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EFF: Facebook Should Notify Users Who Interact With Fake Police 'Sock Puppet' Accounts (eff.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a senior investigative researcher at the EFF:
Despite Facebook's repeated warnings that law enforcement is required to use "authentic identities" on the social media platform, cops continue to create fake and impersonator accounts to secretly spy on users. By pretending to be someone else, cops are able to sneak past the privacy walls users put up and bypass legal requirements that might require a warrant to obtain that same information...
EFF is now calling on Facebook to escalate the matter with law enforcement in the United States. Facebook should take the following actions to address the proliferation of fake/impersonator Facebook accounts operated by law enforcement, in addition to suspending the fake accounts.
- As part of its regular transparency reports, Facebook should publish data on the number of fake/impersonator law enforcement accounts identified, what agencies they belonged to, and what action was taken.
- When a fake/impersonator account is identified, Facebook should alert the users and groups that interacted with the account whether directly or indirectly.
The article also suggests updating Facebook's Terms of Service to explicitly prohibit fake/impersonator profiles by law enforcement groups, and updating Facebook pages of law enforcement groups to inform visitors when those groups have a written policy allowing fake/impersonator law enforcement accounts. "These four changes are relatively light lifts that would enhance transparency and establish real consequences for agencies that deliberately violate the rules..."
"Facebook's practice of taking down these individual accounts when they learn about them from the press (or from EFF) is insufficient to deter what we believe is a much larger iceberg beneath the surface."
EFF is now calling on Facebook to escalate the matter with law enforcement in the United States. Facebook should take the following actions to address the proliferation of fake/impersonator Facebook accounts operated by law enforcement, in addition to suspending the fake accounts.
- As part of its regular transparency reports, Facebook should publish data on the number of fake/impersonator law enforcement accounts identified, what agencies they belonged to, and what action was taken.
- When a fake/impersonator account is identified, Facebook should alert the users and groups that interacted with the account whether directly or indirectly.
The article also suggests updating Facebook's Terms of Service to explicitly prohibit fake/impersonator profiles by law enforcement groups, and updating Facebook pages of law enforcement groups to inform visitors when those groups have a written policy allowing fake/impersonator law enforcement accounts. "These four changes are relatively light lifts that would enhance transparency and establish real consequences for agencies that deliberately violate the rules..."
"Facebook's practice of taking down these individual accounts when they learn about them from the press (or from EFF) is insufficient to deter what we believe is a much larger iceberg beneath the surface."
It bypasses the requirement because an undercover officer/federal agent now has convinced the suspect to turn it over to them.
In most categories of crimes, we should call that a "self-correcting problem that doesn't waste Facebook's time or damage our rights by restricting crypto/adding more to the surveillance laws."
Sometimes I swear these "civil libertarians" act like sock puppets for the FBI and wonder if the FBI isn't laughing hysterically as civil libertarians make such boneheaded arguments in the name of "muh freedumbz, muh libertayz, muh conztitushunz" that the whole goal is to make genuine balancing impossible and play right into the statists' hands.
Remember, according to the ultra-libertarians, the cops are always bad. The real problem Facebook and LinkedIn should admit is state actors blatantly using the social networks to spread external propaganda.
Have them (every law enforcement agent directly involved, that knew about it, and didn't stop them, their supervisor(s), etc. all the way to the top), charged, arrested, imprisoned.
It's the only way to be sure.
Make sure they are interrogated, intensely, using "enhanced" methods (as the CIA likes to call it), to reveal the names of every other person involved so that the entire "cancerous" body within the legal infrastructure is surgically removed and cauterized to stop the hemorrhaging of our civil rights.
You don't really believe Facebook is going to do something about this, do you? Do they ever do anything to change mistakes or fix security holes? Facebook users are the product Facebook sells -- Facebook users are NOT the customers.
If everyone is allowed fake accounts, then I am fine with law enforcement being able to impersonate. If law enforcement is getting the special ability to impersonate accounts in ways that the average person does not, then either a ToS ban, or a ToS REQUIRING transparency after x weeks/months/years should be required instead.
Allowing disproportionate power to the government is just as bad as to the corporations, and right now we have both. Also consider the wider ramifications of what may seem like a small change in details. Forcing police to give up fake profiles may force normal people to as well, and by forcing the police you may inadvertently result in the common folk losing more of their own anonymity instead. Given the demands for phone numbers, authenticated email addresses and photo tagging, I doubt that is too much of a concern, on facebook at least.
Are there any real people on social media these days? Seems mostly to be a lot of simulacra marketing something at you.
Here's a crazy idea: if you are doing things that would make the police want to spy on you, don't accept random friend requests on Facebook? Better yet, maybe don't do/post about said things on Facebook in the first place? And if one of your friends/acquaintances sends you a friend request, call them up first to make sure they actually sent it.
