Facebook snooped on users' Snapchat traffic in secret project, documents reveal
Meta tried to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors, including Snapchat and later Amazon and YouTube, by analyzing the network traffic of how its users were interacting with Meta’s competitors. Given these apps’ use of encryption, Facebook needed to develop special technology to get around it.
Facebook’s engineers solution was to use Onavo, a VPN-like service that Facebook acquired in 2013. In 2019, Facebook shut down Onavo after a TechCrunch investigation revealed that Facebook had been secretly paying teenagers to use Onavo so the company could access all of their web activity.
After Zuckerberg’s email, the Onavo team took on the project and a month later proposed a solution: so-called kits that can be installed on iOS and Android that intercept traffic for specific subdomains, “allowing us to read what would otherwise be encrypted traffic so we can measure in-app usage,” read an email from July 2016. “This is a ‘man-in-the-middle’ approach.”
A man-in-the-middle attack — nowadays also called adversary-in-the-middle — is an attack where hackers intercept internet traffic flowing from one device to another over a network. When the network traffic is unencrypted, this type of attack allows the hackers to read the data inside, such as usernames, passwords, and other in-app activity.
And people want to let these parasites integrate into the fediverse
honest question: why does it matter? all data in any fediverse project is public anyways
For me it's not really about the data, it's unforseen malicious maneuvers outside data. Sabotaging instances, manipulating feeds for their gain, or try to still centralize the fediverse undermining the whole concept. My point is, we don't know what bad thing they could/would do, they are creative. But we sure as fuck know it's an evil organization and they can't be trusted.
that’s fair. I fully believe they could pull some fuckery that would make everything worse
Please tell me what governing body exists for the fediverse that would let us deny them access?
How is this a relevant question? Nobody said anything about some governing body. There have been discussions on many instances about whether to federate with them or not, and it’s accurate to say that some people think we should.
For example, I'm personally of the opinion that instances should be allowed to federate until they prove themselves to be bad actors, but in Meta's case there's a lot of existing evidence that shows they shouldn't be allowed to federate in the first instance.
Meta is the textbook definition of a bad actor. Plenty of precedent there.
Who do you imagine is (or should be) making these rules for the Fediverse?
Every instance gets to decide on its own, there's no set of rules governing the whole thing. That's why I stated this is my opinion, not some hard and fast rule.
You stated it very much as a set of rules that should exist. Twice.
Are you replying to the correct person?
Yes. Did you forget how to quote your whole post?
its also accurate to say some people are fucking idiots and think we should federate.
on the wax winged hope in hell that the bad actor suddenly, miraculously, becomes a good actor..for reasons no one can explain.
Do you know how the Fediverse works? Instance maintainers who are less than thrilled with Meta can choose to defederate from Threads.
Exactly my point. It’d be on an instance by instance basis, there is no “singular group” that can block them from the entire fediverse.
The whole point of federation is that you aren't locked in the sinking ship. If everyone is defederating from your instance you can move to a better one.
Yes, but to realistically keep Threads from federating and utilizing people’s posts, every single instance owner would have to defederate. 1) that’s not likely, and 2) that’s a unilateral decision by the instance owner. I’m looking at things from a realistic standpoint, not an idealistic one.
The only places Threads can federate with are instances that are so poorly managed that they don't even block Threads.
I wouldn't call lemmy.world poorly managed.
Which is probably a lot more than would be expected.
So long as my instance continues to block instances that don't block threads, I'm happy.
I don't need a public-facing microblogging service, I like having my own little dark corner on the internet. https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/23/evacuate-the-platforms/#let-the-platforms-burn
Good for you, but that won’t help majority of the people who don’t know or can’t run their own instance. Also the moment you make a post out to one of those instances that hasn’t defeated, Threads will just hoover your post right up. You’ll isolate yourself, sure, but not your posts or interactions. Welcome to ActivityPub.
I do suppose it’s better to only be implicitly training language models and making public posts which anyone is free to screenshot or repurpose compared to explicitly propagating all posts to Meta.
Why would I want to see posts from people on social networks who care so little about social networking that they've joined a corporate app?
It's not ideal, for sure, but at least I won't have to see any posts from threads.
Except my entire point hasn’t been about you, but you made it all about you. My original statement that there is no single source that can prevent threads from joining and interacting with the fediverse and that’s going to affect most people. I’m glad you have the know how to run things yourself but my statement was never about just “you”.
Or are paid not to block.
Im more specifically thinking about the big ones when this debate was going on about a couple of months ago.
Diaspora allows for whitelisting visibility of posts to certain users(and servers.. depending on where users are hosted)
This is blatantly circumventing encryption and a violation of the DMCA but lets see the DoJ do fuck all about it.
Right, Biden? Facebook, Good, Tiktok, bad?
Two things can be bad at once.
What Meta did/is doing here is unbelievably shitty (but not that shocking).
That in no way diminishes the incredibly serious implications of TikTok being wholly owned and operated by a PRC-based company, which comes with the implicit but very real and crucial caveat of the CCP will tell you to do just quietly things with your company sometimes, and if you don’t do it, you go to jail indefinitely.
But then it just comes off hypocritical and disingenuous if you selectively apply pressure. Then it just looks like you're trying to give a competitive edge to US evil social media and preventing youth from learning about the situation in Palestine.
This is not just probable but certain; the whole thing is a very long way of saying this. In a world where the US worked for its citizens, this is a national security no-brainer. But we don't live in a world where the spirit of things is followed when you can enrich yourself skirting the letter. Shit sucks, but this not a secret conspiracy; it's realpolitik.
This one is more subjective...and also still probable for the same fucking reasons and good luck sharing the fact that you can act in a so called 'security' driven purpose and this is the perfect time to do sneaky shit. As if all of History wasn't rife with examples with the Patriot Act being the first USA centric coming to mind amongst fuck what, hundreds?
That is also realpolitik, and all the players know it. Shit sucks.
It is absolutely giving an edge to "evil" (morality doesn't matter in politics, especially international politics, and TikTok isn't good anyway) US social media. China literally blocks all western social media. Everyone plays this game, and TikTok shouldn't be on a pedestal just because you like using it.
OK, I really don't think this has anything to do with it. There are many more places people's are discussing this, like Lemmy for instance, that aren't targeted. I'm sure you can find the same conversations happening on Reddit, Facebook, or whatever other social media. TikTok, though increasingly used for news, is not the only source of news about Palestine, nor is it the best. Short format content will never be good for detailed discussion of news and anyone thinking they're getting thorough news in that format should reconsider.
I'd only accept the TikTok argument when it gets applied to all social media companies in equal measure.
We don't need one-off bans that let the worst offenders get away with exploiting people's personal data. We need a bill of privacy rights.
So your argument is if the regulation isn't perfectly applied to every possible instance of a potential violation simultaneously, then it should never be applied? How does that make any sense?
I think it's a reasonable request that regulations be consistently applied rather than utilized at the whims of corporate favoritism. Facebook deserved a ban well before tiktok was an entity.
As opposed to selective enforcement of regulation mostly informed by nationalism and insider trading?
How is this even a question. XD
You’re focusing on one of the two issues I brought up, and ignoring the other categorically.
If you take off the nationalist filter you'll see that they are the same issue.
Social networks don't need middlemen, middlemen need social networks that rely on server/client architecture they can exploit.
They should break meta up
While I agree Facebook is also bad, the Tiktok thing is entirely different, because the legal issue is sending Amarican citizens data out to China, which the users agreed to give to Tiktok, but the government doesn't want to be sent to China. The Facebook crime is secretly snooping without proper user consent.
Except TikTok is using oracle database in America
The point isn't what they initially store it on. The point is workers in China can access the data and download it or do whatever they want. See here, for example: https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ftc-investigation-china-data-e91e02db5c4f3f7d5836ecafedbf4714
I definitely see why this would be illegal, but how would the DMCA apply?
It's illegal to bypass encryption for the purpose of breaking DRM, which is what the app specifically does with Snapchats DRM.
https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/circumventing-copyright-controls
That would be if they downloaded the uploaded Snapchats. This takes out web traffic, aka which "locations" your device visited, which 1. isn't protected by copyright since it's not a work 2. hasn't been to Snapchat's encryption yet. That time Bethesda accidentally shipped a DRM-free version of doom along with the main version, I don't think opening the DRM-free one would count as circumventing.
The relevant laws here should be about privacy and hacking.
Why did you ask if you already had your answer then? The DMCA has no carve outs.
Because you may have seen some angle I didn't anticipate.
Not sure what you mean about carveouts.
There's no exceptions for fair use, if you break the encryption at all then you're in violation of the DMCA.
Note that IANAL.
The DMCA is also not specific to the method. Bypassing encryption is legally the same as breaking it.
Is there a case law that you know about that supports this? I ask, sincerely, because every one that I know of that deals with dmca was a copyright case. Wiretap act or section 5 of the FTC act, sure, but dmca?
Hmm, I'll take your word for that, but this data is still not covered by the DMCA.
The DMCA specifically prohibits breaking or bypassing any kind of access controls.
The only way this could not be a DMCA violation is if they only ever used it to monitor traffic for their own subdomains.
The DMCA does not have anything to do with uncopyrighted data.
Mate, the whole point of Snapchat, the application, is limiting, digitally, the rights of your friends and others to view your photo, with a built in expiration on those rights. If you think the DMCA doesn't apply then you're out of your fucking mind. Copyright is granted to the photographer the second you press the shutter button.
EULA:
Copyright Policy
This section describes how to provide notice to Snapchat of content on Snapchat that infringes the intellectual property rights of another and Snapchat’s rights with respect to that notice. Snapchat respects the intellectual property rights of others. In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) and other applicable laws, we have adopted a policy of, upon notice, restricting access to or deleting content that infringes a third party’s copyright and, in appropriate circumstances and in our sole discretion, terminating account holders or other users of the Services who are deemed to be repeat infringers of a third party’s copyrighted work.
If you believe that anything on the Services infringes any copyright that you own or control, you may file a notice of such infringement, in compliance with the requirements of 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3), with our designated agent:
Snapchat, Inc. Attn: Copyright Agent 523 Ocean Front Walk Venice, CA 90291 copyright@snapchat.com Fax: (310) 943-1793
They're sniffing on users' traffic data, basically browsing history, not the works on Snapchat. Meta wasn't caring about their photos; they were seeing how foreign platforms' users interact.
Let that parasite rot in prison.
And can somebody split Meta already? Please and thank you.
Why split Meta? The poor mom and pop shop only makes 350 million in revenue... Every day..
Shocked, I tell you
I was thinking of buying a Meta Quest 3, because of a lack of similar devices. I wasn't really seriously considering it, but I sure as hell am not at all now.
I've got one. All I'll say is don't buy a VR headset anytime soon.
What a fucking piece of shit.
Delete this shit from your phones asap
Zuck Fuckerberg
Yeah, they're making it a system app now. Can't be installed without
adb, and most people don't know how.I'm sure corporations like this would give you free Internet if they could collect and sell all your data. I'm also sure people would still do it, regardless of how much they are being monetized as a product.
Since companies like Facebook own legislators, our only real choice is to stop using it. Unpopular opinion, but If you really want fuck Zuck, delete your account, and get all your friends and family to as well. Maybe there's some alternatives for the people who truly use the service to connect with friends/family?
Facebook Zero is more or less what you described.
The free Internet if you give use your data is already a thing. I saw an ad in germany where you get unlimited free internet access (can't remember if it was a data plan for phones or cable / fibre service) if you use their "payment partner" for your usual payments like rent, loans and salary. So they basically can see your daily payments and will use and sell this data im exchange for "free" Internet access.
The company and its investors and corporation lead to a weird network of people and a corp in dubai. It's all quite shady really.
Wow, that is weird. I honestly just made that up in my head when I wrote it.
The saying is true, if it's free, you're the product.
I don't actually know why I care about that level of privacy. Some of us are quite fine with companies or their government having any information about them. Some are very opposed.
Maybe I dislike the idea that information could be used against me somehow or they're making even more money than I'm already paying in some hypothetical case. Not sure.
I work in IT so you might think I might be more into the topic and thus more careful with my data. There are a lot of colleagues of mine that don't care one bit. Some even jokingly call me paranoid.
