[mothered]

Greetings to all,

If you've been following the latest on Facebook, you'll realize that Mark Zuckerberg has been under Immense pressure by the US congress pertaining to It's neglect of data confidentiality. This just adds to another sleepless night.

Facebook's founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg faced two days of grilling before US politicians this week, following concerns over how his company deals with people's data.

But the data Facebook has on people who are not signed up to the social media giant also came under scrutiny. During Zuckerberg's congressional testimony he claimed to be ignorant of what are known as "shadow profiles".
Zuckerberg: I'm not — I'm not familiar with that.

Shadow profiles:

* To explain shadow profiles simply, let's imagine a simple social group of three people – Ashley, Blair and Carmen – who already know one another, and have each others' email address and phone numbers in their phones.

* If Ashley joins Facebook and uploads her phone contacts to Facebook's servers, then Facebook can proactively suggest friends whom she might know, based on the information she uploaded.

* For now, let's imagine that Ashley is the first of her friends to join Facebook. The information she uploaded is used to create shadow profiles for both Blair and Carmen — so that if Blair or Carmen joins, they will be recommended Ashley as a friend.

* Next, Blair joins Facebook, uploading his phone's contacts too. Thanks to the shadow profile, he has a ready-made connection to Ashley in Facebook's "People You May Know" feature.

* At the same time, Facebook has learned more about Carmen's social circle — in spite of the fact that Carmen has never used Facebook, and therefore has never agreed to its policies for data collection.

Source.

[Qlova]

I always knew that data was shared to suggest friends, but I never really thought about it gathering information about people who have not agreed to the terms.

I saw a video a few years ago where somebody reads the terms and discusses what facebook and other apps have access to - camera, microphone, location, contacts, etc. The video basically was saying that although most apps do require these permissions we don't really know what they're using them for (as we just assume the obvious). Now I'm not saying that they are spying on us, but it makes you realise how much information we are actually letting these companies have access to unknowingly.

Zuckerberg was actually questioned about this before congress:
https://www.recode.net/2018/4/14/1723184...ophone-ads

[mothered]

Zuckerberg was actually questioned about this before congress:
https://www.recode.net/2018/4/14/1723184...ophone-ads

I appreciate the link. I don't believe this for a minute:

No, Facebook is not listening to you through your phone’s microphone.

We'll never know for sure If ultrasonic cross-device tracking Is being used, what devices and web pages are generating the Inaudible sound, whether our cell phone Is picking It up through It's microphone and (as a result) how we're being tracked.

The same can be said In terms of apps. For example, cell phones contain quite a few sensors (proximity, accelerometer,  gyroscope, magnetometer, GPS, barometer, biometric, ambient light etc), that are a potential security risk and expose vulnerabilities. Certain sensors can reveal, PINs, passwords, location, voice searches and so forth. As a result, malicious websites (or other variants) can access your cell phone's sensors without your permission. How? Because there's thousands and thousands of apps, the phone's OS does not restrict " a lot" of apps from accessing the phone's sensors (there's just too many apps to filter), hence apps can grab your sensitive data and send It to a given (malicious) website.

It's Impossible to be definitive In how apps behave and can be accessed, what their Intentions are and the objective of a given entity once It communicates with the phone's apps.

[Qlova]

Zuckerberg was actually questioned about this before congress:
https://www.recode.net/2018/4/14/1723184...ophone-ads

I appreciate the link. I don't believe this for a minute:

No, Facebook is not listening to you through your phone’s microphone.

We'll never know for sure If ultrasonic cross-device tracking Is being used, what devices and web pages are generating the Inaudible sound, whether our cell phone Is picking It up through It's microphone and (as a result) how we're being tracked.

