Fluffeh writes:
"Facebook is drawing loads of attention that it probably doesn't want. Both the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy have filed FTC complaints. They bring up that WhatsApp has always stated that it wants nothing to do with customer data. Comments like "We have not, we do not, and we will not ever sell your personal information to anyone. Period. End of story," from founder Jan Koum back in 2009 bring that home quite strongly. Facebook on the other hand... well... you know... we all know.
Today's complaint asks that the FTC figure out whether the acquisition will be in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits "deceptive trade practices," a category that can include companies that don't follow their published privacy policies. If WhatsApp started collecting and giving data to Facebook without updating its privacy policy, that could certainly qualify as a violation. Since the transaction hasn't yet been cleared, there is still time. Likewise, promising no changes now doesn't mean WhatsApp can't shift its position on customer data to clear itself for handing the information over to Facebook later."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by WizardFusion on Friday March 07 2014, @09:05AM
This will be interesting to see. I used WhatsApp a lot over the last year and half, mostly talking to friends in different countries.
I am in the UK, and on my current mobile phone plan I get about 2000 free text messages a month, of which I use about 5 or 6 at most. All my communication is via WhatsApp, and since the takeover talk I started looking at alternatives, I am now 'migrating' to Telegram.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Friday March 07 2014, @09:42AM
Alexa shows a huge temporary jump in traffic to WhatsApp.com after the announcement [alexa.com] but an even larger percentage jump, though also decreasing now, for Telegram.org [alexa.com] if I'm reading the graphs right.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by bopal on Friday March 07 2014, @11:34AM
Yup. Most of my friends migrated to either Telegram or Threema. Telegram seems really cool, especially since the guys lay out the details of their encryption. It got under heavy fire, but they seem reasonable enough to discuss it [unhandledexpression.com].
Now, the only drawback I can come up as a security layman is that I don't know what happens with the messages on the server. Can they be stored and later decrypted?
(Score: 2) by girlwhowaspluggedout on Friday March 07 2014, @03:02PM
Soylent is the best disinfectant.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday March 07 2014, @07:58PM
The first thing you will read in any book on cryptology is Never Roll Your Own.
This advice is not JUST because its so hard to audit new methods, but because history has shown that the vast majority get it wrong, or come up with something weaker than the published standards in the mistaken believe that theirs is better.
Telegram's biggest problem is defending their choices without the PHDs behind them and without proofs of concept.
End to end encryption really is the only safe way, and Telegram only does that for their so called "secret chats" feature. There is really no reason not to do that will all messages, and use public+private key encryption for all content.
They do this already for their private chats feature, so why not do it always?
They claim that the the processing load on mobile devices it too high, but in reality mobile devices have nothing better to do, and a whole lot of time in which to do it.
In the end, Telegram ended up taking the criticism to heart, revised at least some of the flaws and have a much better platform for the effort.
It may not yet be fool-proof but its way better than whatsapp, Googletalk/Hangouts, and sets the minimal standard for messaging apps going forward.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by dublet on Friday March 07 2014, @10:57AM
How long would it be before they'd link your account with facebook? And how long after that would it take for it to essentially become Facebook Messaging?
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by omoc on Friday March 07 2014, @04:31PM
First thing I did after the announcement, disable autoupdate, disable synchronization, set status message what new messenger I use now. My contacts are slowly migrating but I'm very confident I can delete whatsapp within the next weeks.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday March 07 2014, @09:32AM
- lead.
My understanding is that if one purchases a company outright, then it's not a violation of any privacy policy to obtain all of the records from the company one purchased.
Consider, if you will, the DICE Holding's main line of work is operating a job board and resume bank whose actual paying customers are headhunters. You and I and the hiring managers aren't DICE Holdings customers, you and are and the hiring managers are DICE Holdings product, for sale to the headhunters.
Now DICE knows who gets moderated for what, it knows all of your homepages, quite commonly sigs link directly to one's resume, and it has all of our emails for password resets, which quite commonly are private emails.
BEHOLD:
Kids These Days: Why DICE Holdings Won't Listen
It needs lots of TLC but is substantially complete. I'll be submitting it here at Soylent when I'm satisfied that it's completely copacetic.
As for WhatsApp getting nineteen billion as well as Instagram getting a billion despite having nine employees:
My friend Thomas Leavitt [880itservices.com] was one of the two cofounders of Web Communications, later Webcom, along with Chris Schefler. WebCom was the world's first hosting service.
