19 ms·
Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica
- mtgx 9y agoWatch how they say it was an error, if this blows up. Just watch.
- jackhack 9y agoSomewhere at Facebook is a poor Winston Smith, throwing scraps of paper down the memory hole and editing yesterday's headlines. (edit: And at google, and reddit, and youtube, and ...)
- thrillgore 9y agoGuys, you suspended the wrong account.
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoThe arrogance of Facebook's response to this breach, quibbling over what to call it and now this, is mind-blowing. Their "it wasn't a robbery because we left the front door open" excuse may finally bring about trans-Atlantic regulation of social media.
- sithadmin 9y ago>The arrogance of Facebook's response to this breach Is it even clear that there was a 'breach' of any kind that Facebook was responsible for? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems like the chain of events is: 1.) Third party (Aleksandr Kogan) creates 'personality quiz' app, Facebook users opt-in to share information from their profile 2.) Aleksandr Kogan hands off data gathered by the app to Cambridge Analytica, violating Facebook TOS 3.) Whistleblower (Christopher Wylie) lets world know that (2) happened 4.) Media / public gets out pitchforks and blames incident on Facebook It really seems like Aleksandr Kogan, not Facebook, is the problem here.
- cycrutchfield 9y agoThe app was allowed to scrape friend data as well, meaning that many more people’s information got exposed. That is on facebook.
- Bartweiss 9y agoI keep seeing it listed just as "friend data", and no one clarifying that. Does it mean "friends lists", or "the data of the app user's friends profiles"? And in that second case, "the data of the app user's friends visible to the app user", or "as much data as if the friends had installed the app themselves"? Unless it's that final situation, it's exactly how I assumed Facebook scraping worked already.
- msrpotus 9y agoIt's something closer to the latter--presumably, it was scraping what friends posted publicly.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> It really seems like Aleksandr Kogan, not Facebook, is the problem here Kogan probably breached the terms he agreed to with Facebook. But fifty million people trusted Facebook with their data and, when asked in their privacy settings, said they didn't want it shared with third parties. That information was then shared with third parties. If someone calls my bank and convinces customer service they are me, it would be reasonable to say the bank was breached. Not electronically. But breached nonetheless.
- RandallBrown 9y agoEveryone sets up their own account's privacy settings though, and as far as I know, this information didn't include anything that wasn't already publicly available.
- sverige 9y ago
- IBM 9y agoThe political momentum is building for America to import GDPR. Feels good.
- ggg9990 9y agoAmerica has already basically imported GDPR because all of the companies building GDPR tools are not going to restrict them to the EU for fear of accidentally blocking a genuine EU citizen.
- IBM 9y agoMight as well formalize it by enacting it into law. Wouldn't want to have conflicting regulatory regimes decreasing business confidence.
- homero 9y agoYeah like those accept cookies pop up which I despise
- cyphar 9y agoThe cookie pop-ups are not actually the fault of regulators. The intention of the "cookie law" was to prevent tracking of users without their consent (on a much more granular level), but they neglected to include GDPR-style rules disallowing degradation of service. So companies just made all cookies technically opt-in with a single button (but where opting out means you cannot use the website), which defeats the spirit and purpose of the law. It is my understanding that GDPR will not allow for such simple workarounds by companies to just continue doing what they were doing previously.
- TAForObvReasons 9y agoProbably worth rehashing the infamous messages: > Zuck: People just submitted it. > Zuck: I don't know why. > Zuck: They "trust me" > Zuck: Dumb fucks. A cynic would interpret the current state of the world to suggest that Zuckerberg, and by extension Facebook, considers a large segment of the world population "Dumb fucks" http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims...
- watertom 9y agoDidn't Zuck take the idea for Facebook from someone else and then run with it?
- niuzeta 9y agoIt's a popular story, but out of all gripes you have against Zuck it's perhaps the least relevant. Especially so in HN, where the daily mantra is "the idea is worthless but the execution is". There are many valid criticisms against Zuck, and I don't think this one quite holds value as much as the others.
- crpatino 9y agoIt is one thing to get an idea from someone else and beat them with a superior implementation. It's a whole different thing to partner with said someone else to implement their idea, then sabotage the project from the inside while simultaneously working on your own, competing, implementation. The fact that those guys sued FB and got an extremely generous settlement tells everything you need to know about the likeliness of there being grounds for the claim. Truth be told, they won the lottery by being zucked, there's no way in Heaven or Hell they would have managed to build their own idea into such a success to get that kind of exit.
