April 2024 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Facebook secretly spied on Snapchat usage to confuse advertisers, court docs say
by 380° April 2, 2024

April 2, 2024

Buongiorno, executive summary: «No security person is ever comfortable with this, no matter what consent we get from the general public. The general public just doesn't know how this stuff works.» https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/facebook-secretly-spied-on-snap… «Facebook secretly spied on Snapchat usage to confuse advertisers, court docs say» --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [Ashley Belanger] - Mar 27, 2024 8:25 pm UTC Unsealed court documents have revealed more details about a secret Facebook project initially called "Ghostbusters," designed to sneakily access encrypted Snapchat usage data to give Facebook a leg up on its rival, just when Snapchat was experiencing rapid growth in 2016. The documents were filed in a class-action lawsuit from consumers and advertisers, accusing Meta of anticompetitive behavior that blocks rivals from competing in the social media ads market. "Whenever someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer is usually that because their traffic is encrypted, we have no analytics about them," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (who has since rebranded his company as Meta) [wrote] in a 2016 email to Javier Olivan. [...] At the time, Olivan was Facebook's head of growth, but now he's Meta's chief operating officer. He responded to Zuckerberg's email saying that he would have the team from Onavo—a [controversial traffic-analysis app] acquired by Facebook in 2013—look into it. [...] What the Onavo team eventually came up with was a project internally known as "Ghostbusters," an obvious reference to Snapchat's logo featuring a white ghost. Later, as the project grew to include other Facebook rivals, including YouTube and Amazon, the project was called the "In-App Action Panel" (IAAP). [...] In an email to Olivan, the Onavo team described the "technical solution" devised to help Zuckerberg figure out how to get reliable analytics about Snapchat users. It worked by "develop[ing] ‘kits' that can be installed on iOS and Android that intercept traffic for specific sub-domains, allowing us to read what would otherwise be encrypted traffic so we can measure in-app usage,” the Onavo team [said]. Olivan was told that these so-called "kits" used a "man-in-the-middle" attack typically employed by hackers to secretly intercept data passed between two parties. Users were recruited by third parties who distributed the kits "under their own branding" so that they wouldn't connect the kits to Onavo unless they used a specialized tool like Wireshark to analyze the kits. TechCrunch [reported] in 2019 that sometimes teens were paid to install these kits. After that report, Facebook promptly shut down the project. This "man-in-the-middle" tactic, consumers and advertisers suing Meta have alleged, "was not merely anticompetitive, but criminal," seemingly violating the Wiretap Act. It was used to snoop on Snapchat starting in 2016, on YouTube from 2017 to 2018, and on Amazon in 2018, relying on creating "fake digital certificates to impersonate trusted Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon analytics servers to redirect and decrypt secure traffic from those apps for Facebook's strategic analysis." Ars could not reach Snapchat, Google, or Amazon for comment. [wrote] <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour…> [controversial traffic-analysis app] <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/02/facebook-pulls-its-privacy-inva…> [noted] <https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/12/12/instagram-stories-already-generat…> [said] <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour…> [reported] <https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/%20history%E2%86%9…> Facebook allegedly sought to confuse advertisers ───────────────────────────────────────────────── Not everyone at Facebook supported the IAAP program. "The company's highest-level engineering executives thought the IAAP Program was a legal, technical, and security nightmare," another [court document] said. Pedro Canahuati, then-head of security engineering, warned that incentivizing users to install the kits did not necessarily mean that users understood what they were consenting to. “I can't think of a good argument for why this is okay," Canahuati said. "No security person is ever comfortable with this, no matter what consent we get from the general public. The general public just doesn't know how this stuff works.” Mike Schroepfer, then-chief technology officer, argued that Facebook wouldn't want rivals to employ a similar program analyzing their encrypted user data. "If we ever found out that someone had figured out a way to break encryption on [WhatsApp] we would be really upset," Schroepfer said. [...] [According to Business Insider], advertisers suing said that Meta never disclosed its use of Onavo "kits" to "intercept rivals' analytics traffic." This is seemingly relevant to their case alleging anticompetitive behavior in the social media ads market, because Facebook's conduct, allegedly breaking wiretapping laws, afforded Facebook an opportunity to raise its ad rates "beyond what it could have charged in a competitive market." Since the documents were unsealed, Meta has responded with a [court filing] that said: "Snapchat's own witness on advertising confirmed that Snap cannot 'identify a single ad sale that [it] lost from Meta's use of user research products,' does not know whether other competitors collected similar information, and does not know whether any of Meta's research provided Meta with a competitive advantage." This conflicts with testimony from a Snapchat executive, who alleged that the project “hamper[ed] Snap's ability to sell ads" by [causing] "advertisers to not have a clear narrative differentiating Snapchat from Facebook and Instagram.” Both internally and externally, "the intelligence Meta gleaned from this project was described" as "devastating to Snapchat's ads business," a [court filing] said. [court document] <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour…> [According to Business Insider] <https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-execs-decrypt-riva…> [court filing] <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour…> [causing] <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour…> [court filing] <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour…> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Tutti i dettagli qui: https://ia802908.us.archive.org/29/items/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscou… Saluti, 380° -- 380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego) «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.

