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I get it that you are channeling Stallman and that you think your device is spying on you. And by all means lets fight that fight and write those stories. But

by zaroth 8y ago

I get it that you are channeling Stallman and that you think your device is spying on you. And by all means lets fight that fight and write those stories. But that’s not the story that the NYT has published here. I’m incredulous that programmers and hackers would feign surprise that a UI rendering a Facebook feed would necessarily use an API which returned a data structure with... your fucking Facebook feed. If device manufactures or OS developers (Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Amazon, Google, etc.) are exfiltrating personal data off of your device — and BTW my Facebook feed would be the least of my concerns in that case — prove it, and the point your pitchforks at them.

detaro 8y ago
The article cites Facebook as the source for partners having that data on their servers. Is that evidence enough?
- zaroth 8y ago
  Which partners? In what form? For what purpose? Are we talking about cache data like Amazon Silk? Encrypted backups? It doesn’t help the discussion to conflate user agents with third party applications. But user agents do sometimes push our private data to their own servers — like Chrome’s Omnibar — and if and where that is happening, and how that data is used, absolutely should be disclosed by the device manufacturer.
  - detaro 8y ago
    If the bit about "on their servers" didn't refer to device partners I would have expected Facebooks response[1] to the article to call that out as misleading, but it didn't. I hope too we'll see details somewhere to get a better judgement of how bad/not bad it is. [1] https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/why-we-disagree-with-the-nyt/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/why-we-disagree-with-th...
    - zaroth 8y ago
      Thanks for the link! I had not read Facebook’s response but it seems to me to perfectly describe what actually occurred with these APIs and highlights what NYT got wrong with this story.
cryptoz 8y ago
> you think your device is spying on you Well, of course it is. Ridiculous to think smartphones aren't spying on their users in this day and age. > But that’s not the story that the NYT has published here. Uh, yes it is. > I’m incredulous that programmers and hackers would feign surprise that a UI rendering a Facebook feed would necessarily use an API which returned a data structure with... your fucking Facebook feed. I'm incredulous at this sentence. Good lord what anger you have for people just being people. I don't see anyone here "feigning" surprise! I haven't seen that at all about this topic. No need to swear, either. We can talk like reasonable people. > If device manufactures or OS developers (Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Amazon, Google, etc.) are exfiltrating personal data off of your device — and BTW my Facebook feed would be the least of my concerns in that case — prove it, and the point your pitchforks at them. I don't have a pitchfork out and I have absolutely no idea what you're ranting about. This swearing, pitchfork holding comment makes no sense to me. Didn't they take the data anyway? Sounds like you should have your pitchfork out and pointed at Apple, et. al. This is a privacy concern and that's real. It's not fake, it's real. Nobody is "feigning" concern, this is a real concern, we are not fake people writing fake opinions.
- zaroth 8y ago
  The ad hominem doesn’t help your argument. Look at how the NYT portrays the Blackberry Hub view as having access to the FB data required to render your feed, in order to render your FB feed... and equating it to a third party app having the same level of access. For starters, a user agent requires that you enter your FB username and password in order to function. If they rendered a Facebook feed through a browser the exact same data would have passed over the network, and the device would have had the same level of access to that data. It is sloppy reporting and a disservice to the non-technical community to equate an embedded user agent with a third party app. You seem to think the NYT wrote an article discussing the finer details of whether we can trust our personal devices to keep all the private data that flows through them. What I read seemed more like a sloppy hit-job on Facebook because it’s a popular punching bag of late.

by zaroth 8y ago

detaro 8y ago

The article cites Facebook as the source for partners having that data on their servers. Is that evidence enough?

zaroth 8y ago
Which partners? In what form? For what purpose? Are we talking about cache data like Amazon Silk? Encrypted backups? It doesn’t help the discussion to conflate user agents with third party applications. But user agents do sometimes push our private data to their own servers — like Chrome’s Omnibar — and if and where that is happening, and how that data is used, absolutely should be disclosed by the device manufacturer.
- detaro 8y ago
  If the bit about "on their servers" didn't refer to device partners I would have expected Facebooks response[1] to the article to call that out as misleading, but it didn't. I hope too we'll see details somewhere to get a better judgement of how bad/not bad it is. [1] https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/why-we-disagree-with-the-nyt/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/why-we-disagree-with-th...
  - zaroth 8y ago
    Thanks for the link! I had not read Facebook’s response but it seems to me to perfectly describe what actually occurred with these APIs and highlights what NYT got wrong with this story.

cryptoz 8y ago

> you think your device is spying on you Well, of course it is. Ridiculous to think smartphones aren't spying on their users in this day and age. > But that’s not the story that the NYT has published here. Uh, yes it is. > I’m incredulous that programmers and hackers would feign surprise that a UI rendering a Facebook feed would necessarily use an API which returned a data structure with... your fucking Facebook feed. I'm incredulous at this sentence. Good lord what anger you have for people just being people. I don't see anyone here "feigning" surprise! I haven't seen that at all about this topic. No need to swear, either. We can talk like reasonable people. > If device manufactures or OS developers (Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Amazon, Google, etc.) are exfiltrating personal data off of your device — and BTW my Facebook feed would be the least of my concerns in that case — prove it, and the point your pitchforks at them. I don't have a pitchfork out and I have absolutely no idea what you're ranting about. This swearing, pitchfork holding comment makes no sense to me. Didn't they take the data anyway? Sounds like you should have your pitchfork out and pointed at Apple, et. al. This is a privacy concern and that's real. It's not fake, it's real. Nobody is "feigning" concern, this is a real concern, we are not fake people writing fake opinions.

zaroth 8y ago
The ad hominem doesn’t help your argument. Look at how the NYT portrays the Blackberry Hub view as having access to the FB data required to render your feed, in order to render your FB feed... and equating it to a third party app having the same level of access. For starters, a user agent requires that you enter your FB username and password in order to function. If they rendered a Facebook feed through a browser the exact same data would have passed over the network, and the device would have had the same level of access to that data. It is sloppy reporting and a disservice to the non-technical community to equate an embedded user agent with a third party app. You seem to think the NYT wrote an article discussing the finer details of whether we can trust our personal devices to keep all the private data that flows through them. What I read seemed more like a sloppy hit-job on Facebook because it’s a popular punching bag of late.