Another former senior employee noted a growing sense of paranoia among current employees. “Now, people now have burner phones to talk shit about the company — not even to reporters, just to other employees,” they told BuzzFeed News.
Facebook employees so afraid of Facebook spying on them, that they need burners. Presumably, not loaded with any Facebook apps.
Calling these "burner phones" is a little silly. They are just completely private, non-corporate phones.
I've never trusted any company to either pay for my own phone or plan, if that requires allowing it special access.
So a phone used to duck surveillance from a powerful entity to conduct discussions about things you don't want that entity knowing about, colloquially goes by what other name then?
I get it if the implicit association between a "real" burner phone and these devices might not be a complete and perfect parallel but I think here the term is apt (unless we're legitimately just talking about someone's every day personal phone, but that wasn't the impression I got-the article doesn't really talk more about what these devices are)
Burner-like if it works better for you.
We don't know that as a fact, do we? In this specific case I mean, I know how burner phones are used, but we have from the piece an interesting nugget that isn't really fleshed out.
Maybe the employee just used 'burner phone' to get the point across quickly of the lengths employees were going through, maybe it's an allusion to something more but it's a nugget I found interesting nonetheless.
If a company provides your phone, then it has access to it, and if you don't want your company to have access to what you do on it, you use a different phone. If you want the convenience of a personal phone that you can check your work mail (or work facebook groups) on, then you grant access to that company.
It isn't any different from when a law firm or bank provides its employees phones. If you don't want that firm or bank to read what you write on it, then you need another phone.
A "burner phone" gets thrown away--"burned"--to prevent the someone from tracking you. You don't allow anyone to know you use it.
No one at facebook cares if you use a second phone. So some better terms would be "personal phone" or "non-corporate phone".
Right, and as I said in another comment, my statement here isn't to suggest I don't know what a burner phone is. My statement above is because I'd think someone would either say "We use our personal phones" or something similar to describe how they talk about FB without FB knowing it.
Describing your personal phone as a "burner phone" seems odd and possibly telling that there's something else there.
There very well might NOT be, but as I mentioned before: the article doesn't really say much further so it's hard to know.
Doesn't seem odd to me, in the context of a) a former employee sensationalizing the situation and/or b) hiding behavior from any employer.
I would see this as a tertiary characteristic of burner phones that is certainly optional. Almost every usage of "burner phone" you see in media, film, and print, is used to indicate a phone that is unmonitored.
Queue scene of FBI in room with monitors showing camera views of Jason Bourne talking on a phone. "He's got a burner" is more likely to be said when Bourne is talking on the phone, not when he's throwing it away.
But the law firm and the bank aren't in the business of snooping on cell phones. Facebook is. I've had phones from both a firm and a bank. They didn't look at what someone was doing without cause and they had very strict procedures to follow to get permission to even look even though it was a company phone.
A "personal device"
Some people use once and burn, some burn one a day, or once a week, and some -- like you said, burn when they think it is compromised.
At my last job I was given a corporate phone as well as my own personal phone. Some coworkers decided to do everything on their corporate phone. I chose to keep the two separate, but I wouldn't say that I was using my personal phone as a "burner".
Definitely do not want to rule that out, you're right to bring this up, but agreed. Calling your personal phone a 'burner', seems novel? Not sure if there's a better word there.
Yes. A burner phone is a device you use once or twice, then dump (burn). I seriously doubt bookface employees are dumping their personal cell phones after sending a couple shit talk messages to their friends about their employer.
A non-corporate phone. “Burner phone” is something very specific and refers to prepaid phones without attached identity at the network level. Which, as the name implies, can be “burned” (discarded) after use.
Calling a personal phone your "burner phone" is silly. But if you work at Facebook, you're aware your personal phone may be leaking data. A phone purchased specifically to talk about things you don't want Facebook to hear is roughly accurately described as a "burner," even if it isn't discarded after use.
(Broadly speaking, this is a prudent step for whistleblowers to take. Buy a cheap phone, turn off all non-essential services, and install Signal.)
I have wifi access when I'm on my company, but I don't feel the need to buy another phone just to be able to speak freely.
If you aren’t whistleblowing, that’s reasonable.
Companies have every tool available to pursue NDA breachers, trader secret stealers and insider traders on their hands to chase whistleblowers. Phones are cheaper than heavy litigation and the threat of prison time.
If you leave a company unexpectedly (which can happen), it's good if you don't give up the ability to be contacted.
I made this mistake in my twenties, and never again.
Lot's of companies provide a limited scope Wifi access for contractors, vendors, etc, when on campus. The level of insight might not be as high but the host company can potentially still track things like local network traffic without requiring "special access" beyond Wifi usage. If the FB employees don't want to acknowledge the existence of these phones then they are definitely "burners".
And if you have your employer manage your phone plan, I assume they have access to your call records.
It's not a perfect, but one way to tell that the startup you're in is monitoring you is that they hand you a computer with your login already created. If you're opening up the Apple box yourself then it's much more likely to be free from keyloggers, etc. But don't trust shared sign-in stuff like Google Apps for Business to be private.
I’m glad I don’t have that problem.
Do you know that or is it just a guess?
there is significant difference.
Private non-corporate phones are usually connected to your name just by virtue of you having an account with cell phone provider in your name or activating the phone in a way that still naturally leads to you.
A burner is typically cash-based bought/prepaid phone activated without any direct/indirect connection to your name or any other of your accounts/profiles/etc.
Given the power of FB (and money involved - i mean every scandal moves like $100B of valuation - the cost of one year war in Iraq) i think it is very reasonable and prudent of its employees to use actual burners not just private phones.
I agree, but it's still not as silly as how many people are commenting in here about whether or not its ok to call it a "burner phone" lol
Facebook engineers know exactly what surveillance powers the company has, and how easily those can be exercised.
Slack I always consider as something my employer can see freely.
For other means of communications, when I am on a company device and private network, I also have some paranoia that conversations are not private.
Just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it's not happening.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Except on HN when it's about this year's boogeyman.
When I worked in adtech, I had a flip phone up until the point that my boss made me get a smartphone so that I could get hipchat. It's believable to me, because I was only inches away from having a burner phone myself.