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Turco meccanico al supermercato
by Daniela Tafani April 2, 2024

April 2, 2024

Amazon Ditches 'Just Walk Out' Checkouts at Its Grocery Stores Amazon Fresh is moving away from a feature of its grocery stores where customers could skip checkout altogether. By Maxwell Zeff Amazon is phasing out its checkout-less grocery stores with “Just Walk Out” technology, first reported by The Information Tuesday. The company’s senior vice president of grocery stores says they’re moving away from Just Walk Out, which relied on cameras and sensors to track what people were leaving the store with. Just over half of Amazon Fresh stores are equipped with Just Walk Out. The technology allows customers to skip checkout altogether by scanning a QR code when they enter the store. Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped. Instead, Amazon is moving towards Dash Carts, a scanner and screen that’s embedded in your shopping cart, allowing you to checkout as you shop. These offer a more reliable solution than Just Walk Out. Amazon Fresh stores will also feature self check out counters from now on, for people who aren’t Amazon members. “We’re rolling out Amazon Dash Cart, our smart-shopping carts,” said an Amazon spokesperson to Gizmodo. Amazon confirmed this feature is replacing its Just Walk Out technology in existing stores. Just Walk Out was first introduced in 2016, presenting Amazon’s biggest and boldest innovation in grocery shopping. The technology seemed incredible, but there were some stumbles. It often took hours for customers to receive receipts after leaving the store, largely because offshore cashiers were rewatching videos and assigning items to different customers. The system of scanners and video cameras in each store is also incredibly expensive. According to The Information, 700 out of 1,000 Just Walk Out sales required human reviewers as of 2022. This widely missed Amazon’s internal goals of reaching less than 50 reviews per 1,000 sales. Amazon called this characterization inaccurate, and disputes how many purchases require reviews. “The primary role of our Machine Learning data associates is to annotate video images, which is necessary for continuously improving the underlying machine learning model powering,” said an Amazon spokesperson to Gizmodo. However, the spokesperson acknowledged these associates validate “a small minority” of shopping visits when AI can’t determine a purchase. Amazon Fresh, the e-commerce giant’s grocery store first launched in 2007, has just over 40 locations around the United States. The company also owns Whole Foods, and many of Amazon Fresh’s experiments are seen as precursors for the large chain. The company is reportedly keeping Just Walk Out technology in a small number of Fresh stores in the United Kingdom, and some of its Amazon Go convenience stores. Amazon has also implemented Just Walk Out technology at several ballparks around the country. These locations will keep the technology going. Amazon is trying to further break into the grocery space to grow into another billion-dollar market. Though it owns Whole Foods, the e-commerce giant still doesn’t compete with food goliaths like Walmart, Costco, and Kroger. Amazon’s push away from expensive tests like Just Walk Out may be a sign the company is looking to further expand its presence as a supermarket. https://gizmodo.com/amazon-reportedly-ditches-just-walk-out-grocery-stores-…

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Apple wouldn’t let Jon Stewart interview FTC Chair Lina Khan, TV host claims | Ars Technica
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 2, 2024

April 2, 2024

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/apple-wouldnt-let-jon-stewart-inter… (messaggio spedito in movimento - scusate brevità ed eventuali refusi)

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Eliminazione dalla newsletter
by Riccardo Zorgno April 2, 2024

April 2, 2024

Buongiorno, potete gentilmente togliermi dalla newsletter? Grazie, Riccardo

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171° Mercoledì di Nexa | 10 aprile 2024, ore 17.00
by Nexa - Media April 2, 2024

April 2, 2024

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi invitiamo a partecipare al 171° Mercoledì di Nexa, che si terrà mercoledì 10 aprile, alle ore 17.00, con un incontro dal titolo "Insolvent. How to Reorient Computing for Just Sustainability". Ospite dell'incontro: Christoph Becker (University of Toronto). L'incontro si terrà IN PRESENZA e ONLINE. SEDE FISICA dell'incontro: Centro Nexa su Internet e Società, Politecnico di Torino, Via Boggio 65/a, Torino (1° piano). Per accedere alla sala si raccomanda di suonare al citofono Portineria e di seguire le indicazioni segnalate lungo il percorso. QUI<https://nexa.polito.it/contatti> maggiori informazioni su come raggiungerci. STANZA VIRTUALE dell'incontro: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Di seguito maggiori dettagli: https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-171 Cordiali saluti, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Officer Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino - DAUIN Via Pier Carlo Boggio, 65/A - 10138 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it<mailto:valeria.bergantino@polito.it> tel: 3473443585

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EU Commission's use of Microsoft software breached privacy rules, watchdog says | Reuters
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 2, 2024

April 2, 2024

https://www.reuters.com/technology/eu-commissions-use-microsoft-software-br… (messaggio spedito in movimento - scusate brevità ed eventuali refusi)

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