Harvard Student Loses Facebook Internship After Revealing How Messenger Tracked Users
The app capitalized on a privacy flaw that Facebook had been aware of for about three years: the Facebook Messenger app automatically shared users’ locations with anyone who they messaged.
Three months ago, Harvard student Aran Khanna was preparing to start a coveted internship at Facebook when he launched a browser application from his dorm room that angered the social media behemoth.
His application, called Marauder’s Map — a clever name that Harry Potter fans will appreciate — was a Chrome extension that used data from Facebook Messenger to map where users were when they sent messages. The app also showed the locations, which were accurate to within three feet, in a group chat with people he barely knew. That meant complete strangers could hypothetically see that he had messaged them from a Starbucks around the corner, while he could see that they had messaged from their dorms.
The Marauder’s Map app capitalized on a privacy flaw that Facebook had been aware of for about three years: the Facebook Messenger app automatically shared users’ locations with anyone who they messaged.
Khanna tweeted about the app on May 26 and posted about it on Reddit and Medium. Marauder’s Map began to go viral. Facebook, never one to miss a trend, quickly caught on.
Within three days, Facebook asked Khanna to disable the app. The company also deactivated location sharing from desktops, which meant Khanna’s app wouldn’t work even if he hadn’t taken it down. And the company that Mark Zuckerberg famously launched from his Harvard dorm room withdrew its internship offer from this Harvard student, who apparently made the mistake of…launching an app from his dorm room.
Before it was disabled, the extension was downloaded more than 85,000 times, Khanna said.
About a week later, Facebook released a Messenger app update trumpeted as follows in a news release: “With this update, you have full control over when and how you share your location information.”
The description didn’t mention the previous default settings. Nor did it point out that users who didn’t activate the update would continue to share their locations by default unless they manually altered their privacy settings.
Matt Steinfeld, a Facebook spokesman, said the company had been working on a Messenger update long before Khanna’s blog post was published. “This isn’t the sort of thing that can happen in a week,” Steinfeld told Boston.com. “Even though we move very fast here, they’d been working on it for a few months.”
Khanna, who detailed the experience in a case study published Tuesday for the Harvard Journal of Technology Science, told Boston.com he created the app to show the consequences of unintentionally sharing data. That way, he said, users could decide for themselves whether or not it was a violation of their privacy.
Facebook Messenger, the company’s mobile messaging app, had been set up with automatic geolocation sharing since it launched in 2011. CNET drew attention to the issue in 2012 and showed users how to switch off location services. Various updates to the app improved its usability and even introduced fun cat emoji stickers, but the geolocation sharing remained.
Khanna used Messenger frequently when he started studying at Harvard, but didn’t realize how much information he was unintentionally sharing until he began to look at his message history.
The day after Marauder’s Map was posted, Khanna said his future manager at Facebook called him and asked him not to talk to the press. That evening, Khanna received a call from Facebook’s global communications lead for privacy and public policy, who reiterated that Khanna shouldn’t talk to the press because the story had become damaging.
Khanna complied, redirecting all press inquiries back to Facebook.
The next day, Facebook asked him to deactivate the extension. He did, but also updated his Medium post and the extension’s description to make it clear that Facebook asked him to disable the map.
Three days after the extension was posted, and two hours before he was supposed to leave to start his internship, Khanna received a call from a Facebook employee telling him that the company was rescinding his summer internship offer. Khanna said he was told that he violated the Facebook user agreement when he scraped the site for data.
However, Khanna told Boston.com that the data was from his own messages, which meant he used information accessible to all Facebook users, not just to employees.
Khanna then received an email from Facebook’s head of global human resources and recruiting, who told him that his Medium post didn’t meet the high ethical standards expected of interns. Khanna was told that the issue wasn’t the Messenger app itself, but instead the way his blog described how Facebook collected and shared user data.
“This mapping tool scraped Facebook data in a way that violated our terms, and those terms exist to protect people’s privacy and safety,” Steinfeld told Boston.com. “Despite being asked repeatedly to remove the code, the creator of this tool left it up. This is wrong and it’s inconsistent with how we think about serving our community.”
In his first letter to investors back in 2012, Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook follows an approach they coined the “Hacker Way.”
“The word ‘hacker’ has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers,” he wrote. “In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done.”
Khanna thought his extension — which he built quickly and which tested boundaries — was performing a public good by showing users how their data was being used. “I didn’t write the program to be malicious,” he said.
In the end, Khanna had a pretty great summer after all. He accepted another internship with a tech start-up in Silicon Valley. And, he said, the back-and-forth with Facebook turned out to be an “internship experience” in itself that taught him a great deal.
