Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm not your Chang I'm Ben Fox urban I'm out for dang Facebook is in trouble again the company disclosed that user data being used was being used by Cambridge analytic a firm used by the Donald Trump campaign to help target voters and now the big question is how the data got transferred from this I guess in seemingly innocuous app to Cambridge analytic Alfred you're here to break this down what happened here yeah so you know those quizzes that you always take on Facebook that's like oh here's what your personality is all of those quizzes yes that's where all the data came from so when you sign up for those quizzes you're basically giving permission to these apps like they can see your profile they can see like your political affiliation they can see who your friends are and things like that it happens it that's something that goes across the board from all like third-party apps that are on Facebook and the idea is there they're an agreement with Facebook like Facebook allows them to exist on their website but in return they can't use like these this information for any like political purposes or anything right now you can still use for like advertising purposes which is why they're they make money and the app itself for the site was like this is your digital life yeah yeah yeah how long are they able to scrape your data for like a week or is it you do the yeah they pretty much have it and they usually sell it to advertisers but in this scenario they were able to keep it and then somehow it got to Cambridge analytical through through the the person that developed this app and they used it for political purposes when Facebook found out they told them hey you have to delete this and they said they did and then you know on Friday they made the announcement so actually they didn't and that's why we're banning them for this right so I mean look we had a bunch of coverage over the weekend I think the bigger question being asked is Facebook is taking pains to kind of blame this this app to trying to blame Cambridge analytic huh but ultimately I think a lot of the debate now is whether or not Facebook is to blame for this right I mean I would make the argument that they are the fact that you know it was designed in this way that you know there's really no check for them to see what they're using that day for yeah first place it's kind of like they're very optimistic about how people are using data like taken off of Facebook it's like okay just don't use this for any like political purposes or like they don't have any like safety checks or something like that like and it's just like do you really not think that like oh somebody wants to find out what like their personality color is like why would they need to know like my political affiliation traction data and that was a big thing right it wasn't just taking your data but all of your friends yes total 50 million users were affected yep all right so scary stuff next up bloomberg has reported that Apple is working on its own micro LED display now micro LED we saw an example of this at CES with Samsung with the wall that giant 146 inch foot foot television doesn't look so micro to me what makes it so that's the thing the tech the technology right now is it's really difficult to shrink lul that stuff it's actually why Samsung had this giant wall they couldn't quite get it down to phone size and so if Apple is able to actually use this technology and get it down to the size for a phone that's actually a huge breakthrough and it could mean that Apple would break its dependence from suppliers like LG and Samsung which already supply LCD screens as well as OLED screens to iPhones now from according to the report it's important that you don't hold your breath on this one yeah it's first expected to show up in wearables and unlikely to reach the iPhone in at least three to five years yeah there's a lot of challenges even ramp up production for the iPhone I mean would take years and and billions in investment having a facility to actually make this stuff mm-hmm yeah and it's also important to remember they did a huge investment in sapphire yep potential displays like the display covers and that never came to fruition so it's interesting to hear that they're doing this but there's no telling whether it's actually gonna happen alright for more of these stories check us out at CNET I'm Roger Cheng I'm Ben Fox bourbon I'm Alfred Aang thanks for listening and welcome back everybody I'm gonna go ahead and start fishing through the chat to get some more questions and comments to keep the conversation going in the meantime how it scary is this Facebook stuff every day every friggin day something else stop taking quizzes on Facebook stop using third party yet yeah exactly I think the problem is that everybody complained about those like BS flashlight apps then all they did was like scrape information yeah that's like apps though like from the in-store that's yeah yeah but that's like this is this is one thing it's a flashlight and then it's stealing all your information or it's using it regularly the the fact is is that those little quizzes like you you you maybe you do them for five minutes and the amount of information that they're able to generate I would say liken it to those flashlight apps it's totally unnecessary usage of what what it actually should be doing yeah it's and and it's hard to like just blame users for that's like say oh you shouldn't have used like that app and user and print I mean but no one reads a fine print I still think a lot of this fault like does fall on Facebook in the way that you know they they wrote like these rules that were like very optimistic about it in a way where is basically hey the optimistic