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Quoth Facebook, from the article: “We don’t expose this information via our API and we don’t allow accessing or collecting data from Facebook using automated m

Quoth Facebook, from the article: “We don’t expose this information via our API and we don’t allow accessing or collecting data from Facebook using automated means" Oh man what a world we live in. Facebook is free to leech your phone of every last bit of personal data... but heavens forbid an end user or journalist tries to learn something about Facebook.

jetrink 8y ago
> heavens forbid an end user or journalist tries to learn something about Facebook And more specifically, the tool is for learning what Facebook knows (or thinks it knows) about you.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- orbitingpluto 8y ago
  ... and which they are supposed to provide upon request.
  - swsieber 8y ago
    ... to individual users. And individually, your data isn't worth much. It's the aggregate that surfaces the really interesting things.
    - rfinney 8y ago
      Wouldn't it be interesting to a finance firm, insurance company or potential employer?
      - jgalt212 8y ago
        Yes, depending on the size of the loan a borrower would pay good money for such data on a single user. That being said, a less nefarious use could be lender has a std mortgage rate of 4.25%, but if you give us a FB data dump, you can quality for a 4.00% rate.
        baud147258 8y ago
        > That being said, a less nefarious use could be lender has a std mortgage rate of 4.25%, but if you give us a FB data dump, you can quality for a 4.00% rate. Or, with your FB, the bank realize you have an higher risk of defaulting/dying before paying the full mortgage, so they bump the rate to 5%
    - __jal 8y ago
      > ... to individual users. ... Which is what this tool does. And while I take your point about aggregate value, I personally have a great deal of interest in data about me.
DavideNL 8y ago
...depressing indeed. At least some are trying to counter all this privacy invasion (EU, Apple, etc.) Let's hope they will continue doing so.
- mkirklions 8y ago
  Why do we think Apple is good for privacy? There was a terrorist attack and apple 'didnt help' but the government cracked the phone anyway. Seeing how aggressive Apple is with proprietary hardware, intentional slowdowns, and insane app fees... They are self interested just like every other fortune 500 company.
  - jchw 8y ago
    In fairness it was a pretty old phone, without a secure enclave iirc.
  - ReverseCold 8y ago
    > proprietary hardware, intentional slowdowns, and insane app fees Android phones are also effectively proprietary (especially phones from manufacturers such as Samsung and Xiaomi) and seemingly get slower over time. But yes, the apps are cheaper/free thanks to sideloading and a good community. (RMS-Mode On) What I'm referring to as Android, is in fact, Google/Android, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, Google plus Android. Android is not (really) a usable operating system unto itself (for most people), but rather another component of a fully functioning Google system made useful by the Google Apps, Google Play Services and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by the end user. (RMS-Mode Off) If either way you're going to have a proprietary phone, you might as well pick the one that has less of an interest in data mining you.
  - adamlett 8y ago
    Nobody’s saying that Apple is not self interested. The claim is that it is Apple’s self interest not to violate its users’ privacy. In contrast to Google and Facebook, Apple’s business model does not require Apple to know as much as possible about their users. It does however require Apple to offer something that its competitors does not or cannot, in order to justify its higher prices. Privacy is one such thing.
vertexFarm 8y ago
Awww they don't like it when you mine their data. Poor lil' guys.
- aylmao 8y ago
  I mean, they're not really getting access to some secret Facebook data. They're getting access to the user's data, including their username/password.
  - vertexFarm 8y ago
    Since the stuff they're probing isn't included in the APIs, they gotta have some account info to provide insight into this behavior.
  - jeromegv 8y ago
    Who is "they"? Gizmodo is not getting access to the user/password neither do they have access to the user data. Quote from the article: the information was stored on individual users’ computers; we weren’t collecting it centrally
ehsankia 8y ago
I agree with your sentiment, but then if said journalist sold said data to foreign government, then how different would that be to what happened with Cambridge Analytica? Yes, being able to access your data is nice, but you also have to balance it with people trying to trick people into leaking their data for nefarious reasons. Obviously, here, it's an open source project and we can see that it's (probably) secure, but then where do you draw the line?
- mc32 8y ago
  First, it’s getting data about your data on your behalf —what you end up doing with your own data is kinda up to you. It’s yours. This is a great tool to shine a light on what FB knows about you. W:re CA. FB was touting and selling this service to any and all intetested parties. It’s only retroactively that FB and others are crying foul. I mean sure, FB should not have sold thet data or made it available to any interested party, but that’s their actual business model.
  - ehsankia 8y ago
    > FB was touting and selling this service to any and all intetested parties. Where do you get that from? My understanding is that the API used was closed in 2014, and existing applications were given until 2015 to stop using it. That's when the data was gathered, and that data was used later in 2016 by CA. In this case, this is another API that is closed, and this application is trying to get around that. Again, I understand that this application has good intentions, and is hopefully secure, but they are still breaking the rules. If anything happens, then it's Facebook who is on the line.
- csours 8y ago
  Sure, if that happened that would be bad, but in this case only the user of the app could see their own PYMK data - the tool did not send data to the journalists.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
skywhopper 8y ago
This line would have more impact if Facebook themselves observed any ethical or legal limitations on their own data scraping that they don't think they can get away with.
- stingraycharles 8y ago
  The problem is that it’s more difficult for people to get an army of lawyers to represent them than businesses. As such, it’s usually more difficult for people to defend their rights in cases such as these.
aylmao 8y ago
As a Facebook user I think I agree with Facebook's position here. It makes sense they block crawlers like this; especially if they ask users for their username/password. > Facebook is free to leech your phone of every last bit of personal data... but heavens forbid an end user or journalist tries to learn something about Facebook. I'd argue the risk isn't that a journalist is learning about Facebook, but rather that it has access to all of the users information and username/password.
- jeromegv 8y ago
  Looks like you didn't read the article. The tool was changed to redirect users to a Facebook sign-in page to log in, which is the proper way to sign in. They just found another reason to deny them access after. It's also not collecting or centralizing data, this is just for the user that uses the tool to learn more about the tool, nothing is sent to Gizmodo.
  - aylmao 8y ago
    Gotcha. After looking through the source on Github I'm more at ease. One always has to be skeptical about things that involve authenticating to important accounts.
- mrgoldenbrown 8y ago
  Can you explain where in the article you read about a crawler, or how Gizmodo would be getting any of the information gained via the app? The app in question isn't a crawler, and the information is stored on the client side, never touching Gizmodo servers.
794CD01 8y ago
Facebook forbids them to learn something about Facebook. It was the phone's fault when they didn't limit what data Facebook pulled from it. Modern ones do just that.

