7 ms·

I love how people still make noise about NSA, while gladly using facebook.

imgabe 12y ago
Facebook does not have the power to imprison you or mark you as a suspected terrorist and put you on a no-fly list and freeze your bank accounts.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y ago
  But it has the power to completely undermine public discourse and thus democratic decisionmaking.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  The NSA can (and does) use Facebook to mark you as a suspected terrorist and put you on a no-fly list. The NSA doesn't have the power to imprison you or seize your bank accounts without the help of a judge.
  - imgabe 12y ago
    That is a reason to oppose the NSA, not Facebook.
  - avn2109 12y ago
    However, the balance of power in our society has now shifted to the point where the NSA is trivially capable of securing the judges' cooperation. So the "help of the judge" will be granted anytime the NSA asks for it, and in a practical sense they can still do all sorts of unpleasant things to you at will. Also, if a judge starts being uncooperative, the NSA has a lengthy dossier on his adultery, homosexuality, communist tendencies, suspected terrorist links, etc. It would be a real shame for that dossier to find its way to the public, wouldn't it...?
opendais 12y ago
I don't use Facebook.
- Linear-b 12y ago
  It doesn't matter, they are still building a profile on you and selling it. These are called "shadow profiles".
  - opendais 12y ago
    Good luck with that. Even the credit reporting companies get confused and can't figure out who I am accurately. And I actively help them since I like having credit cards and the ability to get mortgage loans.
    - Linear-b 12y ago
      Facebook has built a platform that's much more accurate and comprehensive than anything experian has, because experian isn't in the business of selling your political beliefs and sexual orientation and a hundred other demographics to marketers. You can file a FOIA request with Facebook to see what they have on you. Other people have, and have gotten their dossiers. Have you had a phone number or mailing address in the past 10 years? If so, they've gotcha covered.
- tzs 12y ago
  It still massively affects you (assuming you are in the US), because of the 4th Amendment. That's the one that prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. A key factor in whether a search or seizure is unreasonable is whether or not you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The standard for what is a reasonable expectation of privacy is what society considers to be reasonable, not what you individually consider to be reasonable. So even though you are not on Facebook, all those people who ARE on it and are sharing publicly the most intimate details of their lives are moving the 4th Amendment boundary between searches and seizures that require a warrant and those that do not.
watwut 12y ago
Facebooks ability to use my kids and cat pictures is not comparable to government ability to read political activists or journalists emails. Random person ability to know what school I did go to is not as dangerous to justice as governments ability to read communication of defense in high profile case. By your logic, everyone who make noise about NSA should go underground to keep the right to complain.
- sp332 12y ago
  Every level of government, right down to the municipal level, can ask Facebook to hand all that data over at any time. They don't even need a court order if they claim it's an emergency or involves a child. https://www.facebook.com/safety/groups/law/guidelines/ https://www.facebook.com/safety/groups/law/guidelines/ Facebook admits to turning over data on tens of thousands of people in the USA. https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/United%20States/2013-H2/ https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/United%20States/20...
  - watwut 12y ago
    Yes, but I kind of assume that political activist does not keep his super secret emails on facebook.
    - sp332 12y ago
      Contact list and location history are scary enough, and I'm not a political activist.
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  It's not just that, though. All of the casual information that you post on Facebook, including timestamps and whatnot, can all be used to infer and create a detailed portfolio as to your personality, location, political views, sexual orientation, interests, commonly visited places, employer, etc. EXIF data from photographs alone is a goldmine. There was actually a practical example of a man FOIAing his documents from Facebook, which revealed that they had over a thousand pages specifically devoted to him alone on every facet of his life. Even though he was only a "casual" user (one wall update a week, or so). You can see it in the documentary film Terms and Conditions May Apply. As for me personally, I've never had a Facebook account. Although virtually no one is impervious, reducing social media presence is still always useful to get rid of the blatantly incriminating things. Unfortunately, the biggest threat is perhaps, what other people are saying about you. I have no idea about what's going on there...
marincounty 12y ago
I sometimes wonder about using any site--including HN. Facebook would be easy to give up(It actually makes me more depressed, and the people I want on there left, or never joined.) HN is hard to give up.
- BankingAnon 12y ago
  HN tends to punish people using Tor or other methods to obfuscate their tracks. On the four or five other accounts I've abandoned, this is then first that allows me more than 3 minutes on the site without invalidating my token due to inactivity. I suspect because it's been a valid IP every time (or so they think). You should not expect privacy on computer systems you do not own. HN included.
  - Linear-b 12y ago
    "On computer systems" has a hollower ring now than it did a decade ago. Everything is on a computer system now. Even face to face interactions leave a plethora of metadata behind. The nature of privacy has always been a function of social norms and technology, but given the directions we're headed in these days I think it's easy to make a case that the average citizen has given up a lot more privacy, then they have gained in convenience. My life was easier when it took me an hour to download a megabyte and I spent more time outside... and I say that as a web developer.
tertia 12y ago
facebook won't declare me an enemy combatant and murder me if I say something they don't like.
- junto 12y ago
  While that is very true, should you state your grievances on Facebook, then it makes you easier to target. All those anti-Israel comments on FB at the moment - bingo, you've been tagged as probably anti-Semitic, potentially a Muslim terrorism supporter and worth putting on a watch list. Now if you happen to go to a humanitarian demo that is judged to be pro-Palestine then you are highly liked to be filmed (especially in the UK). The contents of those police cameras are later downloaded and processed. Face recognition software cross-references you with Facebook and other public people databases. Searching....ping....found target... - Name: <Tertia>... - Anthropology: Caucasian - Source: Facebook NSA hook - Threat score: 1.3 - Upgrading threat score: + 2.5 Auto triggers: - Flag Homeland Security - Tag passport - Watch social security number - Track internet usage (log level: all) It is probably an exaggeration as of today, but this is the system that the NSA is aiming for.
Zigurd 12y ago
Why do you wonder? Unless you have no public-facing products or publications you are personally directly involved in, it's perfectly rational to use social media for things that would be out in public and subject to whatever scrutiny anyone cares to apply to them, AND, at the same time, "make noises" as you so dismissively put it.
jahewson 12y ago
The difference is that they choose to use Facebook.

