A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/10/13/497820170/the-man-who-stood-up-to-facebook

by krissara • 10 years ago

495 120 10 years ago

panic• 10 years ago

Cross-network dashboards like the one described in the article help make the world more open and connected. Facebook ought to be supporting this guy.

perlpimp• 10 years ago

you should watch Zuck's interview on esp here. https://youtu.be/GczC7q5NPrw?t=15m35s private data is all facebook has, no way they'll give it up.

lucb1e2• 10 years ago

For those like me who missed it at first, "make the world more open and connected" is Facebook's "official mission" (i.e. what the PR department claims they do).

But it's directly in contrast with what makes them money, so obviously they won't.

happyslobro3• 10 years ago

This man is a hero of our times. I am going to show his story to all of my Facebook friends. Fuck Zuck.

vjvj• 10 years ago

You can try but the facebook algorithm will have the final say on how many of your friends will see it ;)

happyslobro3• 10 years ago

Wait 'til NPR notices 10K shares, 0 referrals from facebook.com. That ought to start a whole new fire.

sctb3• 10 years ago

Fuck Zuck.

Please don't include this in comments on Hacker News.

happyslobro3• 10 years ago

I will phrase it differently in the future, but I stand by the sentiment.

zanethomas3• 10 years ago

why not?

rasz_pl• 10 years ago

yes, use this instead:

Zuck: They "trust me", Dumb fucks.

treve2• 10 years ago

"The word spam is kind of like calling someone a rapist. It has — in [the] digital world — calling someone a spammer is the worst thing you could possibly call them."

I really don't feel that spammer and rapist are even in the same league.

deckar01• 10 years ago

It's not the same, but it is a powerful metaphor. Wanted email is to consensual relations as spam is to physical violation.

paulddraper3• 10 years ago

No, spam is more akin to door-to-door soliciting.

kazinator• 10 years ago

It's a very bad metaphor, because the "spammer" term is thrown around casually in IT and is often false. For instance, someone might be called a "spammer" if they post a lot to some forum, by someone else who disagrees with them.

If you equate "rapist" with "spammer", you might be regarded as trivializing "rapist" accusations as being usually false and frivolous in the same way.

DanBC• 10 years ago

It's a fucking stupid metaphor that acts as a barrier to understanding.

People should stop casually making jokes about rape[1] or using rape as a metaphor.

[1] It's baffling to me that crimes of sexual violence are a common theme for jokes on US media.

matt4077• 10 years ago

They are not and he wasn't talking about the magnitude of moral failure I think, but how it provokes an instinctual mistrust of the accused, more than other accusations.

treve2• 10 years ago

Fair point. It was just a bit off putting and made me feel that the author has lost perspective a bit.

delecti• 10 years ago

I don't think that's a remotely fair comparison either. I'm immensely more likely to respond with instinctual mistrust at an accused rapist than at an accused spammer. So much so that I don't think they're in the same league there either.

dfar1• 10 years ago

I hear, in jail, spammers get the same treatment as rapist.

6stringmerc• 10 years ago

Sounds a lot like the product in question relied on a Man-In-The-Middle-As-Service protocol and I can reasonably conclude why other service providers might find that approach as unwelcome and written-out of their Terms of Service. I don't see Facebook taking the same approach to something like LastPass. I'm not inclined to give either party in this one a whole lot of blanket endorsement or scorn, I think each side has some noteworthy concerns regarding both motivation and methods.

CapitalistCartr2• 10 years ago

Orin Kerr is the country's leading attorney on Computer Crime Law(1) and The Volokh Conspiracy writers are a powerhouse in Constitutional Law generally. Its almost certainly too late for Vachani and Power Ventures; Facebook have destroyed them, and any ruling is only symbolic, but for the rest of us, a correct ruling is essential for the future of a free Internet.

Here is Orin Kerr writing about Power Ventures: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

jsprogrammer4• 10 years ago

Power Ventures could probably start back up from the payout that will be coming from FB when things are resolved.

Sacho• 10 years ago

Uh, what payout? The 9th circuit essentially ruled that his attempts to access Facebook servers after the cease-and-desist letter were illegal. Unless I'm reading this wrong, he lost, and is criminally liable.