was naive maybe I would say a little bit of both my religion like people people like don't use this for political purpose or don't like leaked this and then if it does get leaked we really don't have don't have a way to check if it does yeah yeah and it's just it's just I don't I don't understand this from Facebook's perspect I mean that's that's kind of like been their mo on a lot of things when their platform gets abused it's just we didn't think that it would be used this way I think that's mean you're seeing that that's the trend with Facebook and really with mostly companies it's like well just put out this service first and we'll figure out like what the consequences are later and then we'll fix them we'll patch them nobody will do anything bad with this oh this part of Silicon Valley culture right just go out and break things right that's sort of the like we need a disrupt we need to change things around put out these new services we'll figure out the consequence the problem is that these consequences are having massive ramifications but politics with just the way we live our lives right privacy I agree with you on that it's also important to recognize that Facebook it like that's how they make money is through advertising that's they generate a lot of bad dollars by Packaging our user data the data that's that people readily give over to Facebook and that in many ways isn't going to change because that's that's how then continued existed and that's the thing that's why Facebook has been very hesitant or actually just you know complete in complete denial to call it a breach they're basically saying this isn't a breach these people willingly gave up their information to like this third party that makes them sound worse yeah it's not a breach this they all did everything legal technically we allow all this stuff so yeah it's just it's interesting that you know in something like this what they're gonna get into like the details on is semantics here or where's like hey yeah that's not what it was to be fair that mean the was at the CTO Stamos they said that tweeted about this he did delete I think he realized later on well that just makes me sounds yeah their marketing officer still his tweets are still up something yeah yeah do we have questions we can keep going no let's go ahead and dive into the I want a first and foremost thank everybody for keeping it civil I know politics is a hard thing to discuss especially in the scenario like this we're just trying to convey information about the research that goes into some of the data right that NASA that this is something that was happening on Facebook which everybody almost everybody uses yeah so just thank you again for being adults and being mature this is it's sex here because its affiliated with Trump but it's not necessarily about the politics it's really about the fact that our data was being used nice thing about this though is that had Cambridge analytic Oh made that quiz on their own oh that like that yeah yeah none of it would have been like illegal or like stolen by any sense of it like the only reason why in this scenario it's like so scandalous I guess is because it was like from this like group that had nothing to do with Cambridge analytical and they just gave it to them yeah how do they put this quiz out on their own they could have easily just harvested this information themselves right problem that's how easy it is to just harvest the information and once it's in someone else's hands I think you know that I mean what would Alfred just describing that is the bigger problem yeah the fact that that could have happened that can still happen and that would be perfectly fine yeah like you wouldn't get all this like big buzz about it because like they wouldn't have been suspended there wouldn't have been like that many issues with it now to be fair and Facebook's offense they did close that loophole with the friends data yes so it was back in 2015 I believe they closed the loophole which when you will you agree to like give up your data like it's not taking your friends did you do a quiz and they I think my friends did but yes that's how they were able to get fifty million users just like it was maybe like whatever cuz I'll be rolling on like 27 207 people but because of their networks became 50 million scary right each one of those the mind that that was okay that that was considered to be fine right and luckily they did close I mean a lot of it is that they just I I mean its Facebook didn't consider the consequences they didn't consider the ramifications until someone decided to exploit it that's kind of that's the bigger issue there the exploitation I think is the most frightening part and what is a seemingly an innocent Avenue you know taking a silly quiz or something like that right thing is sacred anymore you know your grandma playing candy crush is probably compromised at this point so anyways we want to go ahead and touch on the fact that yes imagine Sagi is right they misused of the data it's not truly a data breach in this well it's a data breach in a like you said in a broader sense because the data was taken and given without permission like they broke rules and giving that data from whatever yeah up to Cambridge analytics I would classify it as a breach in the same way that like people classify like Edward Snowden's like data as a breach it wasn't like he worked for them and he like took it from them and like publicly as I make it more of a breach of trust no I think it is literally I think it's literally a breach right like it's not it's not like hackers were involved with it was just handed over but it wasn't intended for this other party yes I was listening on NPR this morning senator Amy Klobuchar a Democrat from Minnesota