5 ms·

Maybe privacy controls should offer privacy, instead of tricky-dick shenanigans.

by smokeyj 14y ago

unreal37 14y ago
There is no such thing as true privacy on the Internet the moment you post something someone else can see.
- badclient 14y ago
  True privacy isn't hiding something from everyone; it does mean being able to share something with only the people you choose to share with. For example, when we send an email, we are be pretty confident it only goes to the people we select and not the entire Internet. The vast majority of emails are only read by its intended audience. That's privacy.
  - gurkendoktor 14y ago
    I agree with you in general. E-mail has a little more structural security though, there are never world-wide glitches where everyone can access other people's private photos mailed years ago. (Think of the imgur dump of Zuck's private photos.)
res0nat0r 14y ago
This isn't "tricky dick shenanigians", it's an oversight of one team working on one small part of the entire Facebook infrastructure. It is cool to hate Facebook on HN now, because they make a lot of money and the audience here is predominately trying to bootstrap a startup but that doesn't change the fact that one of the most popular and largest sites on the Internet has an issue which was developed most likely by a few engineers. These amateur hour type comments which seem to always follow Facebook posts anymore seem to say more about the fact that more and more HN commenters have no experience working in an enterprise environment and believe their 10 instance AWS based startup they are currently involved with somehow is comparable to the Facebook ecosystem.
- smokeyj 14y ago
  Who's hating on Facebook because they have money? I'm hating on Facebook because they can't secure a CRUD app, and don't really seem to care much either. This isn't the first occurrence of a permissions snafu, which tells me they should invest some more of their bundles into QA and testing. But then again, click-bots probably offer a better ROI.
  - res0nat0r 14y ago
    They do care, note the top post of this story now is from a FB employee stating they've fixed the error 7 hours after it was published. Also Facebook is slightly more complex than a CRUD app.
    - smokeyj 14y ago
      Damage control != caring. Caring would be fixing their systems after the first few privacy fuck-ups. Why are you so determined to paint FB in the best of light? Honest question. How many more breaches have to occur before you consider FB reckless? Or is your allegiance unconditional?
      - res0nat0r 14y ago
        I'm not defending Facebook I just have actual experience working in real world enterprise size companies. My previous gig was as an engineer for one of the largest websites on the Internet. It employes thousands of engineers and software developers working on hundreds of different small teams who all release early and release often. There isn't some magic wand that Zuck can somehow wave to prevent software bugs from occurring. That's how things actually work in the real world.
        smokeyj 14y ago
        You're evading the question. How many more privacy breaches have to occur before you consider FB reckless? I'm not talking about security breaches, I'm talking about code being pushed that breaks expected privacy functionality. This is especially pathetic considering they're "enterprise". You would think they engineered some kind of security test to check for these things. Why it's not in the build-process points to negligence in my eyes.

Maybe privacy controls should offer privacy, instead of tricky-dick shenanigans.

by smokeyj 14y ago

Maybe privacy controls should offer privacy, instead of tricky-dick shenanigans.

unreal37 14y ago

There is no such thing as true privacy on the Internet the moment you post something someone else can see.

badclient 14y ago
True privacy isn't hiding something from everyone; it does mean being able to share something with only the people you choose to share with. For example, when we send an email, we are be pretty confident it only goes to the people we select and not the entire Internet. The vast majority of emails are only read by its intended audience. That's privacy.
- gurkendoktor 14y ago
  I agree with you in general. E-mail has a little more structural security though, there are never world-wide glitches where everyone can access other people's private photos mailed years ago. (Think of the imgur dump of Zuck's private photos.)

res0nat0r 14y ago

This isn't "tricky dick shenanigians", it's an oversight of one team working on one small part of the entire Facebook infrastructure. It is cool to hate Facebook on HN now, because they make a lot of money and the audience here is predominately trying to bootstrap a startup but that doesn't change the fact that one of the most popular and largest sites on the Internet has an issue which was developed most likely by a few engineers. These amateur hour type comments which seem to always follow Facebook posts anymore seem to say more about the fact that more and more HN commenters have no experience working in an enterprise environment and believe their 10 instance AWS based startup they are currently involved with somehow is comparable to the Facebook ecosystem.

smokeyj 14y ago
Who's hating on Facebook because they have money? I'm hating on Facebook because they can't secure a CRUD app, and don't really seem to care much either. This isn't the first occurrence of a permissions snafu, which tells me they should invest some more of their bundles into QA and testing. But then again, click-bots probably offer a better ROI.
- res0nat0r 14y ago
  They do care, note the top post of this story now is from a FB employee stating they've fixed the error 7 hours after it was published. Also Facebook is slightly more complex than a CRUD app.
  - smokeyj 14y ago
    Damage control != caring. Caring would be fixing their systems after the first few privacy fuck-ups. Why are you so determined to paint FB in the best of light? Honest question. How many more breaches have to occur before you consider FB reckless? Or is your allegiance unconditional?
    - res0nat0r 14y ago
      I'm not defending Facebook I just have actual experience working in real world enterprise size companies. My previous gig was as an engineer for one of the largest websites on the Internet. It employes thousands of engineers and software developers working on hundreds of different small teams who all release early and release often. There isn't some magic wand that Zuck can somehow wave to prevent software bugs from occurring. That's how things actually work in the real world.
      - smokeyj 14y ago
        You're evading the question. How many more privacy breaches have to occur before you consider FB reckless? I'm not talking about security breaches, I'm talking about code being pushed that breaks expected privacy functionality. This is especially pathetic considering they're "enterprise". You would think they engineered some kind of security test to check for these things. Why it's not in the build-process points to negligence in my eyes.