5 ms·

Facebook secretly spied on Snapchat usage to confuse advertisers, court docs say

71 points by hammock 3y ago

elevatedastalt 3y ago
I will save you the long read. They paid people (incl teens) through third-parties (so that it's not easily traced to FB) to install kits on their phones to let them MITM Snapchat analytics traffic.
cute_boi 3y ago
After all these bombshells, I think Facebook is more dangerous than Tiktok....
- derelicta 3y ago
  No you don't understand! When it's an American company doing it, its okay!
  - SR2Z 3y ago
    Definitely not as risky as handing a hostile government control over American media...
    - derelicta 3y ago
      Maybe Americans should tame their Elites into like not destroying Republic abroad and not fund genocidal maniacs. Heard it helps not having governments being hostile towards yours.
    - germangardener 3y ago
      For other countries, America is hostile. From the outside America looks like Russia with more money. On the scale of evil, Facebook and China are in the same category.
    - gmerc 3y ago
      America may be a fascist white supremacist dictatorship for one day (lol) by November. From the outside, when you’re in such a place, the calculus is different.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39832952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39832952
lesserknowndan 3y ago
How on earth does one App man in the middle another App’s traffic? This is a huge security vulnerability! If Facebook can install an App like this on iOS or Android, then other companies could do a similar thing. Has this been fixed since?
- landgenoot 3y ago
  > How on earth does one App man in the middle another App’s traffic? By providing a VPN https://beyondmachines.net/event_details/facebook-spied-on-competitors-via-vpn-mitm-claims-legality-via-user-consent-3-p-x-o-i https://beyondmachines.net/event_details/facebook-spied-on-c...
FloatArtifact 3y ago
Wouldn't the private individual be arrested for hacking if they set up such a scheme?
odyssey7 3y ago
Imagine if the DOJ case against Apple prevails and rivals begin distributing their own iOS apps through alternate app stores and obtain unencumbered access to currently-private system APIs.
- dogleash 3y ago
  Interesting thought. Perhaps the cat-and-mouse game of megacorps defending/expanding their turf through software/hardware boundaries isn't the best mechanism to achieve consumer protection. If only there was something like consumer protection law. But you know, did consumer protection instead of waging proxy wars for megacorps to defend/expand their turf.
  - odyssey7 3y ago
    Sure, regulations and legal systems are important. However, they can fail to protect people in situations where technology would offer greater protection and vice-versa. For example, Benjamin Franklin applied his technical skill as a publisher to engineer dollars that were more difficult to counterfeit. The illegality of counterfeiting on its own could not prevent counterfeiting, so technology was also availed. It’s critical for us to recognize that technology is a critical component to our security, not merely an alternative to regulation.
    - talldayo 3y ago
      Why can't/shouldn't we encourage Apple to invest in on-device runtime security instead of a fallible App Store review process that might not even be relevant anyways? If any software has uninhibited access to hardware APIs, that seems like a software security issue that needs to be solved, not an ironclad justification for the App Store.
      - odyssey7 3y ago
        The DOJ case is requesting the opposite of your proposal. Although the alternate app store angle is what has been featured in the headlines, the case also requests for Apple to make various private iOS APIs available to 3rd-party apps, so if the DOJ prevails then the judge’s ruling could make various forms of API access limits illegal for all impacted APIs.
RecycledEle 3y ago
I previously posted on another topic that when a corporation commits C crimes that each carry Y years in confinement (prison time or jail time,) the total years in confinement (C * Y) should be divided by the share of the corporation someone owns and that stockholder should be sentenced to that amount of time. So if a stockholder owns 1/S of a company, that stockholder should be sentenced to CY/S years. If Facebook committed 100 billion felonies (where each intercepted message is a felony,) and each would carry 5 years in prison if I did it, then there are 500 billion years in confinement to divide between the stock holders. If someone owns $1,024 of Facebook stock (which is one-one-billionth of the total) then that stick holder would be sentenced to 500 years in confinement in a just system. We do not have a just system, but there are those if us who will fight for one. Perhaps the boys and girls at fed.gov can move 0.0001% of the way towards justice by seizing Facebook, liquidating the company, and handing out any money that is left to the people whose accounts were spied on. Of course all if this assumes that each and every employee or former employee or contractor at Facebook who knew about this never, ever gets out of confinement.