made this point to where she's saying like look if somebody breaks in your house whether they use like a crowbar to break in or if like the manager gives them a key right to fill a breach it's still like a breach of like somebody getting in like in this scenario like Facebook essentially gave camera general look at the key well yeah yeah yeah he essentially got a key in so it's not really it's it would still be considered a breach we have too much knowledge so if you do one of these quizzes can you remove it yes yes so I almost did a story on something like this before with the privacy policy stuff on like these quizzes you can opt out of it but it's like you know how like you have to opt out of like Equifax like write a letter to them saying like I choose now there's like an address and everything that was one of the ways that I saw it obviously like there wasn't like a option this is this was just for one quiz company that I know it might be different for all of them yeah that was before like you'd have to write a letter and like buy a Samantha B and put it on the envelope they know how to I don't even know where my life's always terrible alright let's go ahead and take some comments and questions from SH enjoy having or not having to FAA is not the same issue here is not the issue here users themselves gave profile details to the breach mechanics this is not a hack no there's not a hash banging on the side yeah you were definitely willing you willingly gave up your data and whether or not you actually knew how much data you were giving up is and her friends data so yeah two-factor authentication would have helped in this particular scenario because your dad was given to a party and the breach is it with you no you give me abrogated the breached came when the data was handed over to another firm that really had no business looking at that data so in this case is ignorance bliss no ignorant now we're not ignorant so more and then not take these quizzes one would wonder what it would look like maybe just stop using Facebook like like what a Facebook just did big disclaimers on this kind of stuff where they specific do though they do report you take the boys it says it says like you need to give permissions to this this this this and this I haven't done one of those quizzes in a while I did one for might like a story that I was looking at it tells you but like in the same way that when you download an app on like the Google Play Store like you you probably skip the program you just you just hit OK through it yeah that's true alright moving on from Michael Brown we got why do you think people still use products like Facebook despite constant controversial news headlines that's a great question I think cuz it's not controversial for them specifically like when they see all this stuff about it oh this fake news spread on this or like they put like this this like hoax like conspiracy theory on the top trending topics the idea is that's not what they're coming like you know like they might not see that on Facebook themselves anyway so why would we care about that and even if they did it's just ok cool like I guess that sucks but I I mean this doesn't affect how I use Facebook yeah first look for a lot of people it's still the best way to connect with their family and friends you know that's what I only ever wanted it for was to touch base with the people in my life I don't need it as a news resource I trust the companies that have credible back background credible information credibility period that have established themselves in the industry as news outlets now anybody can tack on news and put a blue checkmark next to their name I know yeah maybe you have an opinion and a platform and something that you can say and should be entitled to say does that mean you have any kind of weight to it not in the slightest I think people like when they see headlines like these assign a lot more personal responsibility on like people on Facebook rather than Facebook itself and the idea that you know if I see something like that's like fake news or a propaganda like campaign it was like why not just block it like yourself but I think you know the other side of this argument is you know Facebook as a company like this should be the ones watching after this and not like me having to do this you know Facebook and Twitter of both like come out and and said whenever people like call them out on this they've always said you know we have a great user base and they do a great job reporting it to us and we see it that way but I think I've always been against that in a sense of why don't they just have people watching out themselves and blocking it themselves so yeah I see like both sides of the argument I see why people continue to use it yeah and they're clearly able to respond to scams and and problems like that we're seeing that right now with the crypto community where crypto currencies they've just completely removed ads from Facebook and also Google the problem is there is that cryptocurrency companies and exchanges whether they're legitimate or not I mean there are a lot of scams but there are also a lot of legitimate companies that are trying to make that into a thing they're now all just getting like thrown out together so when they do make these blanket efforts sometimes those can cause problems too I just want to see more accountability there's entirely too easy on every platform out there to be invisible to be a ghost the fact that no one is held accountable for their actions is the damaging thing here I think right I mean I think we'd all like to see Zuckerberg and you know page or you know any one of these executives actually go up to Congress and talk to them rather than you know Heather yeah I've said this on previous