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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the who-do-you-trust dept.

Facebook's mobile app is promoting a VPN service from a company that it acquired in 2013. The hard-to-find privacy policy and non-disclosure of Facebook's ownership are setting off alarm bells:

Facebook is now offering some mobile app users a wireless-networking app without first disclosing that it's owned by Facebook, or that it collects information for the social networking company.

The app, Onavo Protect, provides users with a virtual private network, or VPN. Typically, a VPN cloaks the user's identity and adds other security features, making it a more secure way to get online, particularly when using public Wi-Fi networks.

Yet the Onavo app also tracks data that it shares with Facebook and others, "including the applications installed on your device, your use of those applications, the websites you visit and the amount of data you use," according to its own privacy policies.

Also at TechCrunch and Gizmodo.


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  • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:04PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:04PM (#637169)

    https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=24061&page=1&cid=637129#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]

    If commentator is MikeeUSA then commentator is getting what commentator wanted (Bruce Perens won). Why should commentator "go die"?

    MikeeUSA apparently told Brad Spengler "I am going to sue you on this issue".... some time latter Brad then dragged himself into court on the issue... Why would a presumed MikeeUSA be so unhappy with this as to "go die"? Mr Spengler is now looking at 600k in fees stemming ultimately from Mr Spengler's violation of the linux source license (which is what gave Mr Spengler the "bad publicity" he decided to sue for... his own actions (MikeeUSA just pointed them out to seemingly anyone he could, with correct legal analysis to cock the gun/ prepare the battlefield)).

    If commentator is MikeeUSA why should he then kill himself?
    How did this MikeeUSA come up with a correct legal analysis to begin with. Everyone claimed he was "not a lawyer".
    Was everyone, all those non-attorneys, correct? Or do they not know what they do not know?

    • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:12PM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:12PM (#637176)

      Anyone who is not a feminist is not a lawyer.
      Anyone who is infavor of female children being married to men (As allowed in Devarim chapter 22, verse 28, hebrew) is not a lawyer.

      Maaallleeessss who like girls are dumb critens; like sea sponges. They do not have the ability to program let alone become attorneys!
      Infact, really, only women are suited for intellectually challenging tasks.
      MMAAALLLELSSSSS are best for grunt work and being tortured to death in prisons and chopped to pieces in wars.

      Smart men oppose their own interests!

      • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:13PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:13PM (#637177)

        dumb fuck

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @07:36AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @07:36AM (#637502)

          Who's dumb and how so?

          Anyone who disagrees with your pro-woman american values?

      • (Score: 2, Offtopic) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 13 2018, @09:46PM (4 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @09:46PM (#637280) Journal

        Hey, you Y-chromosome-carriers are the ones who start the wars and run the prisons. No one hurts men like other men, Kvaratskhelia.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:59PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:59PM (#637346)

          No one hurts men like women hurt men, either.

          • (Score: 2, Offtopic) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 14 2018, @03:37AM

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday February 14 2018, @03:37AM (#637433) Journal

            Yeah, men do it better. Name me the last time a woman started a war, aside from Boudicca.

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @07:30AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @07:30AM (#637500)

          White men are golems of the white woman.
          They neither know, nor care, what they do.
          As long as it benifits "muh white wuman"

          • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 14 2018, @08:47PM

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday February 14 2018, @08:47PM (#637866) Journal

            I don't have a golem :( Where did all the other white women go to get theirs? Did I miss it when they were handing out golems or something? Or do I need to capture a guy and, like, carve instructions onto his forehead or something?

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:34PM (#637205)

      Any time this stuff bugs me I just try and remember that the life of someone who spends their time doing this must be even worse than the crap they shitpost. Or they are 14 year old kids and all we can do is try and pray their cray away.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by lgsoynews on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:09PM (5 children)

    by lgsoynews (1235) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:09PM (#637173)

    First there was the VPN as in Virtual Private Network.

    Then they invented the "Virtual" Private Network, where privacy features really are of the virtual kind.

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:14PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:14PM (#637178)

      A Virtual-Privacy Network if you will.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:55PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:55PM (#637193)

        Virtually private. Close, but no cigar.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:59PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:59PM (#637194)

        I think Virtual "Private" Network fits a little better. It's "private." We "promise" not to sell your data to our corporate "partners." Really. You can "trust" us.

        Also, I "can't" think of any way to abuse this such that it makes Facebook have a Very Bad Day. There are certain types of data they don't want seemingly being download/uploaded over their IP space. I also "can't" think of any way to fully anonymize the back-end of the VPN such that it's infeasible to trace who is actually pushing the data over Facebook's connection.

