15 ms·

A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

495 points by krissara 10y ago

panic 10y ago
Cross-network dashboards like the one described in the article help make the world more open and connected. Facebook ought to be supporting this guy.
- perlpimp 10y ago
  you should watch Zuck's interview on esp here. https://youtu.be/GczC7q5NPrw?t=15m35s https://youtu.be/GczC7q5NPrw?t=15m35s private data is all facebook has, no way they'll give it up.
- lucb1e 10y ago
  For those like me who missed it at first, "make the world more open and connected" is Facebook's "official mission" (i.e. what the PR department claims they do). But it's directly in contrast with what makes them money, so obviously they won't.
happyslobro 10y ago
This man is a hero of our times. I am going to show his story to all of my Facebook friends. Fuck Zuck.
- vjvj 10y ago
  You can try but the facebook algorithm will have the final say on how many of your friends will see it ;)
  - happyslobro 10y ago
    Wait 'til NPR notices 10K shares, 0 referrals from facebook.com. That ought to start a whole new fire.
- sctb 10y ago
  > Fuck Zuck. Please don't include this in comments on Hacker News.
  - happyslobro 10y ago
    I will phrase it differently in the future, but I stand by the sentiment.
    - sctb 10y ago
      That phrasing is certainly more incendiary than other possibilities, but just a watered-down version of that sentiment is problematic too: it doesn't teach us about anything other than how you feel, which is not part of our shared reality that is the basis of conversation. That's why we ask that comments not only be civil, but substantive, so that they're contributing to the discussion.
      - lightedman 10y ago
        "That phrasing is certainly more incendiary than other possibilities" I look at it as a direct non-verbatim usage of Zuckerberg's own words against himself. After all, Zuckerberg already has this sentiment for everyone using Facebook - "Fucking morons" IIRC. Now, what do you consider a contribution to the conversation? I've seen plenty of comments that do not do that and yet they still remain either highly-voted or at least not in the grey.
        pvg 10y ago
        Zuckerberg wasn't commenting on HN. Like everyone else, you can figure out what's constructive on a particular forum - a moderator is just pointing out something that isn't.
      - HillaryBriss 10y ago
        I think that particular comment is inappropriate for HN because it is uncivil and unnecessarily offensive/rude to a specific person. To object to the comment because it "doesn't teach us anything other than how you feel" is to say that any statement which conveys only "how you feel" is inappropriate for HN. Is that really the way it works here? What if he had said "I wish Zuck all the best!" -- would the moderators have come out against that too?
treve 10y ago
> "The word spam is kind of like calling someone a rapist. It has — in [the] digital world — calling someone a spammer is the worst thing you could possibly call them." I really don't feel that spammer and rapist are even in the same league.
- deckar01 10y ago
  It's not the same, but it is a powerful metaphor. Wanted email is to consensual relations as spam is to physical violation.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    No, spam is more akin to door-to-door soliciting.
    - ht85 10y ago
      Yeah, only door-to-door soliciting to a point where you have to jostle a crowd of people whenever you try to exit your property through the main door, and they try everything in their power not to budge.
      - paulddraper 10y ago
        > try everything in their power not to budge The first part I get, but this I don't. Deleting an email is a mouseclick. A lot easier than getting the pest control guy off my doorstep.
        ht85 10y ago
        I was thinking about the fact that the spammers always find new creative ways to dodge anti-spam, but you're right that second part wasn't great.
        al_chemist 10y ago
        > The first part I get, but this I don't. Deleting an email is a mouseclick. If you really believe it, please share your primary e-mail address here.
6stringmerc 10y ago
Sounds a lot like the product in question relied on a Man-In-The-Middle-As-Service protocol and I can reasonably conclude why other service providers might find that approach as unwelcome and written-out of their Terms of Service. I don't see Facebook taking the same approach to something like LastPass. I'm not inclined to give either party in this one a whole lot of blanket endorsement or scorn, I think each side has some noteworthy concerns regarding both motivation and methods.
CapitalistCartr 10y ago