like podcasts and every time a story like this happens again I think it's gonna come sooner and sooner but like the question of like will we live to see the day that like Facebook dies out look or goes the route of like MySpace and Yahoo where it doesn't die but it's there no one uses it right yeah every time a story like this happens I think more and more like yeah like that'll probably happen like pretty soon they're their business right now is doing phenomenally well and if anything they're continuing to get more users so I think that if that were to happen it would take a while the other big one I don't think I haven't like in the next like two three years but I think I will live to see a day where it does happen it would be interesting to see the other thing that a lot of times gets mentioned is the idea of regulation - is that our regulators going to start getting involved more to try to police what actually goes on I think we're never gonna see that right we're seeing that now there's increased interest with regulators government whether it's here whether to the EU to start cracking down these companies right they've kind of lost their their shine a bit as darlings so folks just need to start doing their homework stop treating Facebook as a news resource the water-cooler gossip you get at work isn't news it's gossip we only have a few minutes left so let's get through a couple of really good questions from Channing che is Facebook less safe than other social media or is it just targeted more I don't see how not using Facebook will help that very much that's a great question just like people say oh well I got a Mac so I can't get a virus no they just didn't make as many viruses from X because there were more PCs right I think it's kind of falling along the same lines yeah I mean look Twitter's just as bad not just Facebook I mean yeah but there's less data on you on Twitter like it doesn't have like your likes on but in terms of like influences whether you know the that's that's why Russia targeted Twitter as well right yeah so the me I feel like it's just as toxic environment I don't know what I mean I think in this scenario though of like data mining and like for political campaign purposes right I think Facebook is a lot like more potent than like Twitter okay yeah like so much of your profile oh you should all jump on snapchat yeah yeah actually yes any any social media that really doesn't like last forever is it yeah it's actually by definition like much safer yeah that's that's what a lot of you know like Gen Z like kids are doing now that's why they're moving on from like Facebook that's why they have like finster grams where it's like you don't know that's really them right or anything like that and like snapchat where like things don't last that long we should go back to myspace there's all these articles like thank you might now about like oh snapchat is dying and like snapchat is irrelevant but it's like yeah to like you and your friends like people who write these articles sure but like among like young kids like snapchat is still like the go to like app like when they had the the school walkout stuff yeah all of that activity on social media was going on on snapchat like if you look like the heatmap stuff for life mapped there was nothing on that on like Instagram stories and like people talk about Instagram stories like killing snapchat like that's not true at all for a specific generation yeah yes that's very interesting because I think I agree with you that I do see those headlines whereas just talking about snapchats irrelevance so yeah but yeah that definitely provides a useful answer yeah and I think what would be a better social media it's the ones that delete your information after why don't just keep it for decades yeah I think like younger generations are recognizing that and they don't want to be a part of this you know like massive like collection network or anything like that and it's just yeah the kids are cool it's none of the kids man mmm all right we are just at the end of it and I just kind of like this this closing thought as phrased by Mike Shaw and shared by several people in the chat the root of the problem is our data Google Facebook third-party apps your grocery store loyalty card they're all tracking you maybe we need better laws so we can have control over our own data anything that kind of goes without saying how the hell we're going to accomplish this there's just a well go ahead sorry well yeah I was gonna say the EU has been doing that with gdpr it's not off the top of my head what it stands for right now I'm very sorry about that but the crux of it is more about you know better data privacy where the companies have to disclose breaches within like a shorter time period you're like they're and they're fine too like heavily if they don't ya the EU has already like set forward like laws on that it's like going into action now what all right yeah no good points all around a great another great comment from Michigan men what happens when those small social media companies fail in liquid L your data gets sold off anyways these are all things that we're going to have to constantly think of there's just a great conversation drumming up now we never got back to the Apple it's fine this means this important topic to talk it was and thank you everybody that was a very good mature interesting discussion yeah it was nice to not see you go down the typical political rabbit hole so that's two as always to the 359 listeners and yeah go we gotta go sorry if you liked anything you saw or heard here chicks on SEANET our podcast is available in iTunes tune in stitcher feedburner google play music and games on go I'm Alfred Inge that's great take care of you see you tomorrow bye