In the closing of his letter to investors, Zuckerberg said one of the five core values of Facebook is for its employees to “be bold.”
But not too bold. source
At Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis Hearing, Mark Zuckerberg Apologizes For Children’s Lives Destroyed Through Facebook And Instagram
Mark Zuckerberg saw his wealth balloon even as lawsuits revealed the horrific depths of child sexual abuse and grooming occurring on Facebook and Instagram.
In the summer of 2021, Facebook began the process of unpublishing the page NTEB had had there for over a decade, seems that we had committed wrongs that could not be forgiven, the technical term for this is deplatforming. What kinds of things did we publish to make Mark Zuckerberg issue the call for our removal through his policies and ‘community standards’? We told them how to boost their God-given immune systems instead of relying on Anthony Fauci and his potions, we told people not to take untested and unproven gene editing technologies, and we warned against child exploitation and sex trafficking. Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg ‘apologized’ to outraged parents whose children had their lives forever ruined on his social media, I’m sure that was of great consolation to them.
“And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” Mark 9:42 (KJB)
While all this was happening, the aggregate wealth of Meta and their subsidiaries like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp increased by a whopping $239 million per day. I wonder how many human souls that type of growth is built on, how many lives of children were sacrificed to hit those numbers? Only God knows, but He does know, and one day will avenge accordingly. NTEB has lost many social media accounts due to our unflinching reporting on the evil of social media companies and will continue to do so. For as long as we can, we will intentionally plunder their kingdom by using their platform to expose them and preach the gospel to the captives.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Wealth Grew $84 Billion in 2023 as Pedophiles Target Children on Facebook, Instagram
FROM BREITBART NEWS: Yahoo Finance reports that Zuckerberg’s financial growth translates to about $9.6 million per hour or $230.6 million daily in 2023. This surge aligns with Meta’s strategic pivot towards the metaverse, focusing on virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies. However, this transition wasn’t without its challenges, as the company faced issues with misinformation and user retention. Breitbart News reported on Zuckerberg’s appearance at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where he apologized to the families of children whose lives were ruined by his companies’ products after a grilling by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).
Sen. Hawley first lambasted Zuckerberg for taking little to no action to protect children on Facebook and Instagram, and then grilled him on why the billionaire and his company haven’t offered compensation to victims and their families.
Sen. Hawley then changed tactics. He said:
There are families of victims here today. Have you apologized to victims? Would you to do so now? They’re here, you are on national victims. Would you like now to apologize to victims who have been harmed by your products? Show him the pictures. Would you like to apologize to these good people?
“I’m sorry for everything you’ve all gone through,” Zuckerberg said at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis.” He added, “It’s terrible. No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered.”
The parents Zuckerberg addressed have claimed that social media, particularly Instagram, contributed to their children’s suicide or exploitation. Many wore blue ribbons reading “STOP Online Harms! Pass KOSA!” — a reference to proposed legislation aimed at enhancing protections for kids online.
Despite this, Meta’s stock price has largely rebounded this year. Zuckerberg’s personal investment portfolio is not limited to technology. He recently made headlines with his luxurious Kauai, Hawaii compound, Koolau Ranch, spanning over 1400 acres and featuring high-end amenities, including a 5000-square-foot bunker and over 30 bedrooms and bathrooms. READ MORE
Mark Zuckerberg apologizes to families of social media victims at Senate hearing
In a dramatic moment on Capitol Hill, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, at Sen. Josh Hawley’s urging, stood up and apologized to the family members of children who had been harmed by social media. Zuckerberg is testifying before a Senate panel with the CEOs of other social media platforms about child exploitation and safety.
Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church
- HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page
When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.
But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)
“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB
End Times
THE ZUCKERBUNKER: Social Media Tycoon Mark Zuckerberg Building Massive Underground Fortress In Hawaii To Prepare For The Apocalypse
They call it the Zuckerbunker, the brainchild of billionaire Mark Zuckerberg to turn an idyllic Hawaiian island into a fortified compound to defend against the apocalypse. Will it work?
Someone once said, when remarking about the wealth of the Gilded Age tycoons, John D. Rockefeller was so poor that all he had was money. That’s not Bible but the book of Ecclesiastes talks a lot about that very subject. Mark Zuckerberg is one of those people, worth billions of dollars but completely bankrupt spiritually, and all his doomsday preparations won’t save him from the wrath which is to come, and indeed is almost here. Salvation is the one thing his money cannot buy.