War_Machine• 10 years ago

After Power's IP addresses were blocked by Facebook, couldn't Power use the user as proxy to access Facebook instead? In other words, have the user (through some Power provided tool I suppose) access Facebook and feed Power the information it wants to send.

sjg0072• 10 years ago

You could probably do so with a browser extension.

downandout2• 10 years ago

The problem is that this probably violates Facebook's TOS. Enabling a TOS violation for users as a business model would make for a pretty easy tortious interference lawsuit by Facebook against Power.

achow• 10 years ago

Because of this I discovered the book 'Chaos Monkeys' and immediately bought it! The top Amazon review decided it for me..

Amazingly accurate coverage of Facebook's internal culture, the good, the bad, and the ugly. (Plus much, much more!) https://www.amazon.com/review/R2GQCWUZKVOY10/ref=cm_cr_dp_ti...

krissara• 10 years ago

Its been on my to read list as well. We need more insight into the business practices of big tech companies like FB and Google, that control so much wealth.

Dragonai• 10 years ago

This book looks fascinating. Thanks for reinforcing the OP's author's opinion on it, I think I'll check it out!

segmondy• 10 years ago

I just finished reading it last week, will read it again.

szx• 10 years ago

So you own your data but they won't let just any app touch it. Apps need to comply with certain conditions and FB retains complete control.

Where it gets interesting is when someone like this guy tries to circumvent this arrangement by having the user willingly supply them with their credentials.

FB would never blame the user, even though that's arguably the correct way to respond, because that's a PR disaster. Whether the guy in this particular story seems shady or not, it seems inevitable that FB would take the path of litigation to destroy anyone who exposes the dissonance in the way they run their business.

joesmo2• 10 years ago

If FB retains complete control, you don't own your data. If you own your data, FB (or any other party) cannot retain complete control. Otherwise, what is the meaning of "own" that you have redefined the word to mean?

odbol_• 10 years ago

Own in the very legal sense that it is your Intellectual Property, even though you have no real control over it once it gets into their hands.

athenot• 10 years ago

The elephant in the room is that facebook wants to directly engage with their users in order to control the advertising aspect. This startup uses the side-effect of Facebook (platform for friends to share stuff) while cutting out the business value proposition (advertising).

This is sad because I'm increasingly getting annoyed at Facebook's positionning between me and my friends. It's promoting behavior that is different from real life as they stand to gain from stoking outrages and heated discussions: more active user engagement!

whybroke2• 10 years ago

It's promoting behavior that is different from real life as they stand to gain from stoking outrages and heated discussions: more active user engagement!

This undoubtedly has very serious consequences beyond merely being annoying. Trending untrue news stories, encouraging post-true controversy and providing an echo chamber for these things to intensify and become ingrained.

And doing these things on a enormous scale to a huge percentage of the population such that vast swathes of people can no longer even agree on basic facts.

It would be interesting to see how much of the bizarre political events in the west are a result of social media in general and Facebook in particular.

zardo• 10 years ago

I've recently started seeing what I can only call christian jihadi propaganda on my newsfeed.

The Clintons assassinated Scalia and they are going to force you to renounce God or put you on the cross.

xseven• 10 years ago

I wish all the articles had an unbiased TLDR attached to it.

I came here for the clickbait, not the story!!

lucb1e2• 10 years ago

Dude realized "hey, you own your content, not Facebook, even after you post it on Facebook. So with users' consent, I can download their data from Facebook and display it on my own website, right?" Thus he wrote something where people would enter their Facebook and other social network logins, and the site would aggregate their data. Basically a cross-platform social network.

Facebook was the only website to respond at all. They sued them for downloading data. (You own it, but when you try to get it out, you can't.) Facebook called it "spamming" and "hacking". The courts didn't really understand the topic (the article claims) but finally in the 9th district court the spam claim got thrown out and Facebook said they won't challenge that decision because there is still the hacking claim to be fought over.

How asking someone to give you a password for a specific purpose and then using that password for that specific purpose is hacking is beyond me. But then the article is fairly one-sided so I don't know the full story. The legal battle continues.

gwbas1c• 10 years ago

Maybe they were scraping or abusing an API? That's a bit of a stretch of "hacking."

kbenson3• 10 years ago

Vachani is based in Brazil, where life is more affordable. He flies into San Francisco a lot, though, in an ongoing effort to stay in the tech biz.