        Nope. "Can't" think of any way to do that at all. It's "completely" "impossible."

        Facebook has some very "smart" people working for them if they think this is a good idea that won't backfire. Someone out there will do it for the lulz if for no other reason.

    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:41PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:41PM (#637238) Journal

      Violating Privacy Network

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday February 16 2018, @07:03AM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday February 16 2018, @07:03AM (#638720) Homepage
      But a VPN was never supposed to be this.
      A VPN was for including trusted hosts onto a mutually trusted local network. Unsniffably (apart from traffic shaping.)

      These "VPN" services include none of the trust relationships. They're simply proxies, nothing more.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:16PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:16PM (#637200)

    If you have a Facebook account, you fail.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:11PM (1 child)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:11PM (#637210) Journal

      I don't personally use Facebook. But, I find the idea that our internet-points are so much more worthy than their internet-points to be highly annoying.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @12:44AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @12:44AM (#637375)

        I don't personally use Facebook. But I totally agree that, typically, dumber people use Facebook and smarter people don't.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DutchUncle on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:32PM

      by DutchUncle (5370) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:32PM (#637236)

      Problem is, a choral group and a gaming club I belong to use it as their collective note-boards, as does a band I like; and the town posts schedules and the library calendar. It *is* annoying that their entire business model is trying to make information hard-to-get and restricted, while they vacuum up all of the information about their users that they can get.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:52PM (#637243)

      2 edgeee 4 mee

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:43PM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:43PM (#637207)

    We do business with Communist China, learn to tolerate their ways, and then normalize this behavior for ourselves (the USA).
    I don't blame the Chinese. I blame us.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:24PM (1 child)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:24PM (#637231) Journal

      Decades ago when I was in college, an older person told me that one day Russia would take over our country without firing a single shot.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Wednesday February 14 2018, @08:49AM

        by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 14 2018, @08:49AM (#637521) Journal

        I've heard similar from several sources. One was told to me by someone who had a major argument in the 1950s during college with an avowed Communist and fan of the Soviet Union. The Communist bragged that by playing the long game, they'd be able to grind away at the right end of the political spectrum in the US until it was suitable for their goals. The idea was to eventually run a far right candidate that would in reality tick all their check boxes. I suppose that Russia, despite no longer being even remotely communist any more has continued with such a programs if it was a real thing.

        Even in the 1980s and 1990s there were secretive Communist operatives hanging around some areas and fishing around in certain groups looking for people to recruit. Nothing like the Finnish Taistolaistet movement in scope and power, but no less pernicious. Secretive as fsck though. I expect they're still around and still doing what they can to cause harm and destruction for the sake of causing harm and destruction. But those are an anachronism as what's left of the Soviet empire has mostly collapsed and the remnants have come to espouse neo-liberal capitalism, which is a different disease, if there is enough structure remaining to do that.

        --
        Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:35PM (5 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:35PM (#637237)

      > We do business with Communist China, learn to tolerate their ways

      Right. It's totally the Chinese who have taught Americans to create profit-making enterprises at the expense of their fellow citizens' privacy, safety, or health.

      What time should I pencil in for your bridge tour? Don't wait too long, investment opportunity of a lifetime!

      • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday February 13 2018, @09:25PM

        by Nerdfest (80) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @09:25PM (#637271)

        In China, they have far less online privacy, so they've learned to create profit-making enterprises at the expense of their fellow citizen's health. The US has some catching up to do. The oil drilling and opiate sales enterprises have some skills, but most others need to try harder.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @10:36PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @10:36PM (#637311)

        I know it sounds that way, but I didn't mean to say we LEARNED IT from the Chinese, but rather that once you accept as OK doing business with the Chinese commie party and helping them implement their oppressive spying regime, it desensitizes you to the fact that it is WRONG. It's just a small time delay to then implementing it AT HOME. Everybody does it, WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:44PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:44PM (#637337)

          I know it sounds that way, but I didn't mean to say we LEARNED IT from the Chinese Americans, but rather that once you accept as OK doing business with the Chinese commie American Nazi party and helping them implement their oppressive spying regime, it desensitizes you to the fact that it is WRONG. It's just a small time delay to then implementing it AT HOME. Everybody does it, WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?

          Altered - makes as much sense.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @02:53PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @02:53PM (#637604)

            Whatever man.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @04:23PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @04:23PM (#637645)

              well, at least they had their opiate wars over a 100 years ago for us to learn the mistakes from.

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