- gowld 9y agoNo. The "idea" was already quite old. He scammed the scammers: he stole the company from the "idea guys" who tried to hire a naive nerd to build a company for them and hand it over.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pjc50 9y agoThey're now getting their doors kicked in by the Information Commissioner: https://twitter.com/traciemac_Bmore/status/975825076938567681 https://twitter.com/traciemac_Bmore/status/97582507693856768... (how much will be left after they pre announced the raid on twitter I don't know)
- swat535 9y agoCan someone please explain to me what the breach is here? As far as I can tell this was just an app using the API as intended. Except they did some additional modeling on their backend to organize/profile users. They abused the TOS for sure, but was there an actual security breach?
- darawk 9y agoWhy are people calling this a data breach? As I understand it, CA just scraped the data from users who authorized their app to do so. Am I missing something here?
- sithadmin 9y agoYour're missing a key detail (the data was collected by a third party, which then handed the data off to CA against Facebook TOS), but I agree, this doesn't seem to be a 'breach' so much as abuse of personal data by a developer.
- maxerickson 9y agoThe third party handing the data over to Cambridge Analytica is a privacy breach. Which is what is happening. The initial headline called it a breach and it isn't all that inaccurate to call it a breach, so it stuck.
- cycrutchfield 9y agoCA also scraped the data of friends of those users, meaning that many millions of people had their info exposed instead of a few hundred thousand.
- darawk 9y agoRight, but that was a privilege that the users authorized them to grant, no? As in, the people who signed up for CA's app had access to those profiles, and they explicitly granted CA's app access to those profiles. And then CA scraped them and saved them. Am I understanding correctly?
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> that was a privilege that the users authorized them to grant Kogan was granted permission to ephemerally use, for academic purposes, the data of a quarter of a million people who authorized the access. Kogan got fifty million peoples' data (i.e. Facebook let him scrape the data of people who had not given authorization, some of whom had explicitly gone into their privacy settings to turn off the sharing of their data with third parties), kept it, and then forwarded a copy to CA.
- artemisyna 9y agoGiven how the guy took data then refused to cooperate when asked, I think his account being suspended makes sense... https://www.facebook.com/boz/posts/10104702799873151 https://www.facebook.com/boz/posts/10104702799873151
- matt4077 9y agoThis is arguably correct. While it may be more pragmatic to practice lenience with wistleblowers, there is no moral principle to shield them from all consequences of their actions. This guy was not just an observer of unethical practices. He was the technical lead for this behavior. Whistleblower protections usually shield you from retribution by your employer. What people argue for when they criticize Facebook over this is more akin to immunity.
- mlamat 9y agoIn about 20 minutes, an explosive documentary about this will be airing on Channel 4 BBC.
- garblegarble 9y ago>Channel 4 BBC Just a side-note, Channel 4 is an entirely separate wholly commercial public-service broadcaster, whereas the BBC is publicly funded via a license that's required to watch live TV
- bodyfour 9y agoYes, the fact that "BBC4" and "Channel 4" are completely different things is (understandably) missed by nearly everyone outside the UK.
- mlamat 9y agoSorry, my mistake. You learn something new every day.
- petecooper 9y ago>Channel 4 is an entirely separate wholly commercial public-service broadcaster […] For completeness, from [1]: >Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA),the station is now owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation, a public corporation of the Department for Culture, Media & Sport […] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4
- Overtonwindow 9y agoDamage Control.
- jhayward 9y agoReporting that I read said they suspended him because he wouldn't sign what I inferred was an NDA to advise them on how to understand and mitigate the problem.
- medyadaily 9y agoI have a personal story from inside facebook to share. and when I shared this story on my facebook my personal facebook was suspended too. 5 years ago Facebook recruiter reached out to me and invited me to the W hotel in Chicago. I was very excited -not for the job- but for the opportunity to meet with senior Facebook managers and tell them about an evil thing Facebook does. Here is the background story: I am Kurdish from Iran. And Iran has many provinces. one of them is called Kurdistan. In Facebook profile section for Hometown you could pick all of the Iranian provinces except Kurdistan. And at first I thought it was a bug. For years and years we submitted bug reports and collected petitions for Facebook they never responded why the Kurdistan province cannot be picked while other provinces could be picked. Till one day, An internal document -guidance- leaked out of Facebook. That explained it all ! One of the pages was talking about Kurdistan. In which they had explained any reference to Kurdistan is considered terrorism. That was on the request of Turkish government. In "Turkey", the word Kurdistan is forbidden. and many people in Turkey been prisoned for speaking Kurdish. however in "Iran" we officially have a province called "Kurdistan Province). and Iranian government recognizes the name Kurdistan for my homeland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_of_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_of_Iran But Facebook decided to enforce the Turkish government racist rule on other countries that have Kurdistan (Iran, Iraq, Syria...) Also in that leaked guidance memo. Kurdistan flag was considered illegal. And hundreds of Kurdish pages and accounts got banned for having Kurdistan flag. While Kurdish flag is illegal in Turkey. Kurdish flag is