Sure, I use GrapheneOS, a de-googled Android OS, made the switch from Gmail to Tuta (formerly tutanota), a privacy ans security focused mail provider and use my own domain for mailing.
Then there are some other measurements in place like AdGuard and Pihole to block ads and trackers. I think that's the bare minimum, especially if you're working in IT. It doesn't cost much, the setup is straight forward and the benefits are huge. I haven't had any ads in my network for years.
I'm currently switching from windows to Linux as daily driver. There are some issues with getting some games to run, but as soon as they do I'm switching for good.
There are some easy thing one can do, even without any expertise in IT. There are even things you can do that aren't finicky (like linux troubleshooting). People are just way to comfortable.
Maybe they should watch the documentary about Edward Snowden, Citizenfour. That might change their mind.
I watched that. Didn't surprise me one bit.
The overreaching government apparatus doesn't inherently bother me, but we're really placing a lot of power and trust in those people, and that does concern me.
shitbook does that in the Philippines
Already a thing. I see them advertised everywhere for prepaid plans and people go 'omg Facebook/Whatsapp/Instagram/TikTok for free!!1!'.
I dunno, seem like the goal is to get you to buy a subscription to collect your data hostage in their cloud.
And somehow for enough gullible customers its actually working.
Every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes.
And this fact is more surprising than Meta spying on people
I must be way out of the loop, cuz I had no idea this was possible. So does this mean the Facebook app on my phone has permission to view all of my network traffic? Why do Android and iOS allow this? Shouldn't that be a special permission that can only be granted explicitly?
Nope, because Facebook app is not a VPN service so it cannot intercept traffic.
What it is unclear from the article is how they circumvented the certificate check on the app side. Probably (given this was many years ago, maybe these apps weren't setupping certificate pinning/HPKP)
In theory, yes. In practice of they found some sort of exploit that allowed this I'd 100% not be surprised if Meta took advantage of it. Facebook app is malware
The world would be a better place if Mark Zuckerberg accidentally got sucked into a jetski engine somehow
Lock that turd up already
Certainly they weren’t planning on actually planning on finding a way to get people to install a VPN to decrypt their traffic just to use Facebook, right?
That’s why they paid teenagers to use the VPN so they could get some “guerrilla market research”.
Even in 2013 apps didn’t have the permission access to install a device level VPN without some unspecified exploit. 0 chance Facebook would literally hack people’s phones, right?
Learning: VPN services are tracking instruments, not some magic tool.
And its not even new...
Google VPN, anyone?
Roll your own vpn.
Wait, how does a VPN break TLS encryption?
The VPN adds its own root certs to the device, and just terminates TLS at the gateway, then establishes a second TLS tunnel to the device.
It can't do that silently, the user has to approve installation of root certs. This only works silently with apps which have broken (insecure) cert validation
Can’t do it silently, but it’s not uncommon for root certs to come along with a VPN. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that it’s built into the VPN profile API on Andriod and Apple devices.
it doesn’t, what this is suggesting is the vpn was routing traffic through it so they could analyze snapchat traffic. not the contents of it but essentially meta analysis of the traffic. how often it was sending data, how much data, where it was going etc.
this is the answer
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In 2016, Facebook launched a secret project designed to intercept and decrypt the network traffic between people using Snapchat’s app and its servers.
On Tuesday, a federal court in California released new documents discovered as part of the class action lawsuit between consumers and Meta, Facebook’s parent company.
“Whenever someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer is usually that because their traffic is encrypted we have no analytics about them,” Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in an email dated June 9, 2016, which was published as part of the lawsuit.
When the network traffic is unencrypted, this type of attack allows the hackers to read the data inside, such as usernames, passwords, and other in-app activity.
This is why Facebook engineers proposed using Onavo, which when activated had the advantage of reading all of the device’s network traffic before it got encrypted and sent over the internet.
“We now have the capability to measure detailed in-app activity” from “parsing snapchat [sic] analytics collected from incentivized participants in Onavo’s research program,” read another email.
The original article contains 671 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 74%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
This is why tiktok shouldn't be banned it will only benefit zucck
Nah. Ban these companies or don't, we need user privacy protection laws.