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I'm not clear whether I understood what the article is claiming. It's clear they claim that Meta shared customer's direct messages with a business partner witho

by mcherm 3y ago

I'm not clear whether I understood what the article is claiming. It's clear they claim that Meta shared customer's direct messages with a business partner without notifying the individuals who sent and received the messages. It also SOUNDED to me like the article was claiming they did so AFTER Meta introduced "end-to-end encryption" (which would ALSO mean that they were lying about offering end-to-end encryption). Am I reading that correctly?

bastawhiz 3y ago
It sounds like it, and if true, is pretty damning.
tobias2014 3y ago
I find the article quite confusing and unclear to be honest. Are there any other sources? This is the original NYT article from 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-priva... "Internal documents show that the social network gave Microsoft, Amazon, Spotify and others far greater access to people’s data than it has disclosed." Facebook promised E2E at the end of 2023.
- dylan604 3y ago
  > Facebook promised E2E at the end of 2023. Wait, seriously? Like 4-6 months ago? Like, yesterday in terms of how long they haven't had it? Sheesh, a day doesn't go by that I'm not reminded of how happy I am to have dropped FB so long ago.
  - ahahahahah 3y ago
    They've had it for years, it was just opt-in. More recently they've applied it to everything.
- tssge 3y ago
  Here's the source media is probably using: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18714274/klein-v-meta-platforms-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18714274/klein-v-meta-p... To be honest I found I got much better grasp on the whole debacle by just reading the court papers themselves.
benreesman 3y ago
The cluster of allegations is that the Onavo acquisition put FB-designed and built rootkits underneath TLS on a significant fraction of all smartphones in the United States and that FB/IG (now Meta) used clear text access to ostensibly secure HTTPS sessions to extract arbitrary data from both competitors and partner companies to play poker with X-Ray glasses on as concerned all competition in an ostensibly free and fair and competitive marketplace while simultaneously creating scope for arbitrary other advanced actors to exploit the same intentionally crippled OS-level security at the cost of weakening the entire world’s digital security infrastructure for pure financial profit without so much as a FISA court order to justify such actions. If substantiated, such accusations would be among the most damning in the history of technology.
- ajdude 3y ago
  If this is true that sounds really, really, bad.
- nemothekid 3y ago
  >If substantiated, such accusations would be among the most damning in the history of technology. If substantiated? Just search Onavo on HN search - I thought this was widely known for years.
  - benreesman 3y ago
    As a former employee until 2018, I heard the words “Project Ghostbusters” two days ago. I was peripherally aware of something called Onavo but I had no notion that anyone was talking about “kits”, we all thought it was some kind of metrics thing that was sort of iffy sounding but lots of iffy ideas got proposed by some PM looking to make a name and shot down by the grownups, what is alleged would have provoked a riot at the weekly all hands. If any of this is true they didn’t tell people like me about it, and at one point there were three people on the org chart between myself and the CEO. I’m very skeptical of the allegations, but I’d be lying if I said I found them to be flat impossible. I tread very lightly on this sort of thing and I didn’t even acknowledge I’d ever heard the word Onavo until I read it on TechCrunch. I certainly hope they’re false: FAIR seems to be the last real hope for an Open future on AI short of a complete housecleaning of the whole Valley.
rgbrenner 3y ago
FB has supported e2e messaging since 2016, but it wasn't the default until 4 months ago (Dec 2023). So likely very few users had it enabled (much less on both ends needed to protect a message from FB). The netflix deal starts in 2013. Even after 2016, e2e would just mean netflix would get slightly fewer messages. So I don't see anything that would necessarily indicate FB is lying about e2e.
- petesergeant 3y ago
  I wonder if there’s a timing connection here with FB Messenger “upgraded the security of this chat” messages I’ve had on a couple of long-running conversations recently
  - Jerrrry 3y ago
    sheer coincidence, not to google-slide.

by mcherm 3y ago

bastawhiz 3y ago

It sounds like it, and if true, is pretty damning.

tobias2014 3y ago

I find the article quite confusing and unclear to be honest. Are there any other sources? This is the original NYT article from 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-priva... "Internal documents show that the social network gave Microsoft, Amazon, Spotify and others far greater access to people’s data than it has disclosed." Facebook promised E2E at the end of 2023.

dylan604 3y ago
> Facebook promised E2E at the end of 2023. Wait, seriously? Like 4-6 months ago? Like, yesterday in terms of how long they haven't had it? Sheesh, a day doesn't go by that I'm not reminded of how happy I am to have dropped FB so long ago.
- ahahahahah 3y ago
  They've had it for years, it was just opt-in. More recently they've applied it to everything.
tssge 3y ago
Here's the source media is probably using: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18714274/klein-v-meta-platforms-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18714274/klein-v-meta-p... To be honest I found I got much better grasp on the whole debacle by just reading the court papers themselves.

benreesman 3y ago

The cluster of allegations is that the Onavo acquisition put FB-designed and built rootkits underneath TLS on a significant fraction of all smartphones in the United States and that FB/IG (now Meta) used clear text access to ostensibly secure HTTPS sessions to extract arbitrary data from both competitors and partner companies to play poker with X-Ray glasses on as concerned all competition in an ostensibly free and fair and competitive marketplace while simultaneously creating scope for arbitrary other advanced actors to exploit the same intentionally crippled OS-level security at the cost of weakening the entire world’s digital security infrastructure for pure financial profit without so much as a FISA court order to justify such actions. If substantiated, such accusations would be among the most damning in the history of technology.

ajdude 3y ago
If this is true that sounds really, really, bad.
nemothekid 3y ago
>If substantiated, such accusations would be among the most damning in the history of technology. If substantiated? Just search Onavo on HN search - I thought this was widely known for years.
- benreesman 3y ago
  As a former employee until 2018, I heard the words “Project Ghostbusters” two days ago. I was peripherally aware of something called Onavo but I had no notion that anyone was talking about “kits”, we all thought it was some kind of metrics thing that was sort of iffy sounding but lots of iffy ideas got proposed by some PM looking to make a name and shot down by the grownups, what is alleged would have provoked a riot at the weekly all hands. If any of this is true they didn’t tell people like me about it, and at one point there were three people on the org chart between myself and the CEO. I’m very skeptical of the allegations, but I’d be lying if I said I found them to be flat impossible. I tread very lightly on this sort of thing and I didn’t even acknowledge I’d ever heard the word Onavo until I read it on TechCrunch. I certainly hope they’re false: FAIR seems to be the last real hope for an Open future on AI short of a complete housecleaning of the whole Valley.

rgbrenner 3y ago

FB has supported e2e messaging since 2016, but it wasn't the default until 4 months ago (Dec 2023). So likely very few users had it enabled (much less on both ends needed to protect a message from FB). The netflix deal starts in 2013. Even after 2016, e2e would just mean netflix would get slightly fewer messages. So I don't see anything that would necessarily indicate FB is lying about e2e.

petesergeant 3y ago
I wonder if there’s a timing connection here with FB Messenger “upgraded the security of this chat” messages I’ve had on a couple of long-running conversations recently
- Jerrrry 3y ago
  sheer coincidence, not to google-slide.