“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.” James 5:1-3 (KJB)
So let’s talk about the Zuckerbunker for a moment, the timing of it is quite suspicious. On the last two Prophecy News Podcasts, we talked about the likelihood of a second Civil War happening in America, and the spate of new movies that deal with that very subject. One is called ‘Leave The World Behind’, produced by former 2-term US president and current ‘basement president’ of the Biden administration, and the other called simply ‘Civil War’ due in April of 2024. It is in the midst of all this that Mark Zuckerberg is frantically working to complete his massive Zuckerbunker compound called Koolau Ranch on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. What does he know that we don’t know? Zuckerberg is not the only tech billionaire building bunkers, nearly all of them are doing it. It’s funny that these tech titans see themselves are the creators of a brave, new world, yet have prepared hiding places for themselves for what they think they know is coming when that new world goes bad. It’s what they don’t know is coming that they should be preparing themselves for.
Bizarre Leaked Features Of Mark Zuckerberg’s Secret Zuckerbunker
FROM SLASH GEAR: The most striking thing about Mark Zuckerberg’s megalomaniacal maze of mammoth mansions and subterranean structures isn’t that it exists but how hard the billionaire worked to conceal it from the public. One Kauai architect compared Zuckerberg’s ambitions to those of ancient kings who killed their architects to preserve palatial secrets, while those on-site have compared the project to top-secret military installations and the fight club from the movie “Fight Club.”
Nevertheless, it was impossible to hide a construction project of this scale from the Hawaiian locals, who retain a tight-knit community. Despite a significant portion of the island being bound by NDAs, knowledge of the bunker spread along the local grapevine. Some speculate that Zuckerberg intends the facility as a doomsday bunker, which may explain the blast-resistant door and underground shelter with concrete-reinforced metal — more on that later. It would also explain the compound’s self-sufficient water and power systems, as well as the on-site agricultural operations.
Mark Zuckerberg is building a huge underground bunker.
Mark Zuckerberg is building a residential complex on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. At the same time, the project provides for an underground bunker with an area of 500 square meters with an “explosion-proof door.” A tunnel… pic.twitter.com/yV01x6wSpB
— dana (@dana916) December 16, 2023
Like those building pyramids for the pharaohs or soccer stadiums for the World Cup, workers on the Zuckerbunker have fallen victim to injury and death. A 53-year-old crane operator was hospitalized after his crane tumbled down a hill, and a 70-year-old security guard died after becoming stranded on a rainy beach and succumbing to a heart attack. The guard’s family alleged in a wrongful death suit that there was an attempt to cover up information related to the incident.
2008: Mark Zuckerberg becomes a billionaire
2009: Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t build a bunker
2010: Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t build a bunker
2011: Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t build a bunker
2012: Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t build a bunker
2013: Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t build a bunker
2014:… pic.twitter.com/aU7IguE5RM
— Matt Wallace (@MattWallace888) December 28, 2023
In the movie “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” a tech billionaire, played by Edward Norton, builds a sprawling compound on a remote private island. The movie is a satire of the hubris displayed by modern billionaires. Yet, the compound built by Norton’s character pales in comparison to that currently being erected in Hawaii by Mark Zuckerberg. Norton’s character might have kept the “Mona Lisa” on his island paradise. Still, according to WIRED, Zuckerberg’s Koolau Ranch has more than a dozen buildings comprising 30 bedrooms, 30 bathrooms, two mansions, offices, conference rooms, elevators, and an industrial kitchen to keep everyone fed.
If you’re going to build a Bond villain-esque secret hideout on an island, you might as well go whole hog on the concept. Sure, you could put normal doors on it like a normal person, but where’s the fun in that? According to WIRED, Mark Zuckerberg equipped his sprawling Kauai headquarters with a variety of hidden doors, blast doors, and other high-tech entrances.
The door to the bunker’s underground bomb shelter is the most bizarre of all. It is comprised of a metal shell filled with concrete, making it resistant to explosions. Other doors around the complex are designed to be soundproof, adding another layer of mystery to the entire operation. READ MORE
Is this what the Zuckerbunker is being built for?
Mark Zuckerberg’s compound on Kauai will have more than a dozen buildings with two central mansions connected by a tunnel that leads to a 5,000-sq. ft. underground shelter with an escape hatch. The Zuckerbunker will be a great place to ride out the coming civil war.
The Truth About Heaven and Hell
Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church
- HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page
Please continue to pray for us, and for wisdom for me especially, as we continue taking steps to print the NTEB branded King James Bible for our free Bible and Bibles Behind Bars program. It is exciting and intimidating at the same