officially recognized in the Constitution of Iraq for Kurdistan regional government. So when they invited me to W Hotel to recruit me. I was like yes finally I can meet the people in person. Because as a Kurd I have no importance and they will never respond to me but a software engineer I am pretty attractive on the market. So I asked the question from one of the managers. And told them my story this for years and years I send them emails and nobody got back to me and we made petitions about this so-called bug. He said these things are decided by higher management. I told him how often do you show this disagreement to higher managers or Mark Zuckerburg's policies if you have a different opinion. He responded if I disagree with them I wouldn't work there. I left the W Hotel in Chicago 5 years ago refusing to proceed with a job on FB. I knew Facebook is on the wrong path. And today I see that prediction coming true. Even today when Turkey committed a massacre in Kurdish city of Afrin, Facebook blocked many voices inside the city who were showing massacres by Turkish government. 10 years ago FB came after kurds and you said not my problem. Today they are coming after all of u
- fortythirteen 9y agoJust get the f### off Facebook, already. If you're the kind of person who votes based on targeted advertising, or the hyperbolic posts of people who vote based on targeted advertising, don't ask Facebook to change. Get the f### off Facebook. If you don't like how Facebook is being used as an addictive propaganda tool by any and all political actors, including Facebook itself, then get the f### off Facebook. Ask the Facebook "friends" you care about for an email address, phone number, or other messaging account and get the f### off Facebook. You don't need up to the minute information on the playdate of your cousin's college room mate's toddler. Get the f### off Facebook.
- maxerickson 9y agoEnough with the #. If you want to swear, swear. If you don't want to swear, don't. For fuck's sake.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- horsecaptin 9y agoI'm feeling very outraged.
- fancyfish 9y agoHell yeah, as a New Yorker I wholeheartedly agree.
- DogPawHat 9y agoAs a fecking Irishman, I also agree
- BrandoElFollito 9y agoMoi aussi, crotte.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- donarb 9y agoThis has bigger implications than just data breaches, it goes to campaign finance violations of the Trump campaign. Cambridge Analytica shared an address in Beverley Hills with Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon's political consulting company called Glittering Steel. The implication is that GS used Cambridge's data to target users on Facebook with political ads for Trump all while being paid by a PAC called Make America 1 that was believed to be funded by Robert Mercer and his family. This Twitter user has numerous posts about this. Not sure exactly who they are, but they have multiple sources of information about this story. https://twitter.com/emlas/status/975138624911151104 https://twitter.com/emlas/status/975138624911151104
- mcguire 9y agoYahoo just delivered a full-screen, "Your computer has been infected with digital ebola" page when I visited that link.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dpwm 9y agoI'm still shaken with the magnitude and strength of the revelations that have been made in the last five hours on Cambridge Analytica (though some of the things sound more like SCL -- they share the same CEO). At 7pm GMT we had the Channel 4 News investigation[0] which featured Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, in which he appeared to be bragging to a fictional Sri Lankan businessman (who was in fact an undercover reporter) about the things they can do to discredit his opponents involving (with a delicious dose of irony) hidden cameras. Such tactics sounded a lot like they may involve trafficking of Ukrainian sex workers. There were also things that sounded a lot like blackmail and spreading of things that may not be true. Then, just after that undercover story broke we had the Facebook raid, which really looked a lot to my untrained eye like heroic efforts to protect data of the more evidential variety from being unnecessarily breached to the authorities or the public. At 10.30pm we got an interview [1], filmed before the undercover reporting broke, with Alexander Nix. Most memorable to me was Mr Nix seemed to attempt to confidently assure us that Dr Aleksandr Kogan had merely shared with them the gradients with which to build additional models upon and had never shared the data harvested from FB as the whistleblower in this article had alleged. We were also either told or given the impression that this was a great big misunderstanding and all part of a spectacularly coordinated attack by journalists who were upset about Trump. [0] https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-trumps-election-consultants-filmed-saying-they-use-bribes-and-sex-workers-to-entrap-politicians-investigation https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-t... [1] https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight
- tango12 9y agoI was so terrified about how India was almost serious about letting Facebook Zero / free basics or whatever happen. I feel extremely concerned also that new generations are growing up without knowing how the web was intended to be de-centralised and "free" and self-correcting. Maybe that doesn't work at scale and things need regulation, but I feel like there was a chance to set culture and tone so that even when a large number of people would come on to the Internet, it would be more with a Wikipedia like attitude perhaps. Now imagine if the first introduction to the Internet for a billion-ish people in India (current penetration is 460mil) would have been through Facebook's internet.org. Imagine if that happened in a country as large as India set that precedent for other countries with low internet penetration. I used to scoff in university at a batchmate who told me over lunch that he doesn't use gmail because Google is too large and could become evil. I'm not scoffing anymore I guess.