the facebook situation: thoughts?

Vox · Apr 12, 2018

Hi, I decided to post here since security & privacy often go hand in hand. I'm new so if this is the wrong section, feel free to move.

Recently Facebook has constantly been in the news. Personal data of 87 million Facebook users were improperly acquired by a data analytics company based in the UK which supposedly used the data to give president Trump an advantage during the 2016 presidential campaign.

This has gotten a lot of people thinking about what exactly these huge tech companies (Pretty sure google knows even more about us than Facebook) know about ordinary people and which effect this can have in our lives.

The scandal got a whole #DeleteFacebook campaign started on other social media platforms. The # was first shared by Brian Action, Co-founder of Whatsapp (which is currently owned by Facebook) via a reply on a tweet by Tesla & SpaceX CEO Elon Musk who, in turn, deleted both Tesla and SpaceX Facebook pages.

How do you think about these tech companies collecting as much data as possible? Have you deleted your facebook page?

In general, how concerned are you about your personal data and privacy?

Read more here: How Facebook’s Data Sharing Went From Feature to Bug

Marketing · Apr 12, 2018

It literally doesn't matter.

You're a drop in the ocean. No human has ever looked at your data.

The corporations use this data to tailor their products and optimize them so you are more likely to make a purchase.

Its not about personal privacy. In any way.

Softly put, as a person nobody cares about you. Only as a demographic, as a part of a HUGE group you have value.

You literally won't have to worry about this ever. The worst case scenario is that someone is able to peddle you a shirt or a toaster. Take control in your own actions. There is no elitist group masturbating to your photos or the hobby you had when you were 16. There might be Johnny from Marketing looking at an excel table where you make 1/50000000 data, with poor Johnny who's lacking coffee trying to categorize the potential people interested in a cat t-shirt or to vote for his towns mayor.

Vox · Apr 13, 2018

ExoGold said:
It literally doesn't matter.

You're a drop in the ocean. No human has ever looked at your data.

The corporations use this data to tailor their products and optimize them so you are more likely to make a purchase.

Its not about personal privacy. In any way.

Softly put, as a person nobody cares about you. Only as a demographic, as a part of a HUGE group you have value.

You literally won't have to worry about this ever. The worst case scenario is that someone is able to peddle you a shirt or a toaster. Take control in your own actions. There is no elitist group masturbating to your photos or the hobby you had when you were 16. There might be Johnny from Marketing looking at an excel table where you make 1/50000000 data, with poor Johnny who's lacking coffee trying to categorize the potential people interested in a cat t-shirt or to vote for his towns mayor.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't deleted my facebook or my whatsapp, in fact it's my main way of communicating with friends and family. Facebook knows all about me and the targetted adverts don't bother me at all.

I do also know that I'm curious about how the internet works, I use my adblockers and other extensions and most importantly im sceptical about most of the things that appear online.

What if donald trump won the 2016 election by spreading false promises to people in a 'naive' demographic who believe everything they read online? No way to prove the effectiveness but we do know trump used Cambridge analytics during his campaign.

My concern is about how this data can change the way we use the internet, or how companies start using the internet (Let's charge mac users more, they've taken the more expensive option before, they won't care!)

As a student very interested in information security i'm also worried about hackers getting their hands on this data.

Present · Apr 14, 2018

Aaaand there goes the stock market for zucker

Vox · Apr 20, 2018

"A database about people can be misused in four ways. First, the organization that collects the data can misuse the data. Second, rogue employees can misuse the data. Third, unrelated parties can steal the data and misuse it. That happens frequently, too. And fourth, the state can collect the data and do really horrible things with it, like put people in prison camps. Which is what happened famously in World War II in the United States. And the data can also enable, as it did in World War II, Nazis to find Jews to kill."

source: ‘F*ck Them. We Need a Law’: A Legendary Programmer Takes on Silicon Valley

Ugly God · Apr 24, 2018

ExoGold said:
There is no elitist group masturbating to your photos .