71 points by hammock 3y ago

I will save you the long read. They paid people (incl teens) through third-parties (so that it's not easily traced to FB) to install kits on their phones to let them MITM Snapchat analytics traffic.

cute_boi 3y ago

After all these bombshells, I think Facebook is more dangerous than Tiktok....

derelicta 3y ago
No you don't understand! When it's an American company doing it, its okay!
- SR2Z 3y ago
  Definitely not as risky as handing a hostile government control over American media...
  - derelicta 3y ago
    Maybe Americans should tame their Elites into like not destroying Republic abroad and not fund genocidal maniacs. Heard it helps not having governments being hostile towards yours.
  - germangardener 3y ago
    For other countries, America is hostile. From the outside America looks like Russia with more money. On the scale of evil, Facebook and China are in the same category.
  - gmerc 3y ago
    America may be a fascist white supremacist dictatorship for one day (lol) by November. From the outside, when you’re in such a place, the calculus is different.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39832952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39832952

lesserknowndan 3y ago

How on earth does one App man in the middle another App’s traffic? This is a huge security vulnerability! If Facebook can install an App like this on iOS or Android, then other companies could do a similar thing. Has this been fixed since?

landgenoot 3y ago
> How on earth does one App man in the middle another App’s traffic? By providing a VPN https://beyondmachines.net/event_details/facebook-spied-on-competitors-via-vpn-mitm-claims-legality-via-user-consent-3-p-x-o-i https://beyondmachines.net/event_details/facebook-spied-on-c...

FloatArtifact 3y ago

Wouldn't the private individual be arrested for hacking if they set up such a scheme?

odyssey7 3y ago

Imagine if the DOJ case against Apple prevails and rivals begin distributing their own iOS apps through alternate app stores and obtain unencumbered access to currently-private system APIs.

dogleash 3y ago
Interesting thought. Perhaps the cat-and-mouse game of megacorps defending/expanding their turf through software/hardware boundaries isn't the best mechanism to achieve consumer protection. If only there was something like consumer protection law. But you know, did consumer protection instead of waging proxy wars for megacorps to defend/expand their turf.
- odyssey7 3y ago
  Sure, regulations and legal systems are important. However, they can fail to protect people in situations where technology would offer greater protection and vice-versa. For example, Benjamin Franklin applied his technical skill as a publisher to engineer dollars that were more difficult to counterfeit. The illegality of counterfeiting on its own could not prevent counterfeiting, so technology was also availed. It’s critical for us to recognize that technology is a critical component to our security, not merely an alternative to regulation.
  - talldayo 3y ago
    Why can't/shouldn't we encourage Apple to invest in on-device runtime security instead of a fallible App Store review process that might not even be relevant anyways? If any software has uninhibited access to hardware APIs, that seems like a software security issue that needs to be solved, not an ironclad justification for the App Store.
    - odyssey7 3y ago
      The DOJ case is requesting the opposite of your proposal. Although the alternate app store angle is what has been featured in the headlines, the case also requests for Apple to make various private iOS APIs available to 3rd-party apps, so if the DOJ prevails then the judge’s ruling could make various forms of API access limits illegal for all impacted APIs.

RecycledEle 3y ago

I previously posted on another topic that when a corporation commits C crimes that each carry Y years in confinement (prison time or jail time,) the total years in confinement (C * Y) should be divided by the share of the corporation someone owns and that stockholder should be sentenced to that amount of time. So if a stockholder owns 1/S of a company, that stockholder should be sentenced to CY/S years. If Facebook committed 100 billion felonies (where each intercepted message is a felony,) and each would carry 5 years in prison if I did it, then there are 500 billion years in confinement to divide between the stock holders. If someone owns $1,024 of Facebook stock (which is one-one-billionth of the total) then that stick holder would be sentenced to 500 years in confinement in a just system. We do not have a just system, but there are those if us who will fight for one. Perhaps the boys and girls at fed.gov can move 0.0001% of the way towards justice by seizing Facebook, liquidating the company, and handing out any money that is left to the people whose accounts were spied on. Of course all if this assumes that each and every employee or former employee or contractor at Facebook who knew about this never, ever gets out of confinement.