Facebook does not have the power to imprison you or mark you as a suspected terrorist and put you on a no-fly list and freeze your bank accounts.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y ago
But it has the power to completely undermine public discourse and thus democratic decisionmaking.
pessimizer 12y ago
The NSA can (and does) use Facebook to mark you as a suspected terrorist and put you on a no-fly list. The NSA doesn't have the power to imprison you or seize your bank accounts without the help of a judge.
- imgabe 12y ago
  That is a reason to oppose the NSA, not Facebook.
- avn2109 12y ago
  However, the balance of power in our society has now shifted to the point where the NSA is trivially capable of securing the judges' cooperation. So the "help of the judge" will be granted anytime the NSA asks for it, and in a practical sense they can still do all sorts of unpleasant things to you at will. Also, if a judge starts being uncooperative, the NSA has a lengthy dossier on his adultery, homosexuality, communist tendencies, suspected terrorist links, etc. It would be a real shame for that dossier to find its way to the public, wouldn't it...?

opendais 12y ago

I don't use Facebook.

Linear-b 12y ago
It doesn't matter, they are still building a profile on you and selling it. These are called "shadow profiles".
- opendais 12y ago
  Good luck with that. Even the credit reporting companies get confused and can't figure out who I am accurately. And I actively help them since I like having credit cards and the ability to get mortgage loans.
  - Linear-b 12y ago
    Facebook has built a platform that's much more accurate and comprehensive than anything experian has, because experian isn't in the business of selling your political beliefs and sexual orientation and a hundred other demographics to marketers. You can file a FOIA request with Facebook to see what they have on you. Other people have, and have gotten their dossiers. Have you had a phone number or mailing address in the past 10 years? If so, they've gotcha covered.
tzs 12y ago
It still massively affects you (assuming you are in the US), because of the 4th Amendment. That's the one that prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. A key factor in whether a search or seizure is unreasonable is whether or not you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The standard for what is a reasonable expectation of privacy is what society considers to be reasonable, not what you individually consider to be reasonable. So even though you are not on Facebook, all those people who ARE on it and are sharing publicly the most intimate details of their lives are moving the 4th Amendment boundary between searches and seizures that require a warrant and those that do not.