jetrink 8y ago

> heavens forbid an end user or journalist tries to learn something about Facebook And more specifically, the tool is for learning what Facebook knows (or thinks it knows) about you.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
orbitingpluto 8y ago
... and which they are supposed to provide upon request.
- swsieber 8y ago
  ... to individual users. And individually, your data isn't worth much. It's the aggregate that surfaces the really interesting things.
  - rfinney 8y ago
    Wouldn't it be interesting to a finance firm, insurance company or potential employer?
    - jgalt212 8y ago
      Yes, depending on the size of the loan a borrower would pay good money for such data on a single user. That being said, a less nefarious use could be lender has a std mortgage rate of 4.25%, but if you give us a FB data dump, you can quality for a 4.00% rate.
      - baud147258 8y ago
        > That being said, a less nefarious use could be lender has a std mortgage rate of 4.25%, but if you give us a FB data dump, you can quality for a 4.00% rate. Or, with your FB, the bank realize you have an higher risk of defaulting/dying before paying the full mortgage, so they bump the rate to 5%
  - __jal 8y ago
    > ... to individual users. ... Which is what this tool does. And while I take your point about aggregate value, I personally have a great deal of interest in data about me.

DavideNL 8y ago

...depressing indeed. At least some are trying to counter all this privacy invasion (EU, Apple, etc.) Let's hope they will continue doing so.