And of course, we all remember the first rule of the internet; the men are men, the women are men, and the children are FBI agents.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Police have been going undercover for many years all over the USA.
What is so special about social media?
Why should criminals and illegal immigrants feel free on social media?
Law enforcement groups should be all over social media all over the USA.
Why should any company "rules" protect people from their nations police?
Social media is a utility that connects people. Is social media now the "publisher"/"owner" of peoples comments, links, video clips?
What does social media want to be? Have total legal control over everything in users accounts?
That would make social media the "publisher" of a lot of peoples work, video clips, links, art... crime?
Perhaps social media should stay as a utility connecting people.. Users who are responsible for their own content and crimes.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
While personally I hate the general process of law enforcement in the current era. To my knowledge stings etc... are legal, considering how often I see unmarked cars pulling people over, hearing about undercover cops buying drugs etc... Also kind of weird that EFF is actually working more towards Facebook cracking down on anonymous accounts. IMO they should however be more fighting towards CONSISTENT rules. IE treat law enforcement sockpuppets discovered the same as if an ordinary joe is caught using a fake name. IMO facebook shouldn't be treating cops differently, IMO if they catch John Doe using a fake account, I don't think they should be telling all his friends that he's actually John Smith. Nor do I like the idea of telling the Mafia that the person they were negotiating with was actually Officer Jim Johnson and can be found at 123 Fake St.
Nobody.
My homeowners association covenant agreement says that cops need to tell you is they are parkd on the street secretly surveilling your house for illegal activity. So I know I'm safe from the cops when I deal crack out of my garage. I can't beleive it was so easy to do. All you have to do is write down in the EULA for the HOA street that cops can't bust you and youre home free.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
What they're actually angry about is that agents are infiltrating socio-political groups. In the past, you would just walk right into a room and join the alt-left / alt-right groups being formed physically and surveil and even possibly control direction of the group. They did it to the black panthers and also hippie peace protestors for example back in the day. But, these days they can just create a Facebook account and join the community. Though, if they weren't doing that when shit goes down they'd be blamed for being incompetent and not paying attention. I don't envy the rock and a hard place they have to navigate.
Just how would Facebook know an account is a "fake police account"?
The police told them?
Yeah, that'll work well.
Seriously, what is Facebook able to do here? Yeah, Facebook is about as slimy as a slug swimming in sewage, but damn...
I can't blame Alex Stamos (former CISO of Facebook) for getting out. Their job looks like it will be just more and more hand holding and babysitting, who wants to do that for years on end. It reminds me of the occasional request for reports on "how much time X is spending on the internet" from managers. We usually reply with something like, we don't do that, you have to talk to HR. Honestly, if X isn't doing their job, document it and fire them.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints ....
*logs into EFF blog*
They've arrested my dealer for the last time.
Not a bad idea. But I think a user would have to be insane to provide their real name/photos/etc.
I had to upload a pic of my driver's license to Facebook to start an account.
That site wasn't Facebook
Might have been. If people have names that Facebook thinks sound fake, they require proof. Or if some troll attacks them and claims their account is fake.
I know an American Indian who got kicked off Facebook because his (real) name was "obviously" fake, and had to show a lot of ID to get his account restored.
And if you are Vietnamese, with the common name Phuc, good luck with having Facebook allow you to have an account.
I am an EFF member, but they are wrong here. Internet web sites should not be enforcing how people use the site. We've been talking about this slippery slope since the late '90s, and the real implications we experience are worse than the ones we speculated about back then. Web sites shouldn't be taking down hate speech because it is defined differently in every municipality on the planet. They shouldn't be taking down fake accounts because everyone's definition of fake -vs- legitimate varies. Definitely don't interfere with law enforcement (or help them) since law enforcement varies around the world. We can't write an algorithm to determine if someone is a cop and if their actions are legal. Facebook should not preventing advertisers from targeting certain groups because then every group will have a complaint about the advertisers - it will never end.. Advertising laws vary in every country. Don't try to stop Russian election trolls because the trolls are almost indistinguishable from valid commentary. Free speech is free speech. If you subscribe to stupid stuff, you get what you asked for. What one person thinks is a troll is another person's legitimate opinion.
The computer is a tool and should be wielded just like a hammer or a typewriter or a pen. Stop trying to teach the computer morality, it won't work. Instead, teach the humans to use the tool correctly. They should read things on Facebook with the same skepticism that they read The National Enquirer. People need to stop blaming the tool when they are duped!
Why is it Facebook is supposed to do everything including potentially manual activities to support the investigations the police are running, when the police don't really pay anything to Facebook and taxpayers pay ginormous to the police?
This is one of the most poorly thought out posts I've seen on Slashdot in a very long time, unless this is a lot of sarcasm that I'm just not picking up on.
Web sites shouldn't be taking down hate speech because it is defined differently in every municipality on the planet
That makes no sense, whatsoever. What are you saying, that because somebody can say, "I define this phrase to mean something different from common usage", that no web site should ever block said word? That's really fucking stupid.