Orin Kerr is the country's leading attorney on Computer Crime Law(1) and The Volokh Conspiracy writers are a powerhouse in Constitutional Law generally. Its almost certainly too late for Vachani and Power Ventures; Facebook have destroyed them, and any ruling is only symbolic, but for the rest of us, a correct ruling is essential for the future of a free Internet. Here is Orin Kerr writing about Power Ventures: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/07/12/9th-circuit-its-a-federal-crime-to-visit-a-website-after-being-told-not-to-visit-it/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... 1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/10/13/the-path-of-computer-crime-law/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  Power Ventures could probably start back up from the payout that will be coming from FB when things are resolved.
  - Sacho 10y ago
    Uh, what payout? The 9th circuit essentially ruled that his attempts to access Facebook servers after the cease-and-desist letter were illegal. Unless I'm reading this wrong, he lost, and is criminally liable.
    - CapitalistCartr 10y ago
      Its resolved when SCOTUS rules, but I don't hold high hopes. I think a payout is unlikely, and anything much beyond legal fees is in lottery territory.
    - jsprogrammer 10y ago
      Facebook brought a malicious action under the CANSPAM act when it had no basis for doing so. That action, in part, resulted in the loss of Vachani's business and livelihood. Facebook will need to compensate for the loss they caused.
achow 10y ago
Because of this I discovered the book 'Chaos Monkeys' and immediately bought it! The top Amazon review decided it for me.. Amazingly accurate coverage of Facebook's internal culture, the good, the bad, and the ugly. (Plus much, much more!) https://www.amazon.com/review/R2GQCWUZKVOY10/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B019MMUAAQ&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=133140011&store=digital-text https://www.amazon.com/review/R2GQCWUZKVOY10/ref=cm_cr_dp_ti...
- krissara 10y ago
  Its been on my to read list as well. We need more insight into the business practices of big tech companies like FB and Google, that control so much wealth.
- Dragonai 10y ago
  This book looks fascinating. Thanks for reinforcing the OP's author's opinion on it, I think I'll check it out!
- segmondy 10y ago
  I just finished reading it last week, will read it again.
szx 10y ago
So you own your data but they won't let just any app touch it. Apps need to comply with certain conditions and FB retains complete control. Where it gets interesting is when someone like this guy tries to circumvent this arrangement by having the user willingly supply them with their credentials. FB would never blame the user, even though that's arguably the correct way to respond, because that's a PR disaster. Whether the guy in this particular story seems shady or not, it seems inevitable that FB would take the path of litigation to destroy anyone who exposes the dissonance in the way they run their business.
- joesmo 10y ago
  If FB retains complete control, you don't own your data. If you own your data, FB (or any other party) cannot retain complete control. Otherwise, what is the meaning of "own" that you have redefined the word to mean?
  - odbol_ 10y ago
    Own in the very legal sense that it is your Intellectual Property, even though you have no real control over it once it gets into their hands.
    - joesmo 10y ago
      After the license you give FB and most other such sites, yes, while legally you own the material, practically you no longer do because they are legally allowed to do whatever they want with it. I'm not going to address the stupidity of copyright law here, however.
athenot 10y ago
The elephant in the room is that facebook wants to directly engage with their users in order to control the advertising aspect. This startup uses the side-effect of Facebook (platform for friends to share stuff) while cutting out the business value proposition (advertising). This is sad because I'm increasingly getting annoyed at Facebook's positionning between me and my friends. It's promoting behavior that is different from real life as they stand to gain from stoking outrages and heated discussions: more active user engagement!
- whybroke 10y ago
  >It's promoting behavior that is different from real life as they stand to gain from stoking outrages and heated discussions: more active user engagement! This undoubtedly has very serious consequences beyond merely being annoying. Trending untrue news stories, encouraging post-true controversy and providing an echo chamber for these things to intensify and become ingrained. And doing these things on a enormous scale to a huge percentage of the population such that vast swathes of people can no longer even agree on basic facts. It would be interesting to see how much of the bizarre political events in the west are a result of social media in general and Facebook in particular.
  - zardo 10y ago
    I've recently started seeing what I can only call christian jihadi propaganda on my newsfeed. The Clintons assassinated Scalia and they are going to force you to renounce God or put you on the cross.
    - ZainRiz 10y ago
