4 ms·

So, is it the consensus of HN that this incident is more or less important than Equifax incident, and why?

briankelly 9y ago
I don't think that is the consensus at all. Many were/are pulling for the corporate death penalty for Equifax on here.
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
This incident by itself is less important than the Equifax leak but the precedent set by it, knowledge that all your FB posts/likes/comments are floating out there independent of FB, is hitting the public consciousness harder, we already knew credit rating agencies had tons of information on our financial decisions, most people didn't think FB was just letting people take their info willy-nilly.
holtalanm 9y ago
i really hope that this is considered significantly less important than the Equifax incident. I couldn't care less what the hell Facebook does with the data I have given them. I gave it to them willingly.
aylmao 9y ago
Much less, for sure. 1. Equifax had a security breach. Facebook just had an instance of a 3rd party misusing data they were known to provide to external developers. Aka, Equifax lost data that should never left their servers, vs Facebook found out some data, amongst the ton that leaves their servers on a usual basis, was misused. Don't get me wrong, that's bad, but not "we got hacked and lost a ton of info that should very much be ket secret" bad. 2. Facebook involved 50 million users. Equifax involved 143 million [1]. 3. Equifax leaked credit card numbers for 209k people, and dispute documents with personal identifying information of 182k people [1]. It's unclear exactly what info about users was harvested from facebook, but there's no API access to credit card numbers for example. 4. Repercussions; CA claims huge influence elections because that's what they sell, of course they'll market it like that. There's some debate about their effectiveness [2], and it's worth adding they're not the only or the first ones doing it (Obama used micro-targeting with Facebook data too). The way CA got their data is just more sketchy, and of course, involvement with Bannon makes it all the worse. One can't pinpoint what exactly happened with the Equifax data, but it's clear it could be sold and used for identity theft and other fraud, since it includes SSNs, addresses, and in some cases credit card and license numbers [3]. It's bad that Facebook wasn't quicker to address the issue, inform users or take actions to find other leaky 3rd party apps, but Equifax was IMO definitely much much worse. [1]: https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/what-consumers-need-to-know-about-the-equifax-data-breach/ https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/what-consumers-need-... [2]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17138854/cambridge-analytica-facebook-data-trump-campaign-psychographic-microtargeting https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17138854/cambridge-analyt... [3]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/winniesun/2017/10/02/what-you-should-do-now-after-the-equifax-security-leak/#1f3ea0c12123 https://www.forbes.com/sites/winniesun/2017/10/02/what-you-s...

I don't think that is the consensus at all. Many were/are pulling for the corporate death penalty for Equifax on here.

This incident by itself is less important than the Equifax leak but the precedent set by it, knowledge that all your FB posts/likes/comments are floating out there independent of FB, is hitting the public consciousness harder, we already knew credit rating agencies had tons of information on our financial decisions, most people didn't think FB was just letting people take their info willy-nilly.

holtalanm 9y ago

i really hope that this is considered significantly less important than the Equifax incident. I couldn't care less what the hell Facebook does with the data I have given them. I gave it to them willingly.

aylmao 9y ago

Much less, for sure. 1. Equifax had a security breach. Facebook just had an instance of a 3rd party misusing data they were known to provide to external developers. Aka, Equifax lost data that should never left their servers, vs Facebook found out some data, amongst the ton that leaves their servers on a usual basis, was misused. Don't get me wrong, that's bad, but not "we got hacked and lost a ton of info that should very much be ket secret" bad. 2. Facebook involved 50 million users. Equifax involved 143 million [1]. 3. Equifax leaked credit card numbers for 209k people, and dispute documents with personal identifying information of 182k people [1]. It's unclear exactly what info about users was harvested from facebook, but there's no API access to credit card numbers for example. 4. Repercussions; CA claims huge influence elections because that's what they sell, of course they'll market it like that. There's some debate about their effectiveness [2], and it's worth adding they're not the only or the first ones doing it (Obama used micro-targeting with Facebook data too). The way CA got their data is just more sketchy, and of course, involvement with Bannon makes it all the worse. One can't pinpoint what exactly happened with the Equifax data, but it's clear it could be sold and used for identity theft and other fraud, since it includes SSNs, addresses, and in some cases credit card and license numbers [3]. It's bad that Facebook wasn't quicker to address the issue, inform users or take actions to find other leaky 3rd party apps, but Equifax was IMO definitely much much worse. [1]: https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/what-consumers-need-to-know-about-the-equifax-data-breach/ https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/what-consumers-need-... [2]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17138854/cambridge-analytica-facebook-data-trump-campaign-psychographic-microtargeting https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17138854/cambridge-analyt... [3]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/winniesun/2017/10/02/what-you-should-do-now-after-the-equifax-security-leak/#1f3ea0c12123 https://www.forbes.com/sites/winniesun/2017/10/02/what-you-s...