8 ms·

I think the thing that frustrates me the most about all of this is not the privacy, but the fact that Facebook gets exclusive access to data that I think is rig

by Taek 12y ago

I think the thing that frustrates me the most about all of this is not the privacy, but the fact that Facebook gets exclusive access to data that I think is rightfully public knowledge. I'm fine with advertisers knowing that I really enjoy hiking, what my salary is, etc., but I don't like that they have to go through Facebook to get that knowledge. Ideally, they would go through me, or even better some publicly available repository of data that I've allowed to be assembled. But there is also data that I may not want to be public knowledge. If Facebook scans my chat logs, then Facebook knows a lot about me that I would not want some of my friends and family knowing. And I wouldn't be surprised if their TOS permits them to scan my chat logs. And you can also do interesting oracle attacks with this. Let's say I'm trying to figure out if my son is homosexual. (Substitute for any fact Facebook may know, and for any person you want to investigate). I already know a ton of things about my son. Age, where he lives, what sports he plays, his favorite foods, etc. So I create one really specific ad that's guaranteed to include only my son and maybe a few other people. This one is only shown to homosexuals. Then I create an alternate ad that targets the same group, but only heterosexuals. Then I just need to watch which ad appears on my sons computer, and I suddenly know what Facebook thinks his sexual orientation is.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ChrisAntaki 12y ago
> If Facebook scans my chat logs There's evidence of scanning private updates & comments, going back to 2012 [1]. We could assume chat messages would be fair game in Facebook's eyes, though I haven't seen any confirmation. [1] http://allthingsd.com/20120112/facebook-gives-politico-deep-access-to-users-political-sentiments/ http://allthingsd.com/20120112/facebook-gives-politico-deep-...
markcuban 12y ago
Or you could just, you know, log into his Facebook...
r00fus 12y ago
Facebook has already declared your data (i.e., the data you entered into Facebook) as theirs, to monetize at will. There are several rational responses, but when some other entity keeps drinking your privacy milkshake, maybe the best way to respond is to poison the well. Make any or all of the valid profile data fake. Potentially change it once in a while to something else also false. Don't invite people you normally would friend. Definitely don't use the profile for anything important.
jmonegro 12y ago
You should take a look at what these guys are doing datacoup.com
crater 12y ago
> publicly available repository of data that I've allowed to be assembled aboutthedata[0] by Acxiom is headed in that direction I think - just specifically for the ads they control, I think. I interned there, but I wasn't involved with aboutthedata. [0]https://aboutthedata.com/ https://aboutthedata.com/
walterbell 12y ago
You can use Bridgy to syndicate content to social networks from your personal site: https://indiewebcamp.com/Bridgy https://indiewebcamp.com/Bridgy Example here: http://dangillmor.com/2014/04/25/indie-web-important/ http://dangillmor.com/2014/04/25/indie-web-important/
ZoF 12y ago
I definitely agree with what your saying regarding ownership of your own data (photos, posts, comments, chat, etc..) and I definitely agree. The second part of your comment strikes me as a bit ridiculous though. I cant invision a scenario in which someone would attempt to narrow down a group of users, given the provided selectors, to the point at which they know their 'target'(your son in this case) is in that group, and then(based on some boolean value (such as homosexuality)), figure out which ads are being served to that user in order to discern something about the user. (In this case seeing a certain ad would allow you to discern sexual orientation). MarkCuban's post below (marked dead now) seems relevant, despite being decidedly offensive/inflammatory. Why would _anyone_ go through all of that trouble when logging into the account directly or passively collecting network activity would yield the same answers? If you're going to somehow attach the ads being served to a physical human (watching your sons computer screen to see what ads show up? Monitoring his traffic to see which ads are served?) you've already broken Facebook's model. I _strongly_ believe that advertising is the wrong way to go about yielding revenue from a webapp in terms of the value it adds to our society(not that it isn't profitable for one entity). I just think your second statement/argument is a weak one.
jliptzin 12y ago
The good news is that you can always just stop giving Facebook information about you. I have largely stopped using Facebook a couple of years ago, though I joined in 2004. I use text, email, phone to communicate. I don't really have any urge to sign in and view my feed, the most interesting stuff I find on HN and Reddit. If there is something truly important about a friend, I'll hear about it whether or not I use Facebook. In general, the less I use Facebook the more focused and productive I am. Thats just me though, I have plenty of friends signing in on a daily basis and consuming the newsfeed like popcorn.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- millstone 12y ago