They shouldn't be taking down fake accounts because everyone's definition of fake -vs- legitimate varies.
Again, what the fuck are you talking about? The word "fake" has a meaning. It's not a made up word. It's a real word, with real meaning.
Don't try to stop Russian election trolls because the trolls are almost indistinguishable from valid commentary.
In this case, I agree. Your stupid fucking post is indistinguishable from what a Russian troll would post. Namely: "nothing means anything, and anything means whatever you want."
Free speech is free speech
Free speech has NOTHING to do with non-governmental organizations or websites. Nothing. Take a 5th grade civics class and learn what "free speech" means. It doesn't mean that I have to freedom to walk into your living room and scream racial slurs at you.
You need to seriously get your head out of your ass. Web site operators do and should have an obligation to be responsible for what is on their web site. If YOU want to have a web site where anybody can post anything, go right ahead. It'll be a a pile of useless garbage in hours. Responsible web site operators not only have an obligation to maintain what's on their web sites, but they also need to if they're going to have any sort of functional web site. What you're advocating for is what... a troll/spambot farm?
I don't respond to AC's.
Seriously this is the most fucked up concept I've heard in a while. It's the fucking job of law enforcement to work the commons. No different than cops cruising around in unmarked cars looking for troublemakers or doing undercover work posing as someone they are not.
A commons in cyberspace is just as valid a place to have a police presence both overt and covert than a commons in meatspace.
All of the other alternatives are massively worse and doing shit like this will only provide incentive to push for (more of) massively worse alternatives:
Lawlessness, massive data collection, outlawing encryption, bending rules of physics in cyberspace: special agent is better than agent Smith.
Your [alvinrod's] brief comment just barely manages to tangentially touch the edge of the underlying problem. For that you got an insightful mod?
The underlying problems are the abuse of anonymity and our silly human tendency to be too trusting of strangers, even without the candy. It's greatly exacerbated by two aspects: (1) The Internet scales up the problem of encountering strangers beyond human capacity (Dunbar's number around 150) and (2) Facebook has abused the word "friend" to death. I would argue that "Facebook friend" may be the most oxymoronic term in any language.
Now about those solutions... Yeah, I know that's a silly notion on a spleen-venting website like Slashdot, but I can't help myself.
Simple solution is a kind of challenge-and-response approach to friending. I actually have a notice to this effect on my now dormant Factbook account. A large reason for the dormancy is the inability to implement it more effectively. Here's a summary of what the notice says:
(1) If you're an old friend (which is extended to include coworkers, teachers, and students), I'm eager to get back in touch. However I'd like you to send me a token of authenticity to assure me that you really are who you say you are (and not a cop pretending to be an old friend, in the context of this story), and you should ask me for a return token. My suggestion is some question you think only I can answer.
(2) If you have some other concrete reason for wanting to link to me (and it should NOT be limited to "friend", whatever TH that means on Facebook), then say what it is. Clearly and briefly.
(3) If you are any kind of spammer, then I will do anything I can to nuke your account unless I can get you arrested. (Returning to the context of this story, I wish the police were arresting more spamming scammers.)
Of course the saddest part is that Facebook should help with (3) but they never will. Engagement is their only goal, and the spammers and scammers are more engaging than the average bear. (Ranger Smith is my favorite relatively harmless kind of fuzz?)
There's also a more complicated solution involving a proper ontology of "friendship", but even the google couldn't handle those complexities. At least I think that was the main factor that killed Google Plus.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Facebook and the EFF seems to be confusing terms of service with actual law. Facebook can send as many "stern warnings" as it likes, but the police sure as hell aren't going to stop this practice. And FB is incredibly unlikely to reveal how many fake "cop accounts" they found, merely because it would dissuade people from using Facebook!
In fact, I'd make a guess that outing the police could easily make Facebook guilty of obstruction of justice.
FaceBook + Instagram = FBI - anybody who dosen't get this by now will be sorted out by Darwin
And this has been happening long before Facebook even existed. This kind of stuff was happening in the AOL chat pits back in the 90's, and most likely on BBSes and IRC in the 1980s and early 1990s
I would be suprised if Facebook would actively deny the police the ability to do what they are doing. Big corps and "the law" always had each other's hands down the front of their pants and will happily do what they can to get a collar or 1,000 of the common folk. Of course, big corporate execs and well connected and established politicians are excluded from being hunted down.
Now, repeat after me: FaceBook + Instagram = FBI: Not just a silly phrase.
Just for the most obvious reason that it's illegal to lie to cops, so the reverse should be true as well
Remember this? "Welcome to the Internet! - Where the men are men, the women are men as well, and the kids are undercover FBI-agents."
It's still true, but now everybody might be a government agent, a troll or a spy. Enjoy!
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --