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The Off-Topic Lounge APPROPRIATE FAMILY-FRIENDLY TOPICS ONLY - READ THE RULES! This forum is for posting anything (excluding topics prohibited by the forum rules) that's unrelated to email. General discussions, in other words. |
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1 Mar 2015, 09:22 PM | #1 |
The "e" in e-mail
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New article on Facebook issues
In Belgian newspapers, there were some recent articles regarding the new FB policies. Apparently the government's privacy commission wants to file a legal case against the new FB TOS. In Europe, about 6 countries have already planned or considered such lawsuit. I don't know however if what the newspaper wrote is true. I am very sceptic in trusting social networks, but equally sceptic in bashing them. Often the true lies somewhere in the middle. Anyways, according to the articles:
- Facebook would log your IP or smartphone location, type of browser, settings of your computer, ... (I am not sure if the windows password, which in Windows 8 is also the password of an email account, is included in settings of computer) in order to collect demographic data about their users and for example send popups with ads to your Phone : imagine you walk the Champs Elysées in Paris, FB knows where you are and could send popups with ads for a local shop a few blocks down the street. - Facebook would save the contacts you have in apps such as Whatsapp, Spotify, or Instagram. I don't know how these work, as I don't use them, but aren't those apps password protected? So does this mean Facebook can just look over your virtual shoulder and bypass passwords in order to get access to your contacts list? Then who guarantees me they can also not just bypass the passwords of webmail accounts, website accounts (signing in to the webhost), etc? - Facebook would be able to log the nr of your payment cards, look into the invoices to see what you bought and where ... Unless you buy something right through Facebook while being signed in, how can FB follow you after signing out of your account? And I thought financial transactions were Always highly secure? So does this mean Facebook can, even if not signed in to FB, just look over your shoulder and log any data? Including passwords of webmail accounts, webhost accounts, ... ?? I have just purchased a new computer and still getting used to the latest version of Windows... I'm not sure if it's safe to log in to Facebook now or if I better avoid signing in from my new computer? I doubt all the horror stories from the newspaper would be true, but then I cannot be sure. If it'd be true, we're talking about pure Huxleyan practises... |
2 Mar 2015, 11:51 AM | #2 | |
The "e" in e-mail
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3 Mar 2015, 01:20 AM | #3 |
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Nothing new, we all knew about it.
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4 Mar 2015, 08:02 AM | #4 |
The "e" in e-mail
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I never heard about the logging contacts from apps such as Spotify or Instagram. I never heard about logging bank card details.
I may be wrong, as I don't use Instagram or Spotify, but I guess that their user accounts are password protected ; so how can Facebook just bypass those passwords to access data in those apps? Then who tells they cannot bypass any password (eg domain registration accounts with Namecheap, GoDaddy ... or hosting accounts) ? I heard about the IP and browser type logging before, so wasn't too surprised with that. And while I wouldn't be too happy with constant advertisements popping up, it's not exactly something I'd worry about neither. YouTube uses ads too, Gmail does, ... Not pleasant but nothing to worry about neither. It's mainly the bypassing of passwords that I hadn't heard before and that I find a worrying thing (IF the article from the newspaper is correct, that is...) |
4 Mar 2015, 03:58 PM | #5 |
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One of the primary reasons Facebook enters into a relationship with another company is to share aggregated customer information for the mutual benefit of both. Else, Facebook purchases the company outright to own the data. Facebook is unable to (unless they decide to inject an exploit through your browser or employ a 0-day against your OS) access your credentials for services for which they have not entered into an arranged agreement with. Regarding the settings of your connected device, that would generally be limited to your OS and browser fingerprints. Perhaps a MAC address indicating the make and model of your NIC which can narrow down the type of mainboard in use, which in turn can narrow down the type of connected hardware and so on and so forth. IP, OS and browser logging is standard network operations procedure and serves as invaluable aid in diagnosing, traversing, maintaining and improving network health. All of the above is greatly simplified, but generally holds true. FYI, if you truly care about online security and privacy, then you really ought to be traveling down the Linux or BSD road. For all the talk about email security here on EMD, it is quite surprising how many users are still using Windows despite the obvious ramifications regarding security and privacy.
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7 Mar 2015, 08:26 PM | #6 |
The "e" in e-mail
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But you are saying they cannot log the passwords or bypass them if they don't have an agreement or ownership of a service? So in respect to Wordpress.com, Weebly.com, Wix.com, Name.com, GoDaddy.com, Namecheap.com, ... they could not log your details?
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8 Mar 2015, 10:17 PM | #7 |
Senior Member
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I am not surprised. Its a giant advertising network thats becoming better and better by user tracking.
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9 Mar 2015, 08:57 AM | #8 | |
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Quote:
- bruce |
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9 Mar 2015, 11:21 PM | #9 |
The "e" in e-mail
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But i would never sign in to any other service using my Facebook login... I guess this would make it highly unlikely that FB can just access your accounts with wordpress.com, blogspot.com, name.com, godaddy.com, weebly.com etc as long as you sign in without signing in to those accounts using your Facebook ID?
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10 Mar 2015, 01:38 AM | #10 |
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I have seen many services (most notably, forums, but other kinds as well) that allow one to sign in with ones Facebook credentials. I don't know or care what this would allow FB to do with that service, as I have never used my FB user/pass to sign into anything else, but money talks you know..
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11 Mar 2015, 12:39 AM | #11 | |
The "e" in e-mail
Join Date: Jun 2004
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11 Mar 2015, 01:05 AM | #12 |
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Location: Canada.
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When a company is intent on compromising your privacy (and you are aware of that) I am wondering why you would want to use that company at all.....
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11 Mar 2015, 03:39 AM | #13 |
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Never sign in with a FB account!, it's always better to use a throw away account or an alias of your main email account.
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