Delete Your Facebook App | Hacker News Reader

Delete Your Facebook App

forbes.com

34 pointsredbell18 comments

This is ridiculous.

The article contains an observation that the Facebook app reads accelerometer data. It contains no evidence that Facebook retains this data, stores or uploads it to Facebook servers, or uses it for any purpose other than what is stated (some kind of camera thing and gesture recognition for bug reporting).

The rest is made-up speculation about what they “wonder” Facebook could do with this data if they were storing it - which, again, they have no evidence to suggest is happening. I find the idea that you can effectively use accelerometer traces to correlate the location of devices to be extremely unlikely in practice, even if theoretically possible.

Meanwhile, this site itself is so festooned with trashy ads and pop ups such that only about 15% of my screen is available to display the actual article text.

> Researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk warn that “Facebook reads accelerometer data all the time. If you don't allow Facebook access to your location, the app can still infer your exact location only by grouping you with users matching the same vibration pattern that your phone accelerometer records.”

Really weaselly phrasing here. Seems designed to persuade you that FB is actually doing this.

Forbes is indeed barely readable clickbait garbage and has been for many years.

Putting aside the quality of forbes, at the end of the day, the FB app is proprietary software - we don't know if it is using the data for tracking, and even if security researchers were to determine whether one particular version of the app were not using accelerometer data, there's nothing stopping FB covertly pushing a later update that enables it later (it wouldn't even need to change the permissions).

FB is a company that doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, ringing the alarm bells is perfectly justified.

it reads the accelerometer data even with the relevant camera feature turned off, so unless we see evidence otherwise it seems prudent to assume they harvest it… they’ve moved well beyond deserving the benefit of the doubt

The accelerometer is used for displaying 3D and panorama images. Of course, there could be other usecases.

Really dodgy reporting.

They article shows the “alarming” first message of the Twitter threads then if you look at the further analysis (in later replies) it’s from a function which is rage shake which is a bug reporting tool which then the researchers say oh ok no problem…

> You need to remember that Facebook is a trillion-dollar empire built on data, and only data—with Facebook, it’s not so much a metaverse as a dataverse. If the company can use this data, combined with everything else it holds on you and those around you, then it will. Why would it suddenly decide to exercise restraint?

So, I suggest that the new name of the company should be "Dataverse"

Also, I was wondering if this tracking behavior is affecting Android phones as well. The author did not gave a hint on this?

Why wouldn't it?

We've been so overwhelmed with noise about Facebook that most of us are probably burnt out on the topic by now. So when we get hit with

"FB can use accelerometer pattern matching to figure out where you are even if you've disabled location tracking"

... it definitely does seem insane and deeply messed up, but I just don't have the energy to care anymore.

I'm definitely never installing an app from a company in the FB family though.

And I can't trust this article either. It just adds more shit into the "information" blender. Forbes is the bottom of the barrel and has been for a long time.

Everybody who cares has already stopped using Facebook.

To be able to track your location from accelerator data, they would first need a fine grain location fix on your position, which if your granted that to the app, then I don't see the problem.

> If you don't allow Facebook access to your location, the app can still infer your exact location only by grouping you with users matching the same vibration pattern that your phone accelerometer records.

It would be great for app permissions to cover this. Im thinking location permissions should need to be allowed to either access photos with geotagging or maybe it just gets filtered out transparently to the app. And you could have the system prompt the user if they want to enable geotagging the first time it occurs.

On some Android devices, deleting the app is impossible.

Currently looking for a new device, but this thing is maddening and disgusting. How is it even remotely acceptable that Facebook is treated like a system app? Do phone manufacturers have no interest in being seen as trustworthy?

Still possible to disable it with ADB if you know somewhat what you're doing.

Yes, and you can usually disable from the device itself. However, deleting the app isn't possible.

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