Chris retired to a life of leisure when they sold to Verio, Thomas became a serial entrepreneur, lost every penny of it yet doesn't seem to care, perhaps because he was a theology major in school.
Verio proceeded to shut WebCom down, I mean they cut everything off, most inbound URLs 404 or maybe just redirect to Verio's homepage. Of all the batshit crazy things they sold the webcom.com domain name, this despite webcom.com having hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of organic links, because WebCom started during the HTTP 1.0 days, long before HTTP 1.1 saw the lot of day, so for example my website for a little while was http://www.webcom.com/~wordservices [webcom.com] With HTTP 1.0 and tens of thousands of customers, it was just not possible for webcom's customers to have their own domains, there weren't enough IPs for that.
I confidently predict Facebook will ultimately do the same both to whatsapp.com and instagram.com, perhaps after Icahn fires Zuckerg in a proxy battle so he can earn a little coin by recycling all the copper in Facebook's data centers.
That's what happened to MySpace, at one time Alexa Rank 1, until some manner of rich goat fucker got wind of MySpace, purchased it, wiped his ass on his stock certificate then neglected to flush.
It's going to take a little while to prove myself correct, but I've been in business for decades, I've had lots of vested stock options, I actually exercised my options once, now I live in desperate poverty and was until recently homeless in oldtown Portland. I mean like sleeping in the Portland Rescue Mission when I was lucky enough to win the shelter lottery.
So I mentioned to a similarly homeless acquaintance that I clearly understood how I could gross a hundred grand this calender year, a million next year, ten million a year five years from now.
More or less my "Get Rich Quick Scheme" consists of nothing other than "Watch and Learn".
For example, Watch DICE Holdings purchase /. and sourceforge outright, datamine both sites, sell the copper in their data centers to the recycling company, then 404 every last URL.
I mean Yahoo even did that with both geocities and overture.
"Learn" consists of understanding why MySpace totally cratered, DICE Holdings will to real soon now, Facebook will when Carl Icahn rounds up enough proxies to unseat Facebooks board.
It is commonly reported that many rich people lost more fortunes than they ever make, yet strangely seem not to care - "Money is just how they keep the score" after all. Thomas Leavitt is like that. I am too.
I at one time was a Senior Engineer at Apple, but I walked because I was bored. My next gig my options would have paid off handsomely but I struck out with the lady I was pursuing at the time so I quit so I could move from berkeley back to santa cruz.
When I applied for my mortgage on a four bedroom house with an oversized two car garage on 1.7 acres of heavily wooded land, I am absolutely serious I interviewed in the private office of the banks vice president when she asked what precisely software consultants did for a living. More or less I waved my laptop case in her face then said I could earn more money than she could from a fucking payphone booth provided I used an acoustic-coupled dialup modem.
She looked all pissed off, New Englanders are not supposed to work out of payphone booths but all she asked me for in the way of documentation was for hardcopies of my resume and my homepage.
At the time I was doing all my web design so my homepage in particular looked like something the cat dragged in.
Even so I was approved for the loan then made out like a bandit when I sold the house a few years later.
My point in all this is that I may be busted now but I'm down with that, I'll get rich next year or so.
If I'm down and out again ten years from now then I'll make ten billion five years after that.
I don't want to say quite yet what my Get Rich Quick Plan is, but I will say it is quite soundly based on data-driven marketing, I am an experimental physicist, with my specialties being Computational Physics - that is, Numerical Analysis, more commonly known as Computer Modeling - as well as data analysis.
All around me I see so many people doing so many stupid thing, like when I was four years old and my family lived on-base at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California, some cluebot managed to sink the USS Gittaro in the Napa River because he didn't Read The Fine Manual.
It is only because the staff of a nuclear submarine shipyard are hip to industrial safety that no one was killed. I mean Navy seamen were using fire axes to cut through the temporary power cables that otherwise would prevent the Gitarro's pressure bulkhead hatches from closing.
For that joker not to have RTFM set the American people back thirty million 1968 Samoleons and took out one of our subs at the height of the Vietnam War.
Carl Icahn is just like that Mare Island Naval Shipyard joker.
