Mark Zuckerberg calls Obama to complain about NSA

http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/13/technology/security/mark-zuckerberg-nsa/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

by evo_9 • 12 years ago

43 58 12 years ago

money.cnn.com

iLoch• 12 years ago

The hypocrisy is astounding.

res0nat0r• 12 years ago

Yeah, it's strange to think that Facebook could be analyzing all of the data their users voluntarily upload to FB to try and make them money.

intslack2• 12 years ago

I'm going to echo another comment I saw here yesterday: if Mark cared he would put his money where his mouth is and back off datamining IM conversations and enable OTR by default.

Mark only cares because the IC is, in a way, damaging his brand by plainly revealing the dangers of centralized services.

The hypocrisy is Facebook's repeatedly sneaky approach to "permissive" marketing. While Facebook will never have a gitmo or "enhanced interrogation program," that doesn't excuse their complete disdain for user's privacy such as actively tracking the movement of users across the web, for example, data they most definitely didn't volunteer.

pswilson14• 12 years ago

Surely, you see a difference between a data company collecting data from users who willingly hand it to them, and a government that forces those companies to hand over private data against their will?

Argorak4• 12 years ago

Sure. I also see a difference between a company asking everyone for that data in a clear fashion and one that tries get hold of every scrap of data from its users, even if it has to do with non-users (e.g. by collecting their address books).

To be clear about address books: they are "yours", but they hold data that you may not have permission to give away.

twelvechairs• 12 years ago

Doesnt Facebook build shadow profiles of you even if you haven't ever joined or accepted their terms of service?

nitrogen• 12 years ago

"Willingly hand it to them" is not an appropriate description of the relationship people have with Facebook. It's more appropriate to say that people willingly share with their friends, and Facebook abuses its position of power as carrier of those friends' communications.

pyalot2• 12 years ago

Facebooks data collection is sleazy at best. You may claim that users give them the data "willingly", but the fact is that facebook collects users data even before their users have an account there. Management of the settings around privacy are also practically impossible. Facebook also ran into privacy snafus countless times.

DanBC2• 12 years ago

I do see a big difference between a government that has a huge cache of information about everybody that they rarely access[1] and a provate company having information about its users that it accesses regularly.

Also, facebook collects information about people who have never had a facebook account and who don't want one.

[1] the GCHQ cache was accessed less than a thousand times, for example. Google trawls my data many times a day.

netcan• 12 years ago

I think the difference is more nuanced, arguable either way. Users effectively have some sort of agreement with Facebook where Facebook get their data. Realistically this is not something they are really aware of. They use a free service. Facebook collect and use the data in way they don't understand.

Do they have that agreement with ISPs? Phones companies? Supermarkets with facial recognition software to track shopping habits?

Since a lot of this data tuff is about aggregation, entities sharing data can have a lot of consequences. If you have Facebook, Whatsapp & email data for a significant number of people, then you have a lot of data about people that aren't signed up to any of those.

I think trying to categorize data privacy issues into "users agreed to." is pedantic in a way that gets away from the reality of what is going on. The hacking vs just recording may have legal importance, but I don't think

I've said this before, the digitization & aggregations of so much data is a bigger world changing issue. The Snowden/wikileaks affairs are a strange double example. The US agencies have their data stolen and spread around because it's "data." This data is largely information about how they steal data. You can't keep your secrets from them and they have trouble keeping their secrets data from you.

"Voluntary" or "consensual" mean different things in different contexts.

vijayr• 12 years ago

What about shadow profiles?