watwut 12y ago

Facebooks ability to use my kids and cat pictures is not comparable to government ability to read political activists or journalists emails. Random person ability to know what school I did go to is not as dangerous to justice as governments ability to read communication of defense in high profile case. By your logic, everyone who make noise about NSA should go underground to keep the right to complain.

sp332 12y ago
Every level of government, right down to the municipal level, can ask Facebook to hand all that data over at any time. They don't even need a court order if they claim it's an emergency or involves a child. https://www.facebook.com/safety/groups/law/guidelines/ https://www.facebook.com/safety/groups/law/guidelines/ Facebook admits to turning over data on tens of thousands of people in the USA. https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/United%20States/2013-H2/ https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/United%20States/20...
- watwut 12y ago
  Yes, but I kind of assume that political activist does not keep his super secret emails on facebook.
  - sp332 12y ago
    Contact list and location history are scary enough, and I'm not a political activist.
vezzy-fnord 12y ago
It's not just that, though. All of the casual information that you post on Facebook, including timestamps and whatnot, can all be used to infer and create a detailed portfolio as to your personality, location, political views, sexual orientation, interests, commonly visited places, employer, etc. EXIF data from photographs alone is a goldmine. There was actually a practical example of a man FOIAing his documents from Facebook, which revealed that they had over a thousand pages specifically devoted to him alone on every facet of his life. Even though he was only a "casual" user (one wall update a week, or so). You can see it in the documentary film Terms and Conditions May Apply. As for me personally, I've never had a Facebook account. Although virtually no one is impervious, reducing social media presence is still always useful to get rid of the blatantly incriminating things. Unfortunately, the biggest threat is perhaps, what other people are saying about you. I have no idea about what's going on there...

marincounty 12y ago

I sometimes wonder about using any site--including HN. Facebook would be easy to give up(It actually makes me more depressed, and the people I want on there left, or never joined.) HN is hard to give up.

BankingAnon 12y ago
HN tends to punish people using Tor or other methods to obfuscate their tracks. On the four or five other accounts I've abandoned, this is then first that allows me more than 3 minutes on the site without invalidating my token due to inactivity. I suspect because it's been a valid IP every time (or so they think). You should not expect privacy on computer systems you do not own. HN included.
- Linear-b 12y ago
  "On computer systems" has a hollower ring now than it did a decade ago. Everything is on a computer system now. Even face to face interactions leave a plethora of metadata behind. The nature of privacy has always been a function of social norms and technology, but given the directions we're headed in these days I think it's easy to make a case that the average citizen has given up a lot more privacy, then they have gained in convenience. My life was easier when it took me an hour to download a megabyte and I spent more time outside... and I say that as a web developer.

tertia 12y ago

facebook won't declare me an enemy combatant and murder me if I say something they don't like.

junto 12y ago
While that is very true, should you state your grievances on Facebook, then it makes you easier to target. All those anti-Israel comments on FB at the moment - bingo, you've been tagged as probably anti-Semitic, potentially a Muslim terrorism supporter and worth putting on a watch list. Now if you happen to go to a humanitarian demo that is judged to be pro-Palestine then you are highly liked to be filmed (especially in the UK). The contents of those police cameras are later downloaded and processed. Face recognition software cross-references you with Facebook and other public people databases. Searching....ping....found target... - Name: <Tertia>... - Anthropology: Caucasian - Source: Facebook NSA hook - Threat score: 1.3 - Upgrading threat score: + 2.5 Auto triggers: - Flag Homeland Security - Tag passport - Watch social security number - Track internet usage (log level: all) It is probably an exaggeration as of today, but this is the system that the NSA is aiming for.

Zigurd 12y ago

Why do you wonder? Unless you have no public-facing products or publications you are personally directly involved in, it's perfectly rational to use social media for things that would be out in public and subject to whatever scrutiny anyone cares to apply to them, AND, at the same time, "make noises" as you so dismissively put it.

jahewson 12y ago

The difference is that they choose to use Facebook.