      Bro, I'd ask you to not use the word "jihadi" as a slur. The word means one who strives, physically or mentally, for the sake of good. The fact that it's been hijacked by deviant so-called "religious" groups doesn't change what the word really represents. And reinforcing the notion that those deviant groups are jihadis just strengthens the claims of ISIS and Al-Qaida that they're the ones properly following their religion, when more than 99% of the muslim world rejects them completely.
urbanxs 10y ago
Drama queens
xseven 10y ago
I wish all the articles had an unbiased TLDR attached to it. I came here for the clickbait, not the story!!
- lucb1e 10y ago
  Dude realized "hey, you own your content, not Facebook, even after you post it on Facebook. So with users' consent, I can download their data from Facebook and display it on my own website, right?" Thus he wrote something where people would enter their Facebook and other social network logins, and the site would aggregate their data. Basically a cross-platform social network. Facebook was the only website to respond at all. They sued them for downloading data. (You own it, but when you try to get it out, you can't.) Facebook called it "spamming" and "hacking". The courts didn't really understand the topic (the article claims) but finally in the 9th district court the spam claim got thrown out and Facebook said they won't challenge that decision because there is still the hacking claim to be fought over. How asking someone to give you a password for a specific purpose and then using that password for that specific purpose is hacking is beyond me. But then the article is fairly one-sided so I don't know the full story. The legal battle continues.
  - gwbas1c 10y ago
    Maybe they were scraping or abusing an API? That's a bit of a stretch of "hacking."
kbenson 10y ago
Vachani is based in Brazil, where life is more affordable. He flies into San Francisco a lot, though, in an ongoing effort to stay in the tech biz. So, open question, how much cheaper does it have to be in Brazil to make it worthwhile to live there because it's cheaper, if you are flying into SF a lot? I mean, I know SF is expensive, but presumably if you are willing to make ~$600 flights on a regular basis, you would be willing to commute a few hours. Within two hours of SF, things aren't exactly cheap, but they are cheap relative to SF. How much cheaper does Brazil have to be (living in at least a moderately sized city) for this to effective, assuming he flies into SF 8 times a year? This of course ignores other reasons he may want to live in Brazil (such as family), because that wasn't how it was presented.
- tn13 10y ago
  Given the lawsuites it might make sense to stay out of USA too.
  - blackbagboys 10y ago
    If you are interfacing with U.S.-based entities or your data crosses servers located in the U.S., you can be sued in a U.S. courts; at best, you'll increase the complexity of the case and the difficulty collecting on a judgment issued against you, but certainly not to the extent that a major corporation like Facebook would be at all deterred.
- wrong_variable 10y ago
  You can get high speed internet in many parts of the developing world for less than 20 dollars a month - its amazing really. You can buy food, pay rent and utils - live near a sunny beach for less than 50 dollars a month. Of course if all SF software engineers cut their debt shackle - and used global inequality for their advantage it would wreck havoc to the current pecking order of tech capitalists. It would allow tech workers to turn into entrepreneurs and work full time on their own ideas, create new competition and scare wall street that is dependent on recycling your wage through rent so that you actually keep a small amount of your real income. Ofcourse no one is going to do it besides radicals like Glenn Greenwald since freedom is not useful as prestige to the average person.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
yunruse 10y ago
Facebook is not appealing the spam decision and, the spokesperson points out, it has won on hacking so far. The wording of 'won on hacking' is extremely worrying, if it is verbatim. Facebook seem to act here as if they can steamroll over power-users who stray too far from the 'norm', so to speak, without consequence: while it is true that all companies must try to save face, accusing an app developer of hacking and spamming is too far. I guess not appealing the spam decision is some small humility, but treating a lawsuit like a competition to 'win' has certain implications on Facebook's strategy.
the_watcher 10y ago
This highlights two major issues, to me: * Wow does the CFAA need reform. * With the rate that tech is advancing, it's becoming a problem how unfamiliar with it many in the justice system are. It's not a knock on them at all - it's hard to keep up for those of us working in the industry. I'm not sure what the best solution is outside of trying to make sure that the laws are as correctly formulated as possible, and even that's only a partial fix.
- jedberg 10y ago
