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Yup. For example, remember how the New York Times wrote an entire article pretending that Facebook letting people view their friends' info on their smartphones

by makomk 8y ago

Yup. For example, remember how the New York Times wrote an entire article pretending that Facebook letting people view their friends' info on their smartphones using manufacturer-provided apps running on those phones was actually giving those companies access to that data? How they argued, with a straight face, that it was dishonest and an attack on privacy for Facebook to not make the setting which kept your data out of the hands of companies like Cambridge Analytica also force all your friends to install their app in order to stay in touch with you? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/technology/facebook-device-partnerships-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/technology/facebook-devic... I actually had to narrow down my search in order to find this article in the haystack of every other media outlet on the entire planet breathlessly repeating the exact same claims. (The press always do this, from what I can tell. They're so absolutely confident of their righteousness that anyone who doesn't also believe in it must be deluded, or irrational, or part of a cult, or...)

mossplix 8y ago
So what was false in the reporting? Do you have proof to the contrary?
- makomk 8y ago
  The New York Times claimed that Facebook was sharing private data with Huawei, "a telecommunications equipment company that has been flagged by American intelligence officials as a national security threat", when in actual fact the data was shared with the friends those people had chosen to share the data with, via the smartphones in those friends' pockets. Though I actually meant to link to the previous article in the series, which sets out the New York Times' astounding spin more clearly - this is the one where they claim that it was somehow an attack on user privacy to not make the setting which stopped companies like Cambridge Analytica getting all your data also force all your friends to install the official Facebook app to interact with you: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/facebook-device-partners-users-friends-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/fa... Like, in one part of the article they literally had network logs of their reporter's Blackberry device, after he logged into Facebook on it, pulling down information from Facebook which he was authorised to access directly to that device - and they presented this as though it was proof that Facebook were being incredibly dishonest in not treating it as though they were giving Blackberry, a third party, access to all that incredibly sensitive personal data. They took advantage of the fact that most people are too technically clueless to understand that Blackberry in actual fact didn't have that data in any way, shape or form, that it never left the pocket of the person who was granted access to it and they knew it.
  - creato 8y ago
    > that it never left the pocket of the person who was granted access to it and they knew it. How do they (you) know that? How hard would it be for Huawei or Blackberry to exfiltrate that data? What that and other incidents show is that Facebook had a widespread pattern of sharing data and trying to control the reach of that data through contracts and legal power rather than actually controlling it. This strategy makes leaks inevitable.
    - beagle3 8y ago
      While it was likely easier to exfiltrate data this way, you can rest assured that if they want to exfiltrate it, as the producers of the hardware and the firmware, they can easily do it. They control the kernel. They can read it from the screen, from the app memory, from the TCP stream with a minor patch to the TLS code. Seriously, the "how do you know" rabbit hole has to start from first principle. You don't know. And the special API made is easier if it did happen. But it was not an enabler or anything - if they wanted to, they did it without, before, or with Facebook's help.

by makomk 8y ago

mossplix 8y ago

So what was false in the reporting? Do you have proof to the contrary?

makomk 8y ago
The New York Times claimed that Facebook was sharing private data with Huawei, "a telecommunications equipment company that has been flagged by American intelligence officials as a national security threat", when in actual fact the data was shared with the friends those people had chosen to share the data with, via the smartphones in those friends' pockets. Though I actually meant to link to the previous article in the series, which sets out the New York Times' astounding spin more clearly - this is the one where they claim that it was somehow an attack on user privacy to not make the setting which stopped companies like Cambridge Analytica getting all your data also force all your friends to install the official Facebook app to interact with you: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/facebook-device-partners-users-friends-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/fa... Like, in one part of the article they literally had network logs of their reporter's Blackberry device, after he logged into Facebook on it, pulling down information from Facebook which he was authorised to access directly to that device - and they presented this as though it was proof that Facebook were being incredibly dishonest in not treating it as though they were giving Blackberry, a third party, access to all that incredibly sensitive personal data. They took advantage of the fact that most people are too technically clueless to understand that Blackberry in actual fact didn't have that data in any way, shape or form, that it never left the pocket of the person who was granted access to it and they knew it.
- creato 8y ago
  > that it never left the pocket of the person who was granted access to it and they knew it. How do they (you) know that? How hard would it be for Huawei or Blackberry to exfiltrate that data? What that and other incidents show is that Facebook had a widespread pattern of sharing data and trying to control the reach of that data through contracts and legal power rather than actually controlling it. This strategy makes leaks inevitable.
  - beagle3 8y ago
    While it was likely easier to exfiltrate data this way, you can rest assured that if they want to exfiltrate it, as the producers of the hardware and the firmware, they can easily do it. They control the kernel. They can read it from the screen, from the app memory, from the TCP stream with a minor patch to the TLS code. Seriously, the "how do you know" rabbit hole has to start from first principle. You don't know. And the special API made is easier if it did happen. But it was not an enabler or anything - if they wanted to, they did it without, before, or with Facebook's help.