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Sounds like a breach to me. The only difference is that instead of the baddies having to sneak in carefully at night to nick stuff, Facebook said 'welcome, com

Sounds like a breach to me. The only difference is that instead of the baddies having to sneak in carefully at night to nick stuff, Facebook said 'welcome, come on in, help yourself – here's a sack'. The end result – millions of people having their personal data used against them without their knowledge or consent - is the same.

jakelazaroff 9y ago
"Breach" specifically implies that defenses were penetrated. But as you said, Facebook is not trying to protect our data. This is far worse than if the data were taken from them unwillingly, because it vastly increases the number of entities with unfettered access to it.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > ”Breach" specifically implies that defenses were penetrated It’s time to update the definition. “Breach” means you lost my shit. I thought I gave it you in confidence and then you lost it. Facebook arguing “this isn’t technically a breach” comes across as their yet again talking down to users to slip problems under the rug.
  - jakelazaroff 9y ago
    Sure, but we still need some term to disambiguate between "a company didn't protect my data against intruders" and "a company sold my data, then didn't like what the buyer did with it". This isn't like the Equifax breach. It's not a result of Facebook's security practices. It's a result of Facebook's entire business model.
- notreallyauser 9y ago
  No it doesn't. Not in the dictionary. Not even in any definition of "data breach" I've found published.
d_theorist 9y ago
Two things can result in the same outcome without being the same thing.
toxican 9y ago
To me, calling it a breach is Facebook's attempt at passing the buck. Getting breached alleviates some responsibility for what happened. Maybe not in reality, but in how it's portrayed in the media and how it's understood by laymen it absolutely does.
molszanski 9y ago
No, this is not a breach. Words still mean things.
- checkyoursudo 9y ago
  "Words still mean things" is not an argument. This can be a 'breach' by many of these definitions.[0][1][2] You're basically saying, "Words only mean the things that I want them to mean, and if you try to use them a different way than I approve, then I will use this meme to try to shut you down." Words fluctuate in meaning all the time. This may very well be the beginning of a new definition for breach, i.e., a social data breach, for example. But we don't even have to go so far as to claim that this is a new meaning for breach. Any of these old definitions contains sufficient meaningfulness to make "Facebook loses control of data to unauthorized breach" perfectly intelligble. [0] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/breach https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/breach [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/breach https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/breach [2] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/breach http://www.dictionary.com/browse/breach
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    > Any of these old definitions contains sufficient meaningfulness to make "Facebook loses control of data to unauthorized breach" perfectly intelligble. Sure, but the point being made by the "it's not a breach" people is that Facebook didn't lose control of data to an unauthorized breach. They gave up data according to their own documented and expected procedures to people who were supposed to have it. "Facebook voluntarily and purposefully gives away data in an authorized breach" is not so intelligible. The fact that "Facebook loses control of data to unauthorized breach" would be a sensible, understandable sentence isn't really relevant when nothing of the kind has happened. Who'd be using that sentence?
    - checkyoursudo 9y ago
      I guess then I'm confused about the narrative of the story so far. Did Facebook have control over its (my? your?) data at Cambridge Analytica or not? I thought the extra 50 to 250 million profiles scraped were unauthorized access? I could be entirely mistaken.

jakelazaroff 9y ago

"Breach" specifically implies that defenses were penetrated. But as you said, Facebook is not trying to protect our data. This is far worse than if the data were taken from them unwillingly, because it vastly increases the number of entities with unfettered access to it.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> ”Breach" specifically implies that defenses were penetrated It’s time to update the definition. “Breach” means you lost my shit. I thought I gave it you in confidence and then you lost it. Facebook arguing “this isn’t technically a breach” comes across as their yet again talking down to users to slip problems under the rug.
- jakelazaroff 9y ago
  Sure, but we still need some term to disambiguate between "a company didn't protect my data against intruders" and "a company sold my data, then didn't like what the buyer did with it". This isn't like the Equifax breach. It's not a result of Facebook's security practices. It's a result of Facebook's entire business model.
notreallyauser 9y ago
No it doesn't. Not in the dictionary. Not even in any definition of "data breach" I've found published.

d_theorist 9y ago

Two things can result in the same outcome without being the same thing.

toxican 9y ago

To me, calling it a breach is Facebook's attempt at passing the buck. Getting breached alleviates some responsibility for what happened. Maybe not in reality, but in how it's portrayed in the media and how it's understood by laymen it absolutely does.

molszanski 9y ago

No, this is not a breach. Words still mean things.

checkyoursudo 9y ago
"Words still mean things" is not an argument. This can be a 'breach' by many of these definitions.[0][1][2] You're basically saying, "Words only mean the things that I want them to mean, and if you try to use them a different way than I approve, then I will use this meme to try to shut you down." Words fluctuate in meaning all the time. This may very well be the beginning of a new definition for breach, i.e., a social data breach, for example. But we don't even have to go so far as to claim that this is a new meaning for breach. Any of these old definitions contains sufficient meaningfulness to make "Facebook loses control of data to unauthorized breach" perfectly intelligble. [0] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/breach https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/breach [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/breach https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/breach [2] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/breach http://www.dictionary.com/browse/breach
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  > Any of these old definitions contains sufficient meaningfulness to make "Facebook loses control of data to unauthorized breach" perfectly intelligble. Sure, but the point being made by the "it's not a breach" people is that Facebook didn't lose control of data to an unauthorized breach. They gave up data according to their own documented and expected procedures to people who were supposed to have it. "Facebook voluntarily and purposefully gives away data in an authorized breach" is not so intelligible. The fact that "Facebook loses control of data to unauthorized breach" would be a sensible, understandable sentence isn't really relevant when nothing of the kind has happened. Who'd be using that sentence?
  - checkyoursudo 9y ago
    I guess then I'm confused about the narrative of the story so far. Did Facebook have control over its (my? your?) data at Cambridge Analytica or not? I thought the extra 50 to 250 million profiles scraped were unauthorized access? I could be entirely mistaken.