4 ms·

Facebook employees opened a privately shared Google Sheet

46 points by madtrax 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
KyeRussell 9y ago
What an absolute joke of a thread. Very obviously a preview generation bot. I've never actually visited /r/privacy but I am far from impressed. Way too many unknowledgeable / alarmist comments and nobody with any visible technical knowledge beyond an understanding of the various technologies that privacy advocates tell other privacy advocates to use. It's amazing how many comments are saying "use PGP stupid!" when there's nobody that knows how modern web scraping works.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  The point is that this wouldn't happen with SMS or phone calls, because there are laws preventing such abuses.
- finnthehuman 9y ago
  Well, when everyone that understands exactly how the surveillance of the modern internet works has a hand in building it, don't be surprised where there's no one left to make the well informed case against the surveillance apparatus.
s0rce 9y ago
Seems like it could just be a bot fetching the link for a preview?
- dmichulke 9y ago
  Would be two bots in this case, very inefficient.
  - Xylakant 9y ago
    Sometimes it’s harder to share the information gathered from the first bot with the second than just doing the operation twice.
_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
From the description it looks more like a bot then employees.
edoceo 9y ago
Send a link to a Honeypot, observe FB bots checking, solved. Very unlikely to be humans.
throwaway613834 9y ago
Maybe send a link to something behind a captcha and then check if it gets solved?
ChuckMcM 9y ago
Clearly there is a market need for 'facebook mask' which sends one version of the link if it is being read by facebook and one if it is read by the intended recipient. Note, don't actually do this it will get you in trouble and likely banned from facebook.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  Interesting, but how would you check if it's one or the other? By IP? Could work for defined cases, but developing a universal technique could be tricky if all previous communication happens via FB. Much easier to use another platform.
merricksb 9y ago
Discussed earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15595705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15595705
- chrisper 9y ago
  Now both are flagged...
chrisper 9y ago
Could it not just have been that parser or whatever it is called? Like when you post a link it gets title + some kind of picture. So obviously if it visits that link automatically it is going to show up as visitors.
dhoulb 9y ago
It’s obviously bots. Frustrating the number of commenters who jumped to the “Facebook is evil” conclusion immediately.
CaptSpify 9y ago
I don't understand why it matters whether or not it is a bot. That's still extremely shady to do

46 points by madtrax 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

What an absolute joke of a thread. Very obviously a preview generation bot. I've never actually visited /r/privacy but I am far from impressed. Way too many unknowledgeable / alarmist comments and nobody with any visible technical knowledge beyond an understanding of the various technologies that privacy advocates tell other privacy advocates to use. It's amazing how many comments are saying "use PGP stupid!" when there's nobody that knows how modern web scraping works.

dwaltrip 9y ago
The point is that this wouldn't happen with SMS or phone calls, because there are laws preventing such abuses.
finnthehuman 9y ago
Well, when everyone that understands exactly how the surveillance of the modern internet works has a hand in building it, don't be surprised where there's no one left to make the well informed case against the surveillance apparatus.

s0rce 9y ago

Seems like it could just be a bot fetching the link for a preview?

dmichulke 9y ago
Would be two bots in this case, very inefficient.
- Xylakant 9y ago
  Sometimes it’s harder to share the information gathered from the first bot with the second than just doing the operation twice.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago

From the description it looks more like a bot then employees.

edoceo 9y ago

Send a link to a Honeypot, observe FB bots checking, solved. Very unlikely to be humans.

throwaway613834 9y ago

Maybe send a link to something behind a captcha and then check if it gets solved?

ChuckMcM 9y ago

Clearly there is a market need for 'facebook mask' which sends one version of the link if it is being read by facebook and one if it is read by the intended recipient. Note, don't actually do this it will get you in trouble and likely banned from facebook.

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
Interesting, but how would you check if it's one or the other? By IP? Could work for defined cases, but developing a universal technique could be tricky if all previous communication happens via FB. Much easier to use another platform.

merricksb 9y ago

Discussed earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15595705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15595705

chrisper 9y ago
Now both are flagged...

chrisper 9y ago

Could it not just have been that parser or whatever it is called? Like when you post a link it gets title + some kind of picture. So obviously if it visits that link automatically it is going to show up as visitors.

dhoulb 9y ago

It’s obviously bots. Frustrating the number of commenters who jumped to the “Facebook is evil” conclusion immediately.

CaptSpify 9y ago

I don't understand why it matters whether or not it is a bot. That's still extremely shady to do