  Even if you never visit Facebook, you still provide it with information about you. Most of the links you visit from reddit or HN have an embedded Facebook Like button, which gives Facebook information about the sites you visit. FB uses that information to target ads to you. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/13/facebook-web-app-tracking-for-ads/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/13/facebook-...
  - mgreg 12y ago
    True. There are lots of tools to block that, however, on the desktop anyway: 1. AdBlock Edge (or Plus, but Edge doesn't have loopholes): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/ 2. Disconnect: https://disconnect.me/disconnect https://disconnect.me/disconnect 3. Ghostery: https://www.ghostery.com/en/ https://www.ghostery.com/en/ And I'm sure others….
teddyh 12y ago
> If Facebook scans my chat logs, […] their TOS permits them to scan my chat logs. Your language betrays your cognitive dissonance. It it not your chat log. It was never your chat log. You typed characters into Facebook’s chat log, and the chat log is Facebook’s. There is no “permitting” needed. When you use Facebook (or Google, or whatever), you live in a glass house, an aquarium, with overseers who do not consider you a person with integrity, but more as a kind of pet to be inspected and analyzed at will. Facebook distracts you with “privacy settings”, but those apply to other pets in the aquarium, not its overseers. It might be discomforting to think of yourself as a pet in an aquarium, but you have chosen this yourself, by using Facebook. The question if Facebook is permitted to scan your chat logs is therefore meaningless; there is no such concept. Facebook “scans” all its chat logs, all the time. (That’s why they have their chat logs.) The “privacy settings” have nothing to do with actual privacy from Facebook — like Monopoly money, it has no validity outside the tiny world of its own. Like “deleting” things, it appears to you to delete things, but does not actually delete them as far as Facebook is concerned — it is all logged and saved, forever. I could go on, but I’d better not. (The same goes for Google and all the other cloud and social services.)
- 1ris 12y ago
  > The “privacy settings” have nothing to do with actual privacy from Facebook — like Monopoly money, it has no validity outside the tiny world of its own. See also: People who believe they can disable the face recognition.
  - brador 12y ago
    Also people who belive Chrome incognito mode means Google does not know what you're typing into that address bar and that there's no history or log of what you just visited.
    - XorNot 12y ago
      Incognito mode is as upfront as possible that websites can record what you type. It's not what incognito is about, or meant to be about.
sp332 12y ago
Yeah, it is that easy. You don't even have to make up your own ad, you can just watch to see if other people's ads that are targeted to homosexuals are showing up on that computer.
sliverstorm 12y ago
the fact that Facebook gets exclusive access to data that I think is rightfully public knowledge The way I see it is the raw information itself isn't secret/private, but Facebook is the one who busted their collective asses collecting and organizing it. Similar to how companies don't have unlimited rights to Craigslist's data, the company owns the database. Facebook can't come sue you for sharing your personal information with other people- it's still YOUR information- but their catalog is theirs to do with as they see fit. A (probably poor) analogy is a calculator. You, oh holder of the calculator, do not own mathematics. You don't have a license on the numbers that go in, nor the numbers that come out. Numbers belong to everyone. But you do own the calculator, and it is entirely within your rights to control who uses it and how.
twistedpair 12y ago
> I think the thing that frustrates me the most... If you're really upset, then just quit FB. Otherwise, keep baa-ing with the rest of the sheeple. I quit 3 years ago when their abuses got to be too much. Amazing, I still have the same friends and enjoyable life. I suspect most people would discover the same.
- dirkgently 12y ago
  Rather aggressive, but I agree. I deleted my profile 2 years ago, got back few more minutes of my daily life, and read more books. I am still on GPlus since it doesn't have any noise (and going by the trend, it's not likely to replace facebook anytime soon) - only tech oriented people use it, and I am fine with it.
probably_wrong 12y ago
What you described in your last paragraph has already been done, and it works. Here's an article about a prank performed using a similar idea: http://mysocialsherpa.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking-my-roommate-with-targeted-facebook-ads/ http://mysocialsherpa.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking-...