The same can be said In terms of apps. For example, cell phones contain quite a few sensors (proximity, accelerometer,  gyroscope, magnetometer, GPS, barometer, biometric, ambient light etc), that are a potential security risk and expose vulnerabilities. Certain sensors can reveal, PINs, passwords, location, voice searches and so forth. As a result, malicious websites (or other variants) can access your cell phone's sensors without your permission. How? Because there's thousands and thousands of apps, the phone's OS does not restrict " a lot" of apps from accessing the phone's sensors (there's just too many apps to filter), hence apps can grab your sensitive data and send It to a given (malicious) website.

It's Impossible to be definitive In how apps behave and can be accessed, what their Intentions are and the objective of a given entity once It communicates with the phone's apps.

I don't believe it either however what you mentioned through apps using sensors to pick up information is very believable. Would this be the information that is sent off which allows the ads we see to be so relevant to us? It's scary to think so much of our life and personal information is on our phone, yet we have no real clue what is happening to it or who has access to it.

It is off topic a little bit, but what are your thoughts on government agencies using this as surveillance to monitor our every move? I mean it is crazy but we never know what its used for. Like George Orwell said, big brother is always watching.

[mothered]

but what are your thoughts on government agencies using this as surveillance to monitor our every move? I mean it is crazy but we never know what its used for.

The moment we establish an Internet connection, our anonymity/privacy Is no longer concealed. Data Is at the entire globe's disposal. It's stored everywhere- and we'll never know the extent.

In terms of monitoring, just to provide a simple understanding, take Google's search engine as an example, Google knows the websites you visit, what you've clicked on YouTube and what you've watched, where you've been when using Google Maps. It developed the Android OS, hence can track your contacts, online (Google) apps you use and for what purpose.

It also Introduced "Google My Activity", whereby once you've logged Into your Gmail account, you can view just about everything you've done online- websites visited, Images viewed, keywords entered & searched, ads viewed and so on. Google also saves every voice search (when you simply speak Into your cell phone or PC when searching online).

How to prevent Google from tracking you? I'll only name a few, otherwise I'll be here all day. Stating the obvious, do not use Google's search engine. Do not log Into your Google (Gmail) account and "remain" logged In. Google uses your account to Identity you from one website to another "whilst logged In". Check all activity settings on your Google account and control what gets saved. In Google My Activity, view all privacy settings and disable/delete those that track you.

This barely touches the surface, but you can clearly see our activity Is everywhere. Government corporations not only use Google's analytics, but also have their own tracking methodologies. Those under the assumption you're not being monitored, think again.

[Bish0pQ]

Doesn't really surprise me though. There are numerous sites that use Facebook for logging in, also share and like buttons and stuff. Of course info is being tracked then.

[mothered]

also share and like buttons and stuff. Of course info is being tracked then.

Agree.

These buttons alone (on non-Facebook pages) can be enough to track you, even though you don't have a Facebook account.

[Skullmeat]

This is, rather chilling. Its also incredibly disturbing zukerberg is so unaware of the inner workings of his own company. Its ultimately his responciblity.

[mothered]

Its also incredibly disturbing zukerberg is so unaware of the inner workings of his own company.

I'm actually quite surprised how a CEO Is unaware of so many facets of his very own company.

I think we're starting to see a lot of what Mark Zuckerberg Is really all about.

[Jiggly]

Its also incredibly disturbing zukerberg is so unaware of the inner workings of his own company.

I'm actually quite surprised how a CEO Is unaware of so many facets of his very own company.

I think we're starting to see a lot of what Mark Zuckerberg Is really all about.

I suspect a lot of his responses are pretense of obliviousness, for the sake of protecting himself and his company. I neither hate him nor blame him. I do think awareness of risks and what little we do know needs to be spread. I hope this investigation strikes conversation in schools, so young people have these thoughts on their radar as they grow up.

Has anyone ever seen the film "The Circle" (2017)? While not entirely related, this thread reminded me of it. It talks about a woman (played by Emma Watson) who lands her dream job at a tech company. Ultimately the company advertises for people to share their information and life day in day out, to help prevent crime and increase individual accountability. If someone is always watching you, would you behave differently?