So, open question, how much cheaper does it have to be in Brazil to make it worthwhile to live there because it's cheaper, if you are flying into SF a lot? I mean, I know SF is expensive, but presumably if you are willing to make ~$600 flights on a regular basis, you would be willing to commute a few hours. Within two hours of SF, things aren't exactly cheap, but they are cheap relative to SF. How much cheaper does Brazil have to be (living in at least a moderately sized city) for this to effective, assuming he flies into SF 8 times a year?

This of course ignores other reasons he may want to live in Brazil (such as family), because that wasn't how it was presented.

tn13• 10 years ago

Given the lawsuites it might make sense to stay out of USA too.

blackbagboys• 10 years ago

If you are interfacing with U.S.-based entities or your data crosses servers located in the U.S., you can be sued in a U.S. courts; at best, you'll increase the complexity of the case and the difficulty collecting on a judgment issued against you, but certainly not to the extent that a major corporation like Facebook would be at all deterred.

wrong_variable2• 10 years ago

You can get high speed internet in many parts of the developing world for less than 20 dollars a month - its amazing really.

You can buy food, pay rent and utils - live near a sunny beach for less than 50 dollars a month.

Of course if all SF software engineers cut their debt shackle - and used global inequality for their advantage it would wreck havoc to the current pecking order of tech capitalists.

It would allow tech workers to turn into entrepreneurs and work full time on their own ideas, create new competition and scare wall street that is dependent on recycling your wage through rent so that you actually keep a small amount of your real income.

Ofcourse no one is going to do it besides radicals like Glenn Greenwald since freedom is not useful as prestige to the average person.

quirkafleeg• 10 years ago

You can buy food, pay rent and utils - live near a sunny beach for less than 50 dollars a month.

Can you give an example of such a place, where the total cost of rent, food and utilities (water, electricity) amounts to less than 50 USD per month?

vit05• 10 years ago

I think he founded the company in Brazil. The article is not entirely right, he probably lives in Brazil because he likes. It is cheaper than SF or NY, but there are other countries and cities way more cheaper.

kareemsabri• 10 years ago

Rent is the killer in SF. Forget about Brazil and imagine even a cheap American city.

1BR apartment in SF is ~$3300

1BR apartment in New Orleans is ~$1300.

$24K/yr in savings on rent alone. Even if you fly in 8 times per year, for a round trip cost of $1K with food and accommodations, you're still well ahead.

If you live abroad, and can earn USD and take advantage of the exchange rate, you're even farther ahead. A 1BR apartment in Sao Paolo is ~600USD.

kbenson3• 10 years ago

1BR apartment in New Orleans is ~$1300.

Sure, but my point was that if you view SF as integral for some reason, you can find 1BR apartment rentals for ~$1300 (and 2 bedroom for $1400) an hour North of SF. If you're willing to go slightly over 2 hours from SF (which if you've considering flying in occasionally isn't bad at all), you can find 2 BR apartments for <$1000 in Ukiah.

It's not a beach in a tropical climate, but it sure is cheaper, and you could actually swing commuting in once or twice a week without too much strain (depending on whether you do it during rush hour). Too rural for you? Sacramento, the state capital, has apartments available for not much more (and a similar non-rush hour commute).

There's a trade-off going on here, and I'm wondering at what point it makes more sense to fly in from outside the country compared to just commuting a few hours occasionally.

pmoriarty• 10 years ago

You don't need to go as far as New Orleans to pay ~$1300 for a 1BR. There are lots of place in the Bay Area where you can get that, but you may have to sacrifice convenience, safety, age or condition of the apartment, commuting distance, or some other desirable traits.

The best, though, if you can swing it, is telecommuting. Then you can work most anywhere with an internet connection. And there are, arguably, far more interesting places to live (or at least visit) than the Bay Area.

Travel gets old after a while, but I think you're really missing out if you haven't at least gone to a few countries that are radically different from where you grew up.

walterstucco• 10 years ago

LOL Silicon Valley I can rent 1BR appartament in Rome or Milan for 600-700 euros/month. Much less in a smaller city. I have friends living close to Como lake that spend 500 euros for a private house with private garden.

yunruse• 10 years ago

Facebook is not appealing the spam decision and, the spokesperson points out, it has won on hacking so far.

The wording of 'won on hacking' is extremely worrying, if it is verbatim. Facebook seem to act here as if they can steamroll over power-users who stray too far from the 'norm', so to speak, without consequence: while it is true that all companies must try to save face, accusing an app developer of hacking and spamming is too far.

