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Comment by stryk | Hacker News Reader

I think what you're asking for here you're never going to get. Nobody who works there currently will tell you because they'd get fired (and everyone has bills to pay). People who worked there in the past aren't going to tell you because #1) it's bad practice/bad op-sec/it's uncouth/whatever, #2) if they did it would negatively impact their future prospects and reputation. Nobody has any incentive to hand out definitive numbers or break it down into "X-dev-team #1 has access to X, Y, and Z"

At the end of the day, the data is there - they have it. Possession is arguably MORE than 9/10 of the law in this situation. They can access it whenever they want -- trivially if they are rogue or have no concern for keeping their job. but this is true of just about any huge company that employs a lot of people-- but they're not going to say they can. Why would they?

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> Nobody has any incentive to hand out definitive numbers or break it down into "X-dev-team #1 has access to X, Y, and Z"

For goodness's sake, please stop these straw-man arguments. I said this above once, but it seems I have to say it again: nobody ever asked for that level of detail. People have been struggling with far more basic issues. No current or ex-employee or intern has even come along to try to say something simple like "as far as I know, the average Facebook intern simply cannot access private user data regardless of any business reasons"; indeed, we've gotten anecdotes that that the opposite has actually happened. How you suddenly deduce that I'm looking for specific descriptions of what teams can access what data is just beyond me.

I suddenly deduced you were looking for specific descriptions a little ways up this comment tree where you asked the question: "As an ex-employee could you please also confirm whether or not the average employee is able to access user data, and what kinds of permissions (if any) this requires?"

> I suddenly deduced you were looking for specific descriptions a little ways up this comment tree where you asked the question: "As an ex-employee could you please also confirm whether or not the average employee is able to access user data, and what kinds of permissions (if any) this requires?"

That could be answered with something vague like "yes, this requires permissions from a small team of trusted individuals, which are granted only if the issue is severe/cannot otherwise get immediate attention/cannot be addressed by that team/etc., and it's never granted to most interns". No need for jumping to "X-dev-team #1 has access to X, Y, and Z".

Really? That was a pretty specific question, and you were looking for (and would accept) a vague answer? It doesn't matter anyway, again, they have no incentive to tell you that. vague or not vague. Nobody that knows the answer to that question is dumb enough to answer that question (i would hope).

Yes, really. And I don't see why it would be dumb to answer that question, but no need to go on that tangent. If people can't respond then they can live with that being interpreted however it is.

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