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Facebook doesn't delete all cookies (for instance, there's an `sb` cookie still set) in their logout response. They may choose not to do anything with the cooki
by btown 9y ago
Facebook doesn't delete all cookies (for instance, there's an `sb` cookie still set) in their logout response. They may choose not to do anything with the cookies that remain, but the technical answer to the question is yes. And even if they currently did delete all cookies, there's nothing from preventing them from introducing cookies that do remain.
Zuck knows this is generally feasible - he's a talented software engineer. The question was ambiguously worded, and Zuck could have clarified or answered that it's generally feasible but that Facebook has tight controls around the usage of that information. It's the panel's responsibility to not let him get away with that type of maneuver, and they don't have the type of real-time support that, say, a news anchor has (with earpiece and live research staff) to handle interviewing domain experts in an optimal way.
- oconnor663 9y ago> They may choose not to do anything with the cookies that remain, but the technical answer to the question is yes. I think you could say the same thing about IP addresses. A website might log the IP addresses of people who visit them, or they might not, but quite a lot of tracking is feasible. The problem with focusing on feasibility there, is that you end up with an answer like "yes, just like every other website in the world, Facebook can track you when you're logged out." Assuming Zuckerberg has been coached to High Heaven not to gives answers like that, it seems fair to respond to the question as though it was asking about the internal details of what Facebook does with cookies / IP addresses / browser fingerprints.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- vlovich123 9y agoWhile a website may be able to track you via IP address within itself, it can't track you across websites like FB can since their code gets injected to a lot of websites (which they do use to track you when you're signed in - my guess would be the same holds for when you're logged out).
- mortdeus 9y agoThis is all supposed to be politically scary and demonstrative of the fact that very few people actually knows what is going on. Which all the more scary to me because these are the people who are supposed to understand what's going on so they can have proper oversight. This entire issue reminds me of the time the supreme court tried to wrap their brains around the (finger quotes) "the cloud". What's really sad is that nobody has been addressing just how creepy the internet is getting. Like the fact that with just 500 likes the social network can insinuate more of your personality than your lover. Or how Google can predict what you will likely like to eat for breakfast tomorrow based on the kind of stuff you are buying at the store whenever you use reward cards that is gets cross referenced to your browsing habits that insinuate moods. We are really over engineering the internet to the point that we have a "don't touch that red button" being installed into our lives where nobody knows what it does until it gets pressed, we end up wrecking our cars and are left wondering why the car manufacturers thought it was smart to install NOS in our cars without our knowledge in order to remain on the cutting edge (and thus competitive).
- terminado 9y ago...with just 500 likes the social network can insinuate more of your personality than your lover. ...and get absolutely everything wrong with such assumptions in the process, including whether or not it's possible to lie when using the Like button.
- robryan 9y agoFor advertising purposes it really only depends as a whole how truthful a picture the likes tell. If the likes are on average 70% truthful it is still going to be more effective targeting than not using them at all.
- noobermin 9y agoWhich is the point. People need to stop seeing "better than a coin flip" as "knowing you better than your lover".
- SmirkingRevenge 9y agoBrowser fingerprinting is already alright, even without world-class data centers with several server rooms the size of football fields, and world-class AI experts tuning those many rooms of servers to intelligently track and classify people online. Cookies are almost certainly irrelevant to FB's ability to track people, and Zuck certainly knows it. His response there was an unequivocal lie.
- some_account 9y agoI was thinking the same thing. Why are we at hacker news focusing on cookies when we know about all the other more devious ways of tracking?
- some_account 9y agoCookies? I would assume Facebook is using the latest tracking techniques like canvas fingerprinting and other ways to identify users uniquely on the web.
- fsloth 9y agoI though canvas fingerprinting can't track individual users, but only segments based on the underlying graphics substrate?
- KozmoNau7 9y agoEven if they can't track single users solely based on canvas fingerprinting, it gives them a big additional piece of information, to narrow down specific users.