Facebook investigates data firm Crimson Hexagon | Hacker News Reader

Facebook investigates data firm Crimson Hexagon

bbc.com

41 pointsjohn5816 comments

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Crimson Hexagon sounds like something from a "nefarious organization" random name generator.

It's a reference to cipher from a Borges story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel

Weird how Facebook keeps signing lucrative contracts with companies whose behavior then surprises and astounds them.

Facebook did not get any money for Cambridge Analytica's use of their API.

Facebook got money for the ads bought based on Cambridge Analytica's use of their API.

Correct.

"Weird how Facebook keeps signing lucrative contracts with companies whose behavior then surprises and astounds them."

Another way to put this: perhaps the morally and legally culpable behavior is. . . Facebook's.

There was no contract between Facebook and Crimson Hexagon regarding data. All data mined was publicly available to anyone.

Maybe instead of "investigating" data companies, just realize that data companies' sole purpose is to profit off violating user's privacy? I mean it says it right there in the name, no investigation required. If a company uses data for anything else than providing legitimate service to its user, it should be kicked off the platform.

In this case, it sounds like CH is using publicly available data only. That doesn't sound like a violation of user privacy, unless Facebook is misleading users about what portions of their information are publicly available.

Has Facebook investigated Peter Thiel's Palantir yet?

Good luck getting them to investigate a company owned by a major Facebook shareholder.

If you took Zuckerberg's word for it, you'd be left thinking Facebook had never heard of Palantir.

His word in an interview or PR bulletin is one thing. His word during testimony before Congress is another.

Out of the entire Zuckerberg / Congress sideshow,m I thought this part stands out as clearly lying to Congress. Not knowing the number of data points isn't out of line (10? 1000? 10000?), but there's no way he doesn't know the term "shadow profiles" in the context of tracking people without Facebook accounts.

> Lujan: Facebook has detailed profiles on people who have never signed up for Facebook, yes or no?

> Zuckerberg: Congressman, in general we collect data on people who have not signed up for Facebook for security purposes to prevent the kind of scraping you were just referring to [reverse searches based on public info like phone numbers].

> Lujan: So these are called shadow profiles, is that what they’ve been referred to by some?

> Zuckerberg: Congressman, I’m not, I’m not familiar with that.

> Lujan: I’ll refer to them as shadow profiles for today’s hearing. On average, how many data points does Facebook have on each Facebook user?

> Zuckerberg: I do not know off the top of my head.

I was specifically referring to his playing dumb about Palantir during that testimony.

I agree that his pretending to be unfamiliar with shadow profiles was one of the more egregious lies presented to congress, though.

"Facebook is investigating whether secretive firm Palantir had 'improper' access to user data" [1]

"Facebook ‘Looking Into’ Palantir’s Access to User Data Harvested by Cambridge Analytica" [2]

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/26/facebook-investigating-if-pa...

[2] https://gizmodo.com/facebook-looking-into-palantir-s-access-...

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