  > With the rate that tech is advancing, it's becoming a problem how unfamiliar with it many in the justice system are. People say that a lot. But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" (look maybe some say that but not a lot). The court has a solution for this -- they have expert witnesses and amicus briefs. The problem is that technologists are allergic to politics (filing amicus briefs is basically politics as is lobbying), so they won't do what they need to do to make tech issues heard.
  - the_watcher 10y ago
    > But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" This actually is something that comes up reasonably often. In fact, when I was in law school, an entire week of Torts was spent on precisely this issue. It's not unique to technology, but the frequency in which it comes up, as well as the total number of people directly (by that, I mean their day to day life could materially change overnight) is much higher. You aren't wrong about technologists and politics, though. I hadn't really thought about amicus briefs as a solution, thanks for pointing it out.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    > But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" (look maybe some say that but not a lot). I hear this all the time. (I am a doctor's son.) Heck, you could probably get judges to say the same thing; they've completely abdicated on the question of whether something is or isn't legally-permissible medical care. The legal question, when you are sued for malpractice, is whether you conformed to "the local standard of care", which is different everywhere. If the local standard of care is obviously harmful to patients, that's not your fault. They should have been local to somewhere else. Did something bad happen to your patient by chance? If you didn't conform to the standard of care, you're probably at fault, regardless of whether it could have been related to something you did. This situation obtains because judges are incapable of judging medical issues. Judges know it, doctors know it, and I know it, but I guess you didn't know it. See also the discussion a while ago about how forensic science is basically just 100% fraudulent court testimony, but the courts are too reliant on that to give it up.
jedberg 10y ago
If I say you can put your diamond ring in my house and then give you a key, but tell you that if you want your ring you have to let me talk to you for five minutes every time you get it, and then you give your key to a friend who I don't like, don't I have the right to keep that person out, even though you gave them the key I gave you? Basically this guy is your friend I don't like. I understand not liking the walled garden, but if you don't like it, then you shouldn't enter it in the first place. Don't go into the garden and then give your friend a key to the place just to avoid me.
- kodablah 10y ago
  I think this is a poor analogy. You could get closer if you changed this: > but tell you that if you want your ring you have to let me talk to you for five minutes every time you get it to: > but mumble to you (unintelligibly, interspersed with vast amounts of mumbling about other things) that if you want your ring you have to let me talk to you for five minutes every time you get it While many on this site keep up with some of these things and can weigh the cost/benefit of using a walled garden, many do not. To tell someone "if you don't like it, don't do it" while completely avoiding the question of subversiveness on the part of the contract maker is disingenuous and not giving both sides of the argument a fair shake.
nchelluri 10y ago
Wouldn't it (or couldn't) it be a violation of TOS to share your FB password with another site? Does FB now have an option like Google to export your data? I thought that was a nice touch on Google's part; I vaguely remember reading it was championed by some people in the company who really wanted to avoid locking people in out of their own moral convictions. I confess to not seeing the bigger picture here: I don't see how all of this can be equated to locking a user's data into Facebook. Would it be against TOS to write a FB app that crawled a user's graph and downloaded all of their data?
- ebzlo 10y ago
  You can export your data: https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/ https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/
gondo 10y ago
Isn't this similar case as Zenefits vs ADP? Power Ventures accessing Facebook on behalf of their users, same way as Zenefits was accessing ADP? I did not follow the Z vs A case, just barely remember that it happened.
anewhnaccount 10y ago
Didn't Facebook used to ask to log in to your email to import your contacts to look for friends? Sure, unlike LinkedIn they at least actually asked first, but I think it shows how there's one law for the incumbent and quite another for the rest.
gjolund 10y ago
I have said it before, and I will say it again. Facebook is the folly of our generation. We are already paying the consequences of giving away our right to privacy, and it is only going to get worse.