I guess not appealing the spam decision is some small humility, but treating a lawsuit like a competition to 'win' has certain implications on Facebook's strategy.

the_watcher2• 10 years ago

This highlights two major issues, to me:

* Wow does the CFAA need reform.

* With the rate that tech is advancing, it's becoming a problem how unfamiliar with it many in the justice system are. It's not a knock on them at all - it's hard to keep up for those of us working in the industry. I'm not sure what the best solution is outside of trying to make sure that the laws are as correctly formulated as possible, and even that's only a partial fix.

jedberg2• 10 years ago

With the rate that tech is advancing, it's becoming a problem how unfamiliar with it many in the justice system are.

People say that a lot. But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" (look maybe some say that but not a lot).

The court has a solution for this -- they have expert witnesses and amicus briefs.

The problem is that technologists are allergic to politics (filing amicus briefs is basically politics as is lobbying), so they won't do what they need to do to make tech issues heard.

the_watcher2• 10 years ago

But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!"

This actually is something that comes up reasonably often. In fact, when I was in law school, an entire week of Torts was spent on precisely this issue. It's not unique to technology, but the frequency in which it comes up, as well as the total number of people directly (by that, I mean their day to day life could materially change overnight) is much higher.

You aren't wrong about technologists and politics, though. I hadn't really thought about amicus briefs as a solution, thanks for pointing it out.

thaumasiotes• 10 years ago

But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" (look maybe some say that but not a lot).

I hear this all the time. (I am a doctor's son.) Heck, you could probably get judges to say the same thing; they've completely abdicated on the question of whether something is or isn't legally-permissible medical care. The legal question, when you are sued for malpractice, is whether you conformed to "the local standard of care", which is different everywhere. If the local standard of care is obviously harmful to patients, that's not your fault. They should have been local to somewhere else. Did something bad happen to your patient by chance? If you didn't conform to the standard of care, you're probably at fault, regardless of whether it could have been related to something you did.

This situation obtains because judges are incapable of judging medical issues. Judges know it, doctors know it, and I know it, but I guess you didn't know it.

See also the discussion a while ago about how forensic science is basically just 100% fraudulent court testimony, but the courts are too reliant on that to give it up.

jedberg2• 10 years ago

If I say you can put your diamond ring in my house and then give you a key, but tell you that if you want your ring you have to let me talk to you for five minutes every time you get it, and then you give your key to a friend who I don't like, don't I have the right to keep that person out, even though you gave them the key I gave you?

Basically this guy is your friend I don't like.

I understand not liking the walled garden, but if you don't like it, then you shouldn't enter it in the first place. Don't go into the garden and then give your friend a key to the place just to avoid me.

kodablah• 10 years ago

I think this is a poor analogy. You could get closer if you changed this:

but tell you that if you want your ring you have to let me talk to you for five minutes every time you get it

to:

but mumble to you (unintelligibly, interspersed with vast amounts of mumbling about other things) that if you want your ring you have to let me talk to you for five minutes every time you get it

While many on this site keep up with some of these things and can weigh the cost/benefit of using a walled garden, many do not. To tell someone "if you don't like it, don't do it" while completely avoiding the question of subversiveness on the part of the contract maker is disingenuous and not giving both sides of the argument a fair shake.

nchelluri• 10 years ago

Wouldn't it (or couldn't) it be a violation of TOS to share your FB password with another site?

Does FB now have an option like Google to export your data? I thought that was a nice touch on Google's part; I vaguely remember reading it was championed by some people in the company who really wanted to avoid locking people in out of their own moral convictions.

I confess to not seeing the bigger picture here: I don't see how all of this can be equated to locking a user's data into Facebook. Would it be against TOS to write a FB app that crawled a user's graph and downloaded all of their data?

ebzlo• 10 years ago

You can export your data: https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/

gondo• 10 years ago

Isn't this similar case as Zenefits vs ADP? Power Ventures accessing Facebook on behalf of their users, same way as Zenefits was accessing ADP? I did not follow the Z vs A case, just barely remember that it happened.

anewhnaccount• 10 years ago

Didn't Facebook used to ask to log in to your email to import your contacts to look for friends? Sure, unlike LinkedIn they at least actually asked first, but I think it shows how there's one law for the incumbent and quite another for the rest.

gjolund• 10 years ago

I have said it before, and I will say it again.

Facebook is the folly of our generation. We are already paying the consequences of giving away our right to privacy, and it is only going to get worse.

A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

Related Stories