On a bigger note - does it bother anyone that almost every privacy discussion has come to "who is lesser evil"? Kinda like politics ("we can't find a good candidate, so we are voting for the least bad candidate")

vlasev3• 12 years ago

Is the fact that he's a hypocrite make his point irrelevant?

skore• 12 years ago

No matter how frowned upon straight quoting wikipedia may be, this seems appropriate:

Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself. --- Samuel Johnson

I think Mark Zuckerberg is sincere in his request. And I think his sincerity and thus his self-delusion is the far bigger, systemic problem.

ta_fbp6• 12 years ago

It's not really news that in the USA, corporations claim for themselves rights attributed to a person while at the same denying the same rights to the actual persons.

rhizome• 12 years ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7394131

slowmotiony• 12 years ago

Can regular Americans call Obama too or is it just rich people?

medikoo• 12 years ago

President's time is limited, so it's better if just representatives of bigger groups of people call him directly. I think we can say that in some sense Mark represents larger group of people.

Ygg2• 12 years ago

In other words, only rich people :P

SideburnsOfDoom• 12 years ago

in some sense Mark represents larger group of people.

Who? My guess would be Facebook employees and venture capitalists.

davyjones• 12 years ago

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

vlasev3• 12 years ago

Maybe you can try a few rungs down the ladder?

37prime• 12 years ago

“How dare the NSA spy on Facebook users. Their informations are property of Facebook."

DominikR• 12 years ago

Who else should own the data if not Facebook?

dredmorbius3• 12 years ago

The users, and/or non-user individuals whose data it is.

simias2• 12 years ago

Facebook is opt-in.

ta_fbp6• 12 years ago

Not really no. Facebook has been known for a while for building profiles of unregistered people and tracking them around. Then people you know offline who are on facebook will rat tons of information about you all the time. People are just submitting personal information without a second thought.

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask. Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks.

tempodox• 12 years ago

<blockquote> "When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government," Zuckerberg wrote </blockquote>

Small correction: The US government ARE the criminals you need to protect against.

ta_fbp6• 12 years ago

As usual, facebook PR is fallacious. Naively pretending they don't know governments are historically often engaging in criminal activities to draw attention away from the fact facebook is a massive surveillance too, one that past political regimes could only dream about, which by some kind of magic should be acceptable on grounds that it is done by a private corporation for commercial profit.

bsaul• 12 years ago

Which reminds me of : what are the current realistic alternative to facebook as of today ? I'm thinking of some tech that would let me remain in control of the data i show to my friends.

balladeer• 12 years ago

There are such alternatives out there and you'll find it if you look for it but you shall not migrate to those service because your friends are not yet there. Everybody stays thinking the same.

ta_fbp6• 12 years ago

You could try email, xmpp instant messaging, self-hosting your website, and so on. Maybe a secure p2p tool such as waste.

But one way or another the problem is usually the same, your friends are locked in by facebook and don't want to use something else to see what you want to show them.

tomelders• 12 years ago

I feel it's worth pointing out that Facebook won't lock you up without trial in a secret prison, torture you and violate every human right you have because of something you think.

There is a real difference between what Facebook does and what the US government does.

ta_fbp6• 12 years ago

I feel it's worth pointing that facebook makes it easier to identify and locate people who end up in prison without trial and so on.

For a little while I've wandered into the business of finding the identity behind an online account and finding the physical whereabouts of said person for private companies and state police. It was in the pre- and early facebook era and it was sort of detective work, picking up details and clues, cross-referencing data, some wild guess and luck. Then facebook grew to the monstrous thing it has become, and now these past employers do not require external contractors to do this kind of job, they just go to facebook and do the job themselves in little time.

declan4• 12 years ago

I feel it's worth pointing that facebook makes it easier to identify and locate people who end up in prison without trial and so on.

Can you identify one person that Facebook has identified who has wound up sentenced to prison without a trial? No? Didn't think so.

I'm not a defender of Facebook and have posted critically elsewhere in this comment thread about FB data-mining. But the grandparent post has it right: Facebook != the government. Facebook wants to show you ads to buy stuff you don't need. The government wants to arrest you, strip search you, and imprison you for smoking a plant it decreed is unlawful, or transferring a series of bits it decreed is unlawful.

comice• 12 years ago

A phone call is a cute gesture. If he really meant what he said he'd go to court.

Mark Zuckerberg calls Obama to complain about NSA

Related Stories