495 points by krissara 10y ago

panic 10y ago

Cross-network dashboards like the one described in the article help make the world more open and connected. Facebook ought to be supporting this guy.

perlpimp 10y ago
you should watch Zuck's interview on esp here. https://youtu.be/GczC7q5NPrw?t=15m35s https://youtu.be/GczC7q5NPrw?t=15m35s private data is all facebook has, no way they'll give it up.
lucb1e 10y ago
For those like me who missed it at first, "make the world more open and connected" is Facebook's "official mission" (i.e. what the PR department claims they do). But it's directly in contrast with what makes them money, so obviously they won't.

happyslobro 10y ago

This man is a hero of our times. I am going to show his story to all of my Facebook friends. Fuck Zuck.

vjvj 10y ago
You can try but the facebook algorithm will have the final say on how many of your friends will see it ;)
- happyslobro 10y ago
  Wait 'til NPR notices 10K shares, 0 referrals from facebook.com. That ought to start a whole new fire.
sctb 10y ago
> Fuck Zuck. Please don't include this in comments on Hacker News.
- happyslobro 10y ago
  I will phrase it differently in the future, but I stand by the sentiment.
  - sctb 10y ago
    That phrasing is certainly more incendiary than other possibilities, but just a watered-down version of that sentiment is problematic too: it doesn't teach us about anything other than how you feel, which is not part of our shared reality that is the basis of conversation. That's why we ask that comments not only be civil, but substantive, so that they're contributing to the discussion.
    - lightedman 10y ago
      "That phrasing is certainly more incendiary than other possibilities" I look at it as a direct non-verbatim usage of Zuckerberg's own words against himself. After all, Zuckerberg already has this sentiment for everyone using Facebook - "Fucking morons" IIRC. Now, what do you consider a contribution to the conversation? I've seen plenty of comments that do not do that and yet they still remain either highly-voted or at least not in the grey.
      - pvg 10y ago
        Zuckerberg wasn't commenting on HN. Like everyone else, you can figure out what's constructive on a particular forum - a moderator is just pointing out something that isn't.
    - HillaryBriss 10y ago
      I think that particular comment is inappropriate for HN because it is uncivil and unnecessarily offensive/rude to a specific person. To object to the comment because it "doesn't teach us anything other than how you feel" is to say that any statement which conveys only "how you feel" is inappropriate for HN. Is that really the way it works here? What if he had said "I wish Zuck all the best!" -- would the moderators have come out against that too?

treve 10y ago

> "The word spam is kind of like calling someone a rapist. It has — in [the] digital world — calling someone a spammer is the worst thing you could possibly call them." I really don't feel that spammer and rapist are even in the same league.

deckar01 10y ago
It's not the same, but it is a powerful metaphor. Wanted email is to consensual relations as spam is to physical violation.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  No, spam is more akin to door-to-door soliciting.
  - ht85 10y ago
    Yeah, only door-to-door soliciting to a point where you have to jostle a crowd of people whenever you try to exit your property through the main door, and they try everything in their power not to budge.
    - paulddraper 10y ago
      > try everything in their power not to budge The first part I get, but this I don't. Deleting an email is a mouseclick. A lot easier than getting the pest control guy off my doorstep.
      - ht85 10y ago
        I was thinking about the fact that the spammers always find new creative ways to dodge anti-spam, but you're right that second part wasn't great.
      - al_chemist 10y ago
        > The first part I get, but this I don't. Deleting an email is a mouseclick. If you really believe it, please share your primary e-mail address here.

6stringmerc 10y ago

Sounds a lot like the product in question relied on a Man-In-The-Middle-As-Service protocol and I can reasonably conclude why other service providers might find that approach as unwelcome and written-out of their Terms of Service. I don't see Facebook taking the same approach to something like LastPass. I'm not inclined to give either party in this one a whole lot of blanket endorsement or scorn, I think each side has some noteworthy concerns regarding both motivation and methods.