Actually made my day

Vox · Apr 24, 2018

And here I was, hoping on a serious conversation

Ugly God · Apr 24, 2018

lol rip

Wonderland · May 19, 2018

I wasn’t surprised when I heard the news. Having that much personal information of 2 billion users (Nearly 1/4 of the worlds population) and not using it for other means is ridiculous.

4usq · Jun 1, 2018

Everyone's data is sold to push someone's agenda. You think facebook exploits you then you can't imagine what Google does.
In relation to metadata, I don't think people should be reassured that giving away fingerprints, your entire life story, immediate conversations with family members doesn't matter because everyone gives it away. Everyone should value their privacy higher imo, don't let the guy that preaches that 'what are you trying to hide?' from his castle surrounded by houses that he bought because he cares about privacy, tell you what it's worth. Because next you're going to be giving away your dna and companies will use it to screw you over on loans, educations, jobs because they'll know your innate predilections, medical conditions and everything else.

In relation to elections, candidates spend the majority of their budgets finding who is and who isn't going to vote for them so they market to the right people. So, you bet that they get that juicy metadata from every company that has any. I think at this point people are still mad that Donald is the president but c'mon it's been 2 years since he got elected people need to get over it.

Also it should be noted that there's close to zero regulation on this stuff.

Lastly, you shouldn't be leaving Facebook because it sells your data, you should be leaving it because they have thousands of mechanisms to screw with your brain chemistry so you use it 20 hours a day.

CryptoGOLD · Jul 22, 2018

Vox said:
Hi, I decided to post here since security & privacy often go hand in hand. I'm new so if this is the wrong section, feel free to move.

Recently Facebook has constantly been in the news. Personal data of 87 million Facebook users were improperly acquired by a data analytics company based in the UK which supposedly used the data to give president Trump an advantage during the 2016 presidential campaign.

This has gotten a lot of people thinking about what exactly these huge tech companies (Pretty sure google knows even more about us than Facebook) know about ordinary people and which effect this can have in our lives.

The scandal got a whole #DeleteFacebook campaign started on other social media platforms. The # was first shared by Brian Action, Co-founder of Whatsapp (which is currently owned by Facebook) via a reply on a tweet by Tesla & SpaceX CEO Elon Musk who, in turn, deleted both Tesla and SpaceX Facebook pages.

How do you think about these tech companies collecting as much data as possible? Have you deleted your facebook page?

In general, how concerned are you about your personal data and privacy?

Read more here: How Facebook’s Data Sharing Went From Feature to Bug

It doesnt matter what happend with facebook because your personal info will be on the internet anyways, theres no way to scape from that issue. The only thing you should care about is "Public leakage"

froopy · Sep 22, 2018

Mass personal data collection is very valuable information. I wouldn’t be surprised if this sort of thing is sold on a private market.

Sillymonkey · Sep 27, 2018

There's no point in singling out any particular website or online platform as an information risk. You would have had to take steps at the beginning of your 'connected life' to really be a ghost - otherwise there is only an illusion of privacy.

The way the internet has evolved, and indeed operates at the moment, is by collecting an abundance of information that never really goes away. Once it's out there, there's little you can do about it. There are people that helped create the internet we know today that despise what it has become - because once you put something out there, it's out there and there's nothing you can do about it. The user is powerless and has no control over their data.

Don't like a forum post you made so you edited it? There's going to be a history of every single thread edit you've done, showing the contents during each edit period. Provided information to a website? Fat chance getting it scrubbed from their system - even sites that accept requests to have information deleted may not do so (and how do you know? you don't). It could be out of there hands due to legislation in the country they operate in or base themselves out of, but it could also be against their interests so they snub you.

This is without going into all of the entities that make money purely from other people's information. It's such a complex thing to talk about but in reality, it's a non issue for most people - and while you can't change the past, you can always take certain steps to be invisible in the future.

Fyrix · Sep 30, 2018

Did facebook really get hacked again for 50M user's?

Time Crunch · Sep 30, 2018

Pageth said:
Did facebook really get hacked again for 50M user's?

yeah, supposedly lol..

Uchiha_Sasuke · Oct 1, 2018

I was wondering why I was logged out on all my Facebook sessions, guessing my account was one of them that was hacked. Good thing I don't have any sensitive information on there.