used data analytics to steal the election. Congressman Schiff was clearly thrilled to run with this on the weekend shows. Reminder: It was NOT "stealing" an election in 2008 or 2012 when the DNC bragged about how much they knew about voters thanks to Facebook, and how dumb the GOP was for not doing it.
Point #3: The Democrats used to be rather bubbly and boatsful about their dominance in data analytics (remember them making fun of Mitt Romney's "project Orca"?). Trump beat the Hillary machine using about 1/7th the cash (so much for all the ranting about Citizens United and the power of campaign cash) and now the Democrats who outed themselves as supporters of government control of the internet are now talking about the need for government to regulate or even break-up Facebook.
Point #4: The non-Trump "establishment" Republicans in DC have long suspected the bay area tech companies and have seen leaks of info on average Americans as a PR tool to get the public to see things their way. This plays right into that.
Point $5: Trump clearly relishes driving the Democrats nuts, and the idea that his team used Cambridge Analytics, and CA used people who apparently did this, and that its now causing Democrats to turn on one of their big backers (Facebook) is probably going to tickle him. This was probably well-below his managerial horizon while he was flying to multiple huge non-scripted rallies per day during the campaign, but you can expect him to tweet about it in future days in ways that will be designed to make his enemies positively froth and form circular firing squads - and they will do their part in his drama by stupidly falling for it as they always do. What could possibly make him smile more that Democrats attacking their fave silicon valley support systems?
There are reports that the company in question told Facebook they had destroyed data and in fact they didnâ(TM)t. Why is there so much back lash against Facebook and not against the company who kept the user data?
Like consumed by those nanobugs in the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, the recent 'green' version not the original one.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
If you use a system which you know stores and harvests your data, then you can't be surprised or worried when that data gets used by other parties.
Facebook's response was correct, this wasn't breach, and just because the over liberalized media doesn't understand that, doesn't make it Facebook's problem. The only reason that Cambridge Analytica was able to grab the data is because people provided it and provided it openly without any second thought for the consequences of what they were doing at the time.
if you don't want to be tracked, then stop willfully giving your data up to everyone who wants it, otherwise you have no right to complain when it gets used against you.
What did anybody expect? How naive can you be?
... smart young people and not stupid old people.
Can you imagine how bad things might have gone if they had people around with some experience?
... since back in the day I was writing facebook apps and in the end user agreements you were made to agree to said something along the lines of being "obligated" to not misuse customer data. The use of the word "obligated" made me giggle. We'll give you access to nefarious shit, but you're "obligated" not to sniff around.