11 ms·

> Alex Himel, VP of AR at Facebook Reality Labs, informed me over a Zoom chat that taping over the LED light was a violation of the terms of service of the glas

> Alex Himel, VP of AR at Facebook Reality Labs, informed me over a Zoom chat that taping over the LED light was a violation of the terms of service of the glasses, which prohibit tampering with the device. This is a good summary of the kind of deal buying a pair of these would be. Even putting a piece of tape on something you bought and supposedly own is a violation of some contract and may in theory render your device inoperable. It's not hard to imagine that the companion app, which is the only way to use the device, requires Facebook login and then you just end up with a few hundred dollars worth of regular old glasses.

Apocryphon 5y ago
Well, it's a policy that's uncharacteristically protecting user privacy, or rather the privacy of those subjected to the user's presence, so it's not the best example of onerous TOS.
IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
Well.. my main objection would be that it seems impossible to detect such manipulation, and therefore these ToS are toothless. As to your complaint: I don't see a problem? Assuming for a second that such a scheme would work, it allows transactions to happen and devices to be sold that otherwise would not or could not. That's the basic mechanism of how contract law and court system help a society: a bank wouldn't have the capability to build its own mercenary force to collect debt (or, at least, it would be expensive and a nightmare for civil liberties). So, counterintuitively, by allowing you to bind yourself to an agreement to pay back a loan, your range of options is only expanded.
- murderfs 5y ago
  > Well.. my main objection would be that it seems impossible to detect such manipulation, and therefore these ToS are toothless. I don't think that's true: LEDs can also be used as light sensors. If the camera sees a bright day and the LEDs see pitch black, you know something sketchy's going on.
908B64B197 5y ago
"Just trust me" https://9to5mac.com/2016/06/21/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-tape-over-camera/ https://9to5mac.com/2016/06/21/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-tape...
- Arainach 5y ago
  That's not a good comparison. The user of these glasses isn't looking for privacy here (these glasses with the camera taped over are simply dramatically overpriced shades), they're looking to hide their intent.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  "Dumb fucks."
grishka 5y ago
> may in theory render your device inoperable I still can't get over how it is still legal for a manufacturer to retain any kind of control over a device after sale. It's even more dystopian that you basically can't buy a phone that isn't backdoored.
- avalys 5y ago
  Why does everything you dislike need to be illegal? No one is forcing you to buy these things.
  - grishka 5y ago
    No one is forcing me to buy a phone? Yeah sure. Try to live without one in the modern society.
    - arkano 5y ago
      But don't lots of people live without one though?
      - raimondious 5y ago
        No, at least not in the US: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
      - squeaky-clean 5y ago
        About 48% of the human population owns a smartphone (that doesn't include "feature phones"). 85% of American adults own a smartphone. 97% of Americans own a cellphone.
      - bin_bash 5y ago
        it's pretty tough now that we do things like pay for parking, provide vaccine status, communicate with daycares all via apps
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bobiny 5y ago
I don't see this in Axios or AP article, source?
- Etheryte 5y ago
  The post originally linked to a different source [0, if I'm not mistaken in my google-fu], it seems that the link has been switched to a more neutral source which albeit omits some of these details. [0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/facebook-is-making-camera-glasses-ha-ha-oh-no?origin=web-hf https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/faceboo...
anigbrowl 5y ago
Ooh I'm sure that's going to dissuade people.
Johnny555 5y ago
So just put a dab of black paint over the light and claim that it must have happened when you were painting your door. Though it's not clear how they'd ever notice, surely they don't have a light sensor inside the camera light that would tip them off if it never seems ambient light.
- jws 5y ago
  LEDs work both ways. I wrote a tutorial on doing this with an Arduino sometime in the early 2000s. I've forgotten most of it, so this is going to be vague… • Instead of driving your LED from one live pin to ground or power, put it between two pins (with its current limiting resistor unless your microcontroller can safely limit the current and you can tolerate the heat in package (RP2040!)) • Forward bias (say pin 1 high, pin 2 low) to illuminate. • Reverse bias briefly (pin 1 low, pin 2 high) to charge the stray capacitance of your pin 2 driver. Then turn pin 2 into an input and time how long it takes to change from a "1" to a "0". Your LED is going to be matching up photons and electrons and passing electrons across. It isn't great at this compared to a photodiode, but it does do it. If the current flow through the LED is at least in the ball park of the input current on pin 2 you will be able to tell the difference in light levels. It's crude, and may not be workable at all in low light levels because the input pin current will dwarf the LED current. But for compliance checking in FB Glass, the camera knows when it is in bright light, and if the LED disagrees, then you have covered your LED. The cost to implement is one package pin and a little software. Note: I am not necessarily known as nefarious. I used it to automatically modulate the brightness of indicator LEDs. Bright in the day, dimmer in the dark. The time to sense is short enough that you can do it with your indicator and no one notices the tiny dark interval.
  - wyager 5y ago
    Clever hack.
numpad0 5y ago
> … and may in theory render your device inoperable. I think this is the part the fuss is about. Account banning needs to be banned, regardless of whether the services are not offered paid.
ynx 5y ago
This take sounds like it's just opportunistically trying to find the negative in a positive, because it's Facebook. In some countries, masking recording/photo-taking indicators is a bona-fide crime. The TOS normalizing this to "don't hide the fact that your recording glasses are recoding" is not only not an onerous term of service, it is uncharacteristically pro-safety and pro-privacy.
- zardo 5y ago
  I think the point is that it has a terms of service at all.
ylee 5y ago
>It's not hard to imagine that the companion app, which is the only way to use the device, requires Facebook login and then you just end up with a few hundred dollars worth of regular old glasses. That's me. I don't have an Oculus Quest 2 but have heard good things about it. But I can't get one because my Facebook account was shut down without explanation in 2019. Despite its age (15 years) I barely used it, let alone for anything "controversial", but did regularly log into it. I repeatedly tried to verify my identity by submitting an image of my driver's license, without any response. If a Facebook employee is reading this ... I don't want to create a fake new Facebook account (which would be against the TOS, anyway). I want my own back.
Grustaf 5y ago
Forbidding you from hiding that you're filming seems like the one redeeming feature.
koonsolo 5y ago
Isn't this because of some other law that mandates a red light when you are recording? If this is the case, I guess it's just a legal cover-up to comply to the law.
motoxpro 5y ago
My first thought was that I didn't want people to walk around filming me everywhere and I come to the comments and the top one is someone advocating for just that. What a crazy world.
- Etheryte 5y ago
  I think this is not a very charitable interpretation of what I was trying to say, so based on your reaction I probably did not make myself very clear. My qualm is that Facebook alleges that something as innocuous as putting some tape on a piece hardware you bought is a breach of contract, and might thus essentially render your hardware unusable. For a comparison, you wouldn't expect your car to become immobilized because you put a sticker on it. Body cams of different shapes and sizes have existed for many years at this point, many of them built for the express purpose of covert filming, so this device isn't anything too new in that regard, if not for the new form factor.