So another way of illustrating my personal "Watch and Learn" is that when someone sinks a nuclear attack submarine, I puzzle over the strange question of what I could do different, were I myself to be tasked with perfoming some manner of test that requires my sub to be perfectly level.
He new how to let ballast in, you see, he did not know how to blow the ballast and the front sonar watch was open to the air to enable mainenance.
I should get some sleep I've been all day trolling this taco stand.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by linsane on Friday March 07 2014, @09:56AM
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/copacetic [wiktionary.org]
Its copacetic enough for me at the moment here!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Blackmoore on Saturday March 08 2014, @12:44AM
Ncommander - can we get a moderation score of -2 "bat shit crazy?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gallondr00nk on Friday March 07 2014, @09:38AM
We never sell your data, but it doesn't mean we can't donate it to our corporate partners!
So far WhatsApp seem to have a reasonable privacy policy, though I imagine that it won't last five minutes once the takeover goes through. This is the downside to using a closed, centralised service. However decent its principles are, it's always at risk of being devoured by something larger.
Sigh.. if only people used XMPP..
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Friday March 07 2014, @09:43AM
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 4, Informative) by TheRaven on Friday March 07 2014, @12:30PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Lagg on Friday March 07 2014, @09:41AM
It could mean that. But is there any technical evidence that it does not send such things to WhatsApp's servers? Anyone been poking around packet captures? That's the only way to be sure. Otherwise that point is moot, and even if packets were looked at there would be constant apprehension at updating it since it might just start sending that data. It seems like an interesting project to capture packets on my router machine to check this stuff out, but I don't really want to dirty my phone by installing it. If anyone else were to volunteer I can guarantee you'd generate a lot of interest. Be sure to send a submission to SN too.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 5, Interesting) by linsane on Friday March 07 2014, @10:05AM
Facebook will start to slide, not because of NSA type privacy issues but Parental privacy issues (I don't want my mom to see how wasted I got)
http://www.wired.com/business/2013/12/facebook-tee ns-2/ [wired.com]
I believe it is already happening, hence the rise of Whatsapp + many others. As long as FB can keep this purchase "unhooked" from search / intel gathering by parents & friends it stands a chance imho, however if 'Like' buttons start popping up in WA or some kind of integration happens then its going to end up in the AOL/Geocities pile as much commentary has taken place on
(Score: 1) by dj245 on Friday March 07 2014, @03:48PM
Facebook will start to slide, not because of NSA type privacy issues but Parental privacy issues (I don't want my mom to see how wasted I got)
Facebook has this kind of privacy controls. They are tedious to use however. Google+ does it much better IMO but nobody I know uses Google+ so it is kind of a moot point.
(Score: 2) by linsane on Saturday March 08 2014, @11:07AM
It's been 3 years since I last logged in, I'd I recall the actual trigger for me was them changing privacy configuration settings and details without me knowing. interesting to hear how it is setup Nye...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by prospectacle on Friday March 07 2014, @12:25PM
Why would a group of shareholders who are strangers to their customers (and each other), forfeit a cent of profit to protect the rights, interests or well-being of those customers?
To put it another way, why did most of the owners buy those shares in the first place?
If it becomes well known, and damages the company's reputation in a way that reduces their profits, they might change their behaviour. If it's illegal, and they think the company will get caught, they might refrain.
Otherwise, what are the odds that activist shareholders with strong objections to what the company is doing, will own more equity than those who are fine with where their dividends come from, or didn't bother looking into it?
If a public company sells food that's cleaner and safer than is needed to maximise their profits, then it's because they're required by law. If they pay more than they need to in order to convince an employee to stay (e.g. a minimum wage, sick leave), it's because they're required by law.
If they ever, one day, sacrifice some profit to protect your privacy, reputation, or security, it will be because they're required by law.
Some privately funded think tanks want you to think that government is the enemy, but they are your only defense against large, non-government organisations.
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
(Score: 5, Interesting) by TheRaven on Friday March 07 2014, @12:38PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 07 2014, @12:50PM
Very interesting, but to my thinking an example of an "exception that proves the rule".
At least in the USA, corporate boards and managers of publicly-traded companies are legally bound to their fiduciary duty to shareholders. This trumps any and all other social or ethical concerns.
Since the advent of the Chicago School MBA management and Day Trader speculation cultures, this means that short-term equity gains (stock price rise and quarterly earnings)are all that matter. Ever.