by Taek 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

ChrisAntaki 12y ago

> If Facebook scans my chat logs There's evidence of scanning private updates & comments, going back to 2012 [1]. We could assume chat messages would be fair game in Facebook's eyes, though I haven't seen any confirmation. [1] http://allthingsd.com/20120112/facebook-gives-politico-deep-access-to-users-political-sentiments/ http://allthingsd.com/20120112/facebook-gives-politico-deep-...

markcuban 12y ago

Or you could just, you know, log into his Facebook...

r00fus 12y ago

Facebook has already declared your data (i.e., the data you entered into Facebook) as theirs, to monetize at will. There are several rational responses, but when some other entity keeps drinking your privacy milkshake, maybe the best way to respond is to poison the well. Make any or all of the valid profile data fake. Potentially change it once in a while to something else also false. Don't invite people you normally would friend. Definitely don't use the profile for anything important.

jmonegro 12y ago

You should take a look at what these guys are doing datacoup.com

crater 12y ago

> publicly available repository of data that I've allowed to be assembled aboutthedata[0] by Acxiom is headed in that direction I think - just specifically for the ads they control, I think. I interned there, but I wasn't involved with aboutthedata. [0]https://aboutthedata.com/ https://aboutthedata.com/

walterbell 12y ago

You can use Bridgy to syndicate content to social networks from your personal site: https://indiewebcamp.com/Bridgy https://indiewebcamp.com/Bridgy Example here: http://dangillmor.com/2014/04/25/indie-web-important/ http://dangillmor.com/2014/04/25/indie-web-important/

ZoF 12y ago

I definitely agree with what your saying regarding ownership of your own data (photos, posts, comments, chat, etc..) and I definitely agree. The second part of your comment strikes me as a bit ridiculous though. I cant invision a scenario in which someone would attempt to narrow down a group of users, given the provided selectors, to the point at which they know their 'target'(your son in this case) is in that group, and then(based on some boolean value (such as homosexuality)), figure out which ads are being served to that user in order to discern something about the user. (In this case seeing a certain ad would allow you to discern sexual orientation). MarkCuban's post below (marked dead now) seems relevant, despite being decidedly offensive/inflammatory. Why would _anyone_ go through all of that trouble when logging into the account directly or passively collecting network activity would yield the same answers? If you're going to somehow attach the ads being served to a physical human (watching your sons computer screen to see what ads show up? Monitoring his traffic to see which ads are served?) you've already broken Facebook's model. I _strongly_ believe that advertising is the wrong way to go about yielding revenue from a webapp in terms of the value it adds to our society(not that it isn't profitable for one entity). I just think your second statement/argument is a weak one.