Apocryphon 5y ago

Well, it's a policy that's uncharacteristically protecting user privacy, or rather the privacy of those subjected to the user's presence, so it's not the best example of onerous TOS.

IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago

Well.. my main objection would be that it seems impossible to detect such manipulation, and therefore these ToS are toothless. As to your complaint: I don't see a problem? Assuming for a second that such a scheme would work, it allows transactions to happen and devices to be sold that otherwise would not or could not. That's the basic mechanism of how contract law and court system help a society: a bank wouldn't have the capability to build its own mercenary force to collect debt (or, at least, it would be expensive and a nightmare for civil liberties). So, counterintuitively, by allowing you to bind yourself to an agreement to pay back a loan, your range of options is only expanded.

murderfs 5y ago
> Well.. my main objection would be that it seems impossible to detect such manipulation, and therefore these ToS are toothless. I don't think that's true: LEDs can also be used as light sensors. If the camera sees a bright day and the LEDs see pitch black, you know something sketchy's going on.

908B64B197 5y ago

"Just trust me" https://9to5mac.com/2016/06/21/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-tape-over-camera/ https://9to5mac.com/2016/06/21/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-tape...

Arainach 5y ago
That's not a good comparison. The user of these glasses isn't looking for privacy here (these glasses with the camera taped over are simply dramatically overpriced shades), they're looking to hide their intent.
CamperBob2 5y ago
"Dumb fucks."

grishka 5y ago

> may in theory render your device inoperable I still can't get over how it is still legal for a manufacturer to retain any kind of control over a device after sale. It's even more dystopian that you basically can't buy a phone that isn't backdoored.

avalys 5y ago
Why does everything you dislike need to be illegal? No one is forcing you to buy these things.
- grishka 5y ago
  No one is forcing me to buy a phone? Yeah sure. Try to live without one in the modern society.
  - arkano 5y ago
    But don't lots of people live without one though?
    - raimondious 5y ago
      No, at least not in the US: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
    - squeaky-clean 5y ago
      About 48% of the human population owns a smartphone (that doesn't include "feature phones"). 85% of American adults own a smartphone. 97% of Americans own a cellphone.
    - bin_bash 5y ago
      it's pretty tough now that we do things like pay for parking, provide vaccine status, communicate with daycares all via apps

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bobiny 5y ago

I don't see this in Axios or AP article, source?