Anything else is guaranteed to bring forth a flood of shareholder lawsuits.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bucc5062 on Friday March 07 2014, @02:04PM
Time and time again people use this notion that CEOs or Boards are required, by law to maximize profits as justification for their actions. There is no law. When you remove that from the equation it paints a picture that CEOs and Boards are acting more in their own self interest then in the Company as a whole. When you look back at the revolving door for CEOs it should be clear these people have little interest in helping stock holders other then in how it helps them.
So here we have CEOs, BODs reaping in the lucre supposedly for their stockholders (though over time these business practives have dropped overall growth benefit by 1%) and what is the one result:
So in maximizing profit, they do more harm to the company in the long term, but that is not their concern for as stated above, they rarely look beyond a few months. Here then is another concern from this maxim, impact on the work force. granted this is speculative, but I can see how it fits.
Diminishing wages or flat wage growth while top executives increase the spread in pay scales can have a effect on a workers view of the company and their contribution. Back when I worked for a company that provided bonuses connected to profit, I saw employees (including myself) really wanted to help make the company better. Later working for a company that cut wages, cut benefits, cut holidays while still making decent profits....maybe not so much extra effort.
The idea that maximizing corporate profits was a good thing for the company was selling them a bridge in a desert. Good for the seller, bad for the buyer. Southwest Airlines mission statement [southwest.com] may start with Customer Satisfaction, but does so by right away focusing on employees; without happy employees, you wont have happy customers. In the worst times right after 9/11, SW was still able to turn a profit. Sure there were other factors, but in part it was because the CEO got employees to be a part of the solution. I'll end with this quote, but the thought that maximizing profits is law is not true and it is an idea that hurts, not helps society which does not help shareholders.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by prospectacle on Friday March 07 2014, @01:31PM
That sounds promising. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I hope things like this catch on.
Stop reading now to ignore some pedantic arguments on my part, which are to follow.
It looks like these Community Interest Companies (once registered) are required by law to operate for the benefit of the community at the expense of profits.
I believe that many limited liability companies are started with noble intentions. But you can't trust them because as the company grows bigger, and the shareholders more numerous, it tends in the direction I described earlier. This is just how a large mob of anonymous shareholders (who aren't necessarily workers or customers of that company) is going to behave. It makes perfect sense that they behave this way, given the nature of the limited liability company.
Legal instruments like the CIC are a way to protect the initial, idealistic owners, from the behaviour of future shareholders.
from http://www.companylawclub.co.uk/topics/community_i nterest_companies_cic.shtm [companylawclub.co.uk]
"However, the dividends which may be paid on shares are subject to a dividend cap. The current cap is limited to 35% of the company's profits and the return on each share cannot be more than 5% above Bank of England base rate."
If a company sequesters the majority of its profits, every year, and reinvests them for the well-being of the community, it's because they're required by law.
Anyway it's a good idea and I hope more countries experiment with these alternative corporation models, which force profit to co-exist with other kinds of dividend, in a measurable way.
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheloniousToady on Friday March 07 2014, @01:37PM
If I owned Facebook stock (don't and never will), and FTC action ultimately blocked the WhatsApp deal, I'd jump for joy. Since Zuckerberg has full control of Facebook - and therefore can make any deal he likes, no matter how bad - only an external government action like this can stop him. Of course, preserving stockholder value by stopping a bad deal has nothing to do with the FTC complaint, but it could become a happy accidental side effect.
That said, there is a tie-in between the two. WhatsApp, as I understand it, was founded on principles that are antithetical to Facebook, and are actually quite hard to monetize. Meanwhile, Facebook offers an outrageous amount of money for something that can't be monetized unless it becomes Facebook-like. From a business point of view, it's like paying the silk-purse price for a sow's ear with the hope that you can convert the sow's ear into a silk purse. Doesn't make any sense. An undertone of the FTC complaint is that WhatsApp is not valuable as a business unless it becomes something that it has expressly promised it will never be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 07 2014, @09:14PM
Zuckerburg could have bought Sony for $18b. They paid for a startup what it would have cost (hand waving some specifics) to buy a fully mature huge corporation.
Remember the old Family Guy bit (back in its prime) when Peter was offered a choice between a boat and a mystery box.
There could be anything in that box, it could even be a boat! You know how much I've always wanted one of those!