Posted on 03/25/2018 8:05:21 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Facebook scraped call, SMS data for years from Android phones. iPhones never allowed this.
When you think there's something lurking in the dark, you turn on the lights. And, now that Facebook's data harvesting, hoarding, and exploitation is being lit up by the internet version of the Bat Signal, more and more problems are being discovered. Most recently: That Facebook was scraping call and SMS logs of Android phone users.
And yes, this is what happens when neither your operating system nor your app care about your privacy.
From ArsTechnica:
"This past week, a New Zealand man was looking through the data Facebook had collected from him in an archive he had pulled down from the social networking site. While scanning the information Facebook had stored about his contacts, Dylan McKay discovered something distressing: Facebook also had about two years worth of phone call metadata from his Android phone, including names, phone numbers, and the length of each call made or received."
Others reported finding the same, and Ars was able to independently verify the data collection.
"If you granted permission to read contacts during Facebook's installation on Android a few versions ago—specifically before Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)—that permission also granted Facebook access to call and message logs by default. The permission structure was changed in the Android API in version 16. But Android applications could bypass this change if they were written to earlier versions of the API, so Facebook API could continue to gain access to call and SMS data by specifying an earlier Android SDK version. Google deprecated version 4.0 of the Android API in October 2017—the point at which the latest call metadata in Facebook user's data was found. Apple iOS has never allowed silent access to call data."
People began looking into the records because of the #DeleteFacebook movement, which followed the revelation that the Facebook data of 50 million users was abused by political data firm Cambridge Analytica.
It's unclear whether Facebook's tool to delete contact information would also delete the call and SMS logs. It's also unclear why this was happening, whether Facebook was intentionally scraping the information for exploitation, or whether it was an unforeseen side-effect of the contact sharing implementation. What is clear, though, is that repeated problems like this form a pattern and a pattern of problems makes negligence indistinguishable from malice.
More recent versions of Android should prevent this kind of data collection.
The salient point is, of course, that iOS never allowed it. This type of abuse was simply never possible if you used an iPhone. Apple built it that way on purpose and it protected its users from privacy violations like this before they ever happened.
Google and Facebook's business model allow them to give you a lot of great, convenient services for free. Apple's business model allows them to give you great privacy protections by default.
If you're concerned about any of this, consider how much, if at all, and in what way you want to continue using Facebook or Android. Everything is a tradeoff. Everything has advantages and disadvantages. But for many, those cost of free-as-in-your-data is becoming too high a price to pay.
Not entirely correct. Facebook collects your browsing history even if you aren't a Facebook user due to their agreements with third parties.
I tested that myself. I installed a barebones Windows and Linux VM on one of my machines. Browsed several websites then looked at the cookies stored on my computer. Guess what? A facebook cookie was on my computer despite NOT using those virtual machines to go to, or browse Facebook at all.
Facebook is everywhere, and that my friend, is the problem.
It used to be that a cookie stored on your computer from a specific website was ONLY readable by that website. Not anymore!
You use ad hominem attacks (refusing to use my actual Freepname), lies (the certification issue), and slurs (repeated insults to me) in your posts, and do not address the people who DO know more about the topic at hand with any respect, instead baiting and insulting them, intending to incite a flame war.
There was ZERO purpose in your non sequitur comment about Apple and Chinese workers in the ANDROID problem thread. . . except to attempt to incite a flame war. You, if you know as much as you claim, have to know that FoxConn is the largest contract assembler in the world and works for far more contractors than just Apple. . . but you wanted to gratuitously SLUR Apple in that post, for no other reason that spoiling the thread. That is the essence of a Thread Troll.
Ergo, garth, although I have engaged you in an attempt to educate you about the actual facts, you have never responded truthfully in kind. Instead at every turn responded as a TROLL. I will take the advice of multiple other Freepers and not just engage you again. You, as you said, apparently proudly, since you won't take the time to even read Apple's Security White Papers, not at all familiar with Apple's Security Systems. . . and yes, you have said it would be simple to bypass Apple's SEP, and you also said it would be easy to transfer Apple's 256 bit AES encrypted data to another computer for decrypting, showing YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKNG ABOUT, which you would if you had bothered to read what I wrote to you or Apple's White Papers.
Since you just continually repeat the same ignorant things about what you DO NOT KNOW ABOUT APPLE, and REFUSE TO LEARN, over and over. I'm done.
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