jliptzin 12y ago

The good news is that you can always just stop giving Facebook information about you. I have largely stopped using Facebook a couple of years ago, though I joined in 2004. I use text, email, phone to communicate. I don't really have any urge to sign in and view my feed, the most interesting stuff I find on HN and Reddit. If there is something truly important about a friend, I'll hear about it whether or not I use Facebook. In general, the less I use Facebook the more focused and productive I am. Thats just me though, I have plenty of friends signing in on a daily basis and consuming the newsfeed like popcorn.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
millstone 12y ago
Even if you never visit Facebook, you still provide it with information about you. Most of the links you visit from reddit or HN have an embedded Facebook Like button, which gives Facebook information about the sites you visit. FB uses that information to target ads to you. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/13/facebook-web-app-tracking-for-ads/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/13/facebook-...
- mgreg 12y ago
  True. There are lots of tools to block that, however, on the desktop anyway: 1. AdBlock Edge (or Plus, but Edge doesn't have loopholes): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/ 2. Disconnect: https://disconnect.me/disconnect https://disconnect.me/disconnect 3. Ghostery: https://www.ghostery.com/en/ https://www.ghostery.com/en/ And I'm sure others….

teddyh 12y ago

> If Facebook scans my chat logs, […] their TOS permits them to scan my chat logs. Your language betrays your cognitive dissonance. It it not your chat log. It was never your chat log. You typed characters into Facebook’s chat log, and the chat log is Facebook’s. There is no “permitting” needed. When you use Facebook (or Google, or whatever), you live in a glass house, an aquarium, with overseers who do not consider you a person with integrity, but more as a kind of pet to be inspected and analyzed at will. Facebook distracts you with “privacy settings”, but those apply to other pets in the aquarium, not its overseers. It might be discomforting to think of yourself as a pet in an aquarium, but you have chosen this yourself, by using Facebook. The question if Facebook is permitted to scan your chat logs is therefore meaningless; there is no such concept. Facebook “scans” all its chat logs, all the time. (That’s why they have their chat logs.) The “privacy settings” have nothing to do with actual privacy from Facebook — like Monopoly money, it has no validity outside the tiny world of its own. Like “deleting” things, it appears to you to delete things, but does not actually delete them as far as Facebook is concerned — it is all logged and saved, forever. I could go on, but I’d better not. (The same goes for Google and all the other cloud and social services.)

1ris 12y ago
> The “privacy settings” have nothing to do with actual privacy from Facebook — like Monopoly money, it has no validity outside the tiny world of its own. See also: People who believe they can disable the face recognition.
- brador 12y ago
  Also people who belive Chrome incognito mode means Google does not know what you're typing into that address bar and that there's no history or log of what you just visited.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    Incognito mode is as upfront as possible that websites can record what you type. It's not what incognito is about, or meant to be about.

sp332 12y ago

Yeah, it is that easy. You don't even have to make up your own ad, you can just watch to see if other people's ads that are targeted to homosexuals are showing up on that computer.

sliverstorm 12y ago

the fact that Facebook gets exclusive access to data that I think is rightfully public knowledge The way I see it is the raw information itself isn't secret/private, but Facebook is the one who busted their collective asses collecting and organizing it. Similar to how companies don't have unlimited rights to Craigslist's data, the company owns the database. Facebook can't come sue you for sharing your personal information with other people- it's still YOUR information- but their catalog is theirs to do with as they see fit. A (probably poor) analogy is a calculator. You, oh holder of the calculator, do not own mathematics. You don't have a license on the numbers that go in, nor the numbers that come out. Numbers belong to everyone. But you do own the calculator, and it is entirely within your rights to control who uses it and how.

twistedpair 12y ago

> I think the thing that frustrates me the most... If you're really upset, then just quit FB. Otherwise, keep baa-ing with the rest of the sheeple. I quit 3 years ago when their abuses got to be too much. Amazing, I still have the same friends and enjoyable life. I suspect most people would discover the same.

dirkgently 12y ago
Rather aggressive, but I agree. I deleted my profile 2 years ago, got back few more minutes of my daily life, and read more books. I am still on GPlus since it doesn't have any noise (and going by the trend, it's not likely to replace facebook anytime soon) - only tech oriented people use it, and I am fine with it.

probably_wrong 12y ago

What you described in your last paragraph has already been done, and it works. Here's an article about a prank performed using a similar idea: http://mysocialsherpa.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking-my-roommate-with-targeted-facebook-ads/ http://mysocialsherpa.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking-...