What Facebook Knew and Tried to Hide

Even when the Facebook leaders understood the problem, they tried to hide it.

Right after the election Zuckerburg was dismissive of the idea that Fake News influenced the election.

People within the company thought he was out of touch.

At the time Facebook was under pressure.

Trump had won the election using social media, but Facebook was dismissive.

Facebook employees saw the tip of the iceberg .  They had been following Russian

Mark wanted to find a technical fix.

Sheryl was thinking about the legal risk and was wondering whether they would find out things they didn’t want to know.  Sheryl was thinking about what the consequences would be.

Sheryl yelled at the security team for investigating Russian interference without formal approval.

The leadership was concerned that Washington was controlled by conservatives who would have an adverse reaction to an investigation or efforts to curb this activity.  Conservatives already think Silicon Valley is a bunch of hippies.

There was pressure within Facebook not to publish anything linking activity back to Russia.  Sheryl(?) also signed off on a policy not to take down the Russian troll accounts.

Mark Zuckerburg was traveling the country, milking cows, and acting as though he wanted to run for President.

Sheryl Sandberg was running her own “Lean-In” brand.

Alex Stamos (Security Chief) briefs the audit committee and the board’s response is to yell at Mark(?) and Sheryl(?)

The leadership holds a big meeting and Sheryl yells at Alex Stamos for

  • not briefing her fully
  • admitting that they hadn’t fully got a grip on the situation
  • suggesting that Russia would likely do this again in the future

Alex has gotten in trouble in the past for being too transparent

The Cambridge Analytical Scandal illustrates:

  • The consequences of surveillance capitalism
  • The potential of Facebook to influence elections

Apple CEO Tim Cook castigates Facebook for their business model.

Facebook conducts an advertising campaign and privately goes on attack using the Washington PR opposition research campaign, which uses the NTK network which publishes propaganda.

Confronted with a Propaganda Scandal, they turn to a PR campaign to create their own Propaganda.

Attacks Apple and Tim Cook.  Attack George Soros, arguing the Facebook’s criticism was masterminded by George Soros.  In taking on Soros they are getting into the smear and conspiracy business.

 

Related:

Damage Control at Facebook: 6 Takeaways From The Times’s Investigation

Introducing PostgreSQL Anonymizer

The extension can be used to put dynamic masks on certain users or permanently modify sensitive data. Various masking techniques are available : randomization, partial scrambling, custom rules, etc.

Here’s a basic example :

Imagine a people table

<span class="o">=#</span> <span class="k">SELECT</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="k">FROM</span> <span class="n">people</span><span class="p">;</span>
  <span class="n">id</span>  <span class="o">|</span>      <span class="n">name</span>      <span class="o">|</span>   <span class="n">phone</span>
<span class="c1">------+----------------+------------</span>
 <span class="n">T800</span> <span class="o">|</span> <span class="n">Schwarzenegger</span> <span class="o">|</span> <span class="mi">0609110911</span>

Step 1. Activate the masking engine

<span class="o">=#</span> <span class="k">CREATE</span> <span class="n">EXTENSION</span> <span class="n">IF</span> <span class="k">NOT</span> <span class="k">EXISTS</span> <span class="n">anon</span> <span class="k">CASCADE</span><span class="p">;</span>
<span class="o">=#</span> <span class="k">SELECT</span> <span class="n">anon</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="n">mask_init</span><span class="p">();</span>

Step 2. Declare a masked user

<span class="o">=#</span> <span class="k">CREATE</span> <span class="k">ROLE</span> <span class="n">skynet</span><span class="p">;</span>
<span class="o">=#</span> <span class="k">COMMENT</span> <span class="k">ON</span> <span class="k">ROLE</span> <span class="n">skynet</span> <span class="k">IS</span> <span class="s1">'MASKED'</span><span class="p">;</span>

Step 3. Declare the masking rules

<span class="o">=#</span> <span class="k">COMMENT</span> <span class="k">ON</span> <span class="k">COLUMN</span> <span class="n">people</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="n">name</span> <span class="k">IS</span> <span class="s1">'MASKED WITH FUNCTION anon.random_last_name()'</span><span class="p">;</span>

<span class="o">=#</span> <span class="k">COMMENT</span> <span class="k">ON</span> <span class="k">COLUMN</span> <span class="n">people</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="n">phone</span> <span class="k">IS</span> <span class="s1">'MASKED WITH FUNCTION anon.partial(phone,2,$$******$$,2)'</span><span class="p">;</span>

Step 4. Connect with the masked user

<span class="o">=#</span> <span class="err">\</span><span class="o">!</span> <span class="n">psql</span> <span class="n">test</span> <span class="o">-</span><span class="n">U</span> <span class="n">skynet</span> <span class="o">-</span><span class="k">c</span> <span class="s1">'SELECT * FROM people;'</span>
  <span class="n">id</span>  <span class="o">|</span>   <span class="n">name</span>   <span class="o">|</span>   <span class="n">phone</span>
<span class="c1">------+----------+------------</span>
 <span class="n">T800</span> <span class="o">|</span> <span class="n">Nunziata</span> <span class="o">|</span> <span class="mi">06</span><span class="o">******</span><span class="mi">11</span>

Of course this project is a work in progress. I need your feedback and ideas ! Let me know what you think of this tool, how it fits your needs and what features are missing.

Yahoo, Bucking Industry, Scans Emails for Data to Sell Advertisers

Web giant analyzes more than 200 million inboxes for clues about what products people might buy—a practice much of Silicon Valley has declared off-limits

The U.S. tech industry has largely declared it is off limits to scan emails for information to sell to advertisers. Yahoo AABA +0.24% still sees the practice as a potential gold mine.

Yahoo’s owner, the Oath unit of Verizon Communications Inc., VZ +0.20% has been pitching a service to advertisers that analyzes more than 200 million Yahoo Mail inboxes and the rich user data they contain, searching for clues about what products those users might buy, said people who have attended Oath’s presentations as well as current and former employees of the company.

Oath said the practice extends to AOL Mail, which it also owns. Together, they constitute the only major U.S. email provider that scans user inboxes for marketing purposes.

.. Yahoo’s practice began more than a decade ago and expanded over the years, said a person familiar with the matter. The company has increasingly looked for new ways to wring revenue out of its aging portfolio of web properties, which have stagnated in the era of smartphones and social networking.

.. When Verizon created Oath last year, it envisioned the new unit as a future advertising rival to Google and Facebook Inc. for its potential to marry data on Verizon’s vast pool of wireless subscribers with Yahoo’s highly trafficked online hubs, Verizon executives have said.

Oath owns dozens of popular websites, such as HuffPost and Yahoo Finance. It helps advertisers show messages on these sites as well as across the web, using a variety of ad-placement services.

 .. Email scanning has become one of the company’s most effective methods for improving ad targeting, said Doug Sharp
.. Mr. Sharp said that being served ads is part of the trade-off users make in exchange for free online services, and that Yahoo’s research shows they prefer ads that are relevant to them.
.. Oath promises to give advertisers an edge by identifying groups of users who have bought certain products or services based on the receipts, travel itineraries and promotions in their inboxes
.. Google said it stopped targeting ads based on Gmail data last year, saying it wanted users to “remain confident that Google will keep privacy and security paramount.”
.. Google already collects so much data from its search engine that it no longer needed to rely on email data
.. Oath’s email scanning appears to go a step further than Google’s former system, by creating interest profiles of users based on the data in their email and using that intelligence to target them elsewhere on the web.
.. Yahoo Mail users who receive frequent emails about driving for Lyft Inc. are sometimes placed into a “self-employed” audience, Mr. Sharp said. Some people who bought several plane tickets in the past year are labeled frequent travelers
.. Oath uses receipts in Yahoo Mail inboxes as proof that an ad campaign convinced a user to buy a product
.. Oath’s new privacy policy prevents users from filing class-action suits and instead requires them to pursue their grievances through arbitration or small-claims court.
..  In 2015, Amazon stopped including full itemized receipts in the emails it sends customers, partly because the company didn’t want Yahoo and others gathering that data for their own use

Facebook to Banks: Give Us Your Data, We’ll Give You Our Users

Facebook has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about customers as it seeks to boost user engagement

The social media giant has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including card transactions and checking account balances, as part of an effort to offer new services to users.

Facebook increasingly wants to be a platform where people buy and sell goods and services, besides connecting with friends. The company over the past year asked JPMorgan Chase JPM +0.33% & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. C +0.28% and U.S. BancorpUSB +0.43% to discuss potential offerings it could host for bank customers on Facebook Messenger, said people familiar with the matter.

Facebook has talked about a feature that would show its users their checking-account balances, the people said. It has also pitched fraud alerts, some of the people said.

.. Facebook has told banks that the additional customer information could be used to offer services that might entice users to spend more time on Messenger
.. Facebook said it wouldn’t use the bank data for ad-targeting purposes or share it with third parties.
.. Banks face pressure to build relationships with big online platforms, which reach billions of users and drive a growing share of commerce. They also are trying to reach more users digitally. Many struggle to gain traction in mobile payments.Yet banks are hesitant to hand too much control to third-parties platforms such as Facebook. They prefer to keep customers on their own websites and apps.

.. As part of the proposed deals, Facebook asked banks for information about where its users are shopping with their debit and credit cards outside of purchases they make using Facebook Messenger,

.. Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon.com Inc. also have asked banks to share data if they join with them, in order to provide basic banking services on applications such as Google Assistant and Alex
.. Bank executives are worried about the breadth of information being sought, even if it means not being available on certain platforms that their customers use. It is unclear whether bank customers would need to opt-in to the proposed Facebook services or what other privacy protections might be offered.
.. In recent years, Facebook has tried to transform Messenger into a hub for customer service and commerce,