Etheryte 5y ago
The post originally linked to a different source [0, if I'm not mistaken in my google-fu], it seems that the link has been switched to a more neutral source which albeit omits some of these details. [0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/facebook-is-making-camera-glasses-ha-ha-oh-no?origin=web-hf https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/faceboo...

anigbrowl 5y ago

Ooh I'm sure that's going to dissuade people.

Johnny555 5y ago

So just put a dab of black paint over the light and claim that it must have happened when you were painting your door. Though it's not clear how they'd ever notice, surely they don't have a light sensor inside the camera light that would tip them off if it never seems ambient light.

jws 5y ago
LEDs work both ways. I wrote a tutorial on doing this with an Arduino sometime in the early 2000s. I've forgotten most of it, so this is going to be vague… • Instead of driving your LED from one live pin to ground or power, put it between two pins (with its current limiting resistor unless your microcontroller can safely limit the current and you can tolerate the heat in package (RP2040!)) • Forward bias (say pin 1 high, pin 2 low) to illuminate. • Reverse bias briefly (pin 1 low, pin 2 high) to charge the stray capacitance of your pin 2 driver. Then turn pin 2 into an input and time how long it takes to change from a "1" to a "0". Your LED is going to be matching up photons and electrons and passing electrons across. It isn't great at this compared to a photodiode, but it does do it. If the current flow through the LED is at least in the ball park of the input current on pin 2 you will be able to tell the difference in light levels. It's crude, and may not be workable at all in low light levels because the input pin current will dwarf the LED current. But for compliance checking in FB Glass, the camera knows when it is in bright light, and if the LED disagrees, then you have covered your LED. The cost to implement is one package pin and a little software. Note: I am not necessarily known as nefarious. I used it to automatically modulate the brightness of indicator LEDs. Bright in the day, dimmer in the dark. The time to sense is short enough that you can do it with your indicator and no one notices the tiny dark interval.
- wyager 5y ago
  Clever hack.

numpad0 5y ago

> … and may in theory render your device inoperable. I think this is the part the fuss is about. Account banning needs to be banned, regardless of whether the services are not offered paid.

ynx 5y ago

This take sounds like it's just opportunistically trying to find the negative in a positive, because it's Facebook. In some countries, masking recording/photo-taking indicators is a bona-fide crime. The TOS normalizing this to "don't hide the fact that your recording glasses are recoding" is not only not an onerous term of service, it is uncharacteristically pro-safety and pro-privacy.

zardo 5y ago
I think the point is that it has a terms of service at all.

ylee 5y ago

>It's not hard to imagine that the companion app, which is the only way to use the device, requires Facebook login and then you just end up with a few hundred dollars worth of regular old glasses. That's me. I don't have an Oculus Quest 2 but have heard good things about it. But I can't get one because my Facebook account was shut down without explanation in 2019. Despite its age (15 years) I barely used it, let alone for anything "controversial", but did regularly log into it. I repeatedly tried to verify my identity by submitting an image of my driver's license, without any response. If a Facebook employee is reading this ... I don't want to create a fake new Facebook account (which would be against the TOS, anyway). I want my own back.

Grustaf 5y ago

Forbidding you from hiding that you're filming seems like the one redeeming feature.

koonsolo 5y ago

Isn't this because of some other law that mandates a red light when you are recording? If this is the case, I guess it's just a legal cover-up to comply to the law.

motoxpro 5y ago

My first thought was that I didn't want people to walk around filming me everywhere and I come to the comments and the top one is someone advocating for just that. What a crazy world.

Etheryte 5y ago
I think this is not a very charitable interpretation of what I was trying to say, so based on your reaction I probably did not make myself very clear. My qualm is that Facebook alleges that something as innocuous as putting some tape on a piece hardware you bought is a breach of contract, and might thus essentially render your hardware unusable. For a comparison, you wouldn't expect your car to become immobilized because you put a sticker on it. Body cams of different shapes and sizes have existed for many years at this point, many of them built for the express purpose of covert filming, so this device isn't anything too new in that regard, if not for the new form factor.