CapitalistCartr 10y ago

Orin Kerr is the country's leading attorney on Computer Crime Law(1) and The Volokh Conspiracy writers are a powerhouse in Constitutional Law generally. Its almost certainly too late for Vachani and Power Ventures; Facebook have destroyed them, and any ruling is only symbolic, but for the rest of us, a correct ruling is essential for the future of a free Internet. Here is Orin Kerr writing about Power Ventures: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/07/12/9th-circuit-its-a-federal-crime-to-visit-a-website-after-being-told-not-to-visit-it/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... 1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/10/13/the-path-of-computer-crime-law/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

jsprogrammer 10y ago
Power Ventures could probably start back up from the payout that will be coming from FB when things are resolved.
- Sacho 10y ago
  Uh, what payout? The 9th circuit essentially ruled that his attempts to access Facebook servers after the cease-and-desist letter were illegal. Unless I'm reading this wrong, he lost, and is criminally liable.
  - CapitalistCartr 10y ago
    Its resolved when SCOTUS rules, but I don't hold high hopes. I think a payout is unlikely, and anything much beyond legal fees is in lottery territory.
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    Facebook brought a malicious action under the CANSPAM act when it had no basis for doing so. That action, in part, resulted in the loss of Vachani's business and livelihood. Facebook will need to compensate for the loss they caused.

achow 10y ago

Because of this I discovered the book 'Chaos Monkeys' and immediately bought it! The top Amazon review decided it for me.. Amazingly accurate coverage of Facebook's internal culture, the good, the bad, and the ugly. (Plus much, much more!) https://www.amazon.com/review/R2GQCWUZKVOY10/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B019MMUAAQ&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=133140011&store=digital-text https://www.amazon.com/review/R2GQCWUZKVOY10/ref=cm_cr_dp_ti...

krissara 10y ago
Its been on my to read list as well. We need more insight into the business practices of big tech companies like FB and Google, that control so much wealth.
Dragonai 10y ago
This book looks fascinating. Thanks for reinforcing the OP's author's opinion on it, I think I'll check it out!
segmondy 10y ago
I just finished reading it last week, will read it again.

szx 10y ago

So you own your data but they won't let just any app touch it. Apps need to comply with certain conditions and FB retains complete control. Where it gets interesting is when someone like this guy tries to circumvent this arrangement by having the user willingly supply them with their credentials. FB would never blame the user, even though that's arguably the correct way to respond, because that's a PR disaster. Whether the guy in this particular story seems shady or not, it seems inevitable that FB would take the path of litigation to destroy anyone who exposes the dissonance in the way they run their business.

joesmo 10y ago
If FB retains complete control, you don't own your data. If you own your data, FB (or any other party) cannot retain complete control. Otherwise, what is the meaning of "own" that you have redefined the word to mean?
- odbol_ 10y ago
  Own in the very legal sense that it is your Intellectual Property, even though you have no real control over it once it gets into their hands.
  - joesmo 10y ago
    After the license you give FB and most other such sites, yes, while legally you own the material, practically you no longer do because they are legally allowed to do whatever they want with it. I'm not going to address the stupidity of copyright law here, however.

athenot 10y ago

The elephant in the room is that facebook wants to directly engage with their users in order to control the advertising aspect. This startup uses the side-effect of Facebook (platform for friends to share stuff) while cutting out the business value proposition (advertising). This is sad because I'm increasingly getting annoyed at Facebook's positionning between me and my friends. It's promoting behavior that is different from real life as they stand to gain from stoking outrages and heated discussions: more active user engagement!

whybroke 10y ago
>It's promoting behavior that is different from real life as they stand to gain from stoking outrages and heated discussions: more active user engagement! This undoubtedly has very serious consequences beyond merely being annoying. Trending untrue news stories, encouraging post-true controversy and providing an echo chamber for these things to intensify and become ingrained. And doing these things on a enormous scale to a huge percentage of the population such that vast swathes of people can no longer even agree on basic facts. It would be interesting to see how much of the bizarre political events in the west are a result of social media in general and Facebook in particular.
- zardo 10y ago
  I've recently started seeing what I can only call christian jihadi propaganda on my newsfeed. The Clintons assassinated Scalia and they are going to force you to renounce God or put you on the cross.
  - ZainRiz 10y ago
    Bro, I'd ask you to not use the word "jihadi" as a slur. The word means one who strives, physically or mentally, for the sake of good. The fact that it's been hijacked by deviant so-called "religious" groups doesn't change what the word really represents. And reinforcing the notion that those deviant groups are jihadis just strengthens the claims of ISIS and Al-Qaida that they're the ones properly following their religion, when more than 99% of the muslim world rejects them completely.