mkirklions 8y ago
Why do we think Apple is good for privacy? There was a terrorist attack and apple 'didnt help' but the government cracked the phone anyway. Seeing how aggressive Apple is with proprietary hardware, intentional slowdowns, and insane app fees... They are self interested just like every other fortune 500 company.
- jchw 8y ago
  In fairness it was a pretty old phone, without a secure enclave iirc.
- ReverseCold 8y ago
  > proprietary hardware, intentional slowdowns, and insane app fees Android phones are also effectively proprietary (especially phones from manufacturers such as Samsung and Xiaomi) and seemingly get slower over time. But yes, the apps are cheaper/free thanks to sideloading and a good community. (RMS-Mode On) What I'm referring to as Android, is in fact, Google/Android, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, Google plus Android. Android is not (really) a usable operating system unto itself (for most people), but rather another component of a fully functioning Google system made useful by the Google Apps, Google Play Services and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by the end user. (RMS-Mode Off) If either way you're going to have a proprietary phone, you might as well pick the one that has less of an interest in data mining you.
- adamlett 8y ago
  Nobody’s saying that Apple is not self interested. The claim is that it is Apple’s self interest not to violate its users’ privacy. In contrast to Google and Facebook, Apple’s business model does not require Apple to know as much as possible about their users. It does however require Apple to offer something that its competitors does not or cannot, in order to justify its higher prices. Privacy is one such thing.

vertexFarm 8y ago

Awww they don't like it when you mine their data. Poor lil' guys.

aylmao 8y ago
I mean, they're not really getting access to some secret Facebook data. They're getting access to the user's data, including their username/password.
- vertexFarm 8y ago
  Since the stuff they're probing isn't included in the APIs, they gotta have some account info to provide insight into this behavior.
- jeromegv 8y ago
  Who is "they"? Gizmodo is not getting access to the user/password neither do they have access to the user data. Quote from the article: the information was stored on individual users’ computers; we weren’t collecting it centrally

ehsankia 8y ago

I agree with your sentiment, but then if said journalist sold said data to foreign government, then how different would that be to what happened with Cambridge Analytica? Yes, being able to access your data is nice, but you also have to balance it with people trying to trick people into leaking their data for nefarious reasons. Obviously, here, it's an open source project and we can see that it's (probably) secure, but then where do you draw the line?

mc32 8y ago
First, it’s getting data about your data on your behalf —what you end up doing with your own data is kinda up to you. It’s yours. This is a great tool to shine a light on what FB knows about you. W:re CA. FB was touting and selling this service to any and all intetested parties. It’s only retroactively that FB and others are crying foul. I mean sure, FB should not have sold thet data or made it available to any interested party, but that’s their actual business model.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  > FB was touting and selling this service to any and all intetested parties. Where do you get that from? My understanding is that the API used was closed in 2014, and existing applications were given until 2015 to stop using it. That's when the data was gathered, and that data was used later in 2016 by CA. In this case, this is another API that is closed, and this application is trying to get around that. Again, I understand that this application has good intentions, and is hopefully secure, but they are still breaking the rules. If anything happens, then it's Facebook who is on the line.
csours 8y ago
Sure, if that happened that would be bad, but in this case only the user of the app could see their own PYMK data - the tool did not send data to the journalists.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

skywhopper 8y ago

This line would have more impact if Facebook themselves observed any ethical or legal limitations on their own data scraping that they don't think they can get away with.

stingraycharles 8y ago
The problem is that it’s more difficult for people to get an army of lawyers to represent them than businesses. As such, it’s usually more difficult for people to defend their rights in cases such as these.

aylmao 8y ago

As a Facebook user I think I agree with Facebook's position here. It makes sense they block crawlers like this; especially if they ask users for their username/password. > Facebook is free to leech your phone of every last bit of personal data... but heavens forbid an end user or journalist tries to learn something about Facebook. I'd argue the risk isn't that a journalist is learning about Facebook, but rather that it has access to all of the users information and username/password.

jeromegv 8y ago
Looks like you didn't read the article. The tool was changed to redirect users to a Facebook sign-in page to log in, which is the proper way to sign in. They just found another reason to deny them access after. It's also not collecting or centralizing data, this is just for the user that uses the tool to learn more about the tool, nothing is sent to Gizmodo.
- aylmao 8y ago
  Gotcha. After looking through the source on Github I'm more at ease. One always has to be skeptical about things that involve authenticating to important accounts.
mrgoldenbrown 8y ago
Can you explain where in the article you read about a crawler, or how Gizmodo would be getting any of the information gained via the app? The app in question isn't a crawler, and the information is stored on the client side, never touching Gizmodo servers.

794CD01 8y ago

Facebook forbids them to learn something about Facebook. It was the phone's fault when they didn't limit what data Facebook pulled from it. Modern ones do just that.