urbanxs 10y ago

Drama queens

xseven 10y ago

I wish all the articles had an unbiased TLDR attached to it. I came here for the clickbait, not the story!!

lucb1e 10y ago
Dude realized "hey, you own your content, not Facebook, even after you post it on Facebook. So with users' consent, I can download their data from Facebook and display it on my own website, right?" Thus he wrote something where people would enter their Facebook and other social network logins, and the site would aggregate their data. Basically a cross-platform social network. Facebook was the only website to respond at all. They sued them for downloading data. (You own it, but when you try to get it out, you can't.) Facebook called it "spamming" and "hacking". The courts didn't really understand the topic (the article claims) but finally in the 9th district court the spam claim got thrown out and Facebook said they won't challenge that decision because there is still the hacking claim to be fought over. How asking someone to give you a password for a specific purpose and then using that password for that specific purpose is hacking is beyond me. But then the article is fairly one-sided so I don't know the full story. The legal battle continues.
- gwbas1c 10y ago
  Maybe they were scraping or abusing an API? That's a bit of a stretch of "hacking."

kbenson 10y ago

Vachani is based in Brazil, where life is more affordable. He flies into San Francisco a lot, though, in an ongoing effort to stay in the tech biz. So, open question, how much cheaper does it have to be in Brazil to make it worthwhile to live there because it's cheaper, if you are flying into SF a lot? I mean, I know SF is expensive, but presumably if you are willing to make ~$600 flights on a regular basis, you would be willing to commute a few hours. Within two hours of SF, things aren't exactly cheap, but they are cheap relative to SF. How much cheaper does Brazil have to be (living in at least a moderately sized city) for this to effective, assuming he flies into SF 8 times a year? This of course ignores other reasons he may want to live in Brazil (such as family), because that wasn't how it was presented.

tn13 10y ago
Given the lawsuites it might make sense to stay out of USA too.
- blackbagboys 10y ago
  If you are interfacing with U.S.-based entities or your data crosses servers located in the U.S., you can be sued in a U.S. courts; at best, you'll increase the complexity of the case and the difficulty collecting on a judgment issued against you, but certainly not to the extent that a major corporation like Facebook would be at all deterred.
wrong_variable 10y ago
You can get high speed internet in many parts of the developing world for less than 20 dollars a month - its amazing really. You can buy food, pay rent and utils - live near a sunny beach for less than 50 dollars a month. Of course if all SF software engineers cut their debt shackle - and used global inequality for their advantage it would wreck havoc to the current pecking order of tech capitalists. It would allow tech workers to turn into entrepreneurs and work full time on their own ideas, create new competition and scare wall street that is dependent on recycling your wage through rent so that you actually keep a small amount of your real income. Ofcourse no one is going to do it besides radicals like Glenn Greenwald since freedom is not useful as prestige to the average person.

deleted 10y ago

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yunruse 10y ago

Facebook is not appealing the spam decision and, the spokesperson points out, it has won on hacking so far. The wording of 'won on hacking' is extremely worrying, if it is verbatim. Facebook seem to act here as if they can steamroll over power-users who stray too far from the 'norm', so to speak, without consequence: while it is true that all companies must try to save face, accusing an app developer of hacking and spamming is too far. I guess not appealing the spam decision is some small humility, but treating a lawsuit like a competition to 'win' has certain implications on Facebook's strategy.

the_watcher 10y ago

This highlights two major issues, to me: * Wow does the CFAA need reform. * With the rate that tech is advancing, it's becoming a problem how unfamiliar with it many in the justice system are. It's not a knock on them at all - it's hard to keep up for those of us working in the industry. I'm not sure what the best solution is outside of trying to make sure that the laws are as correctly formulated as possible, and even that's only a partial fix.

jedberg 10y ago
> With the rate that tech is advancing, it's becoming a problem how unfamiliar with it many in the justice system are. People say that a lot. But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" (look maybe some say that but not a lot). The court has a solution for this -- they have expert witnesses and amicus briefs. The problem is that technologists are allergic to politics (filing amicus briefs is basically politics as is lobbying), so they won't do what they need to do to make tech issues heard.
- the_watcher 10y ago
  > But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" This actually is something that comes up reasonably often. In fact, when I was in law school, an entire week of Torts was spent on precisely this issue. It's not unique to technology, but the frequency in which it comes up, as well as the total number of people directly (by that, I mean their day to day life could materially change overnight) is much higher. You aren't wrong about technologists and politics, though. I hadn't really thought about amicus briefs as a solution, thanks for pointing it out.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  > But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" (look maybe some say that but not a lot). I hear this all the time. (I am a doctor's son.) Heck, you could probably get judges to say the same thing; they've completely abdicated on the question of whether something is or isn't legally-permissible medical care. The legal question, when you are sued for malpractice, is whether you conformed to "the local standard of care", which is different everywhere. If the local standard of care is obviously harmful to patients, that's not your fault. They should have been local to somewhere else. Did something bad happen to your patient by chance? If you didn't conform to the standard of care, you're probably at fault, regardless of whether it could have been related to something you did. This situation obtains because judges are incapable of judging medical issues. Judges know it, doctors know it, and I know it, but I guess you didn't know it. See also the discussion a while ago about how forensic science is basically just 100% fraudulent court testimony, but the courts are too reliant on that to give it up.

jedberg 10y ago

If I say you can put your diamond ring in my house and then give you a key, but tell you that if you want your ring you have to let me talk to you for five minutes every time you get it, and then you give your key to a friend who I don't like, don't I have the right to keep that person out, even though you gave them the key I gave you? Basically this guy is your friend I don't like. I understand not liking the walled garden, but if you don't like it, then you shouldn't enter it in the first place. Don't go into the garden and then give your friend a key to the place just to avoid me.

kodablah 10y ago
I think this is a poor analogy. You could get closer if you changed this: > but tell you that if you want your ring you have to let me talk to you for five minutes every time you get it to: > but mumble to you (unintelligibly, interspersed with vast amounts of mumbling about other things) that if you want your ring you have to let me talk to you for five minutes every time you get it While many on this site keep up with some of these things and can weigh the cost/benefit of using a walled garden, many do not. To tell someone "if you don't like it, don't do it" while completely avoiding the question of subversiveness on the part of the contract maker is disingenuous and not giving both sides of the argument a fair shake.

nchelluri 10y ago

Wouldn't it (or couldn't) it be a violation of TOS to share your FB password with another site? Does FB now have an option like Google to export your data? I thought that was a nice touch on Google's part; I vaguely remember reading it was championed by some people in the company who really wanted to avoid locking people in out of their own moral convictions. I confess to not seeing the bigger picture here: I don't see how all of this can be equated to locking a user's data into Facebook. Would it be against TOS to write a FB app that crawled a user's graph and downloaded all of their data?

ebzlo 10y ago
You can export your data: https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/ https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/

gondo 10y ago

Isn't this similar case as Zenefits vs ADP? Power Ventures accessing Facebook on behalf of their users, same way as Zenefits was accessing ADP? I did not follow the Z vs A case, just barely remember that it happened.

anewhnaccount 10y ago

Didn't Facebook used to ask to log in to your email to import your contacts to look for friends? Sure, unlike LinkedIn they at least actually asked first, but I think it shows how there's one law for the incumbent and quite another for the rest.

gjolund 10y ago

I have said it before, and I will say it again. Facebook is the folly of our generation. We are already paying the consequences of giving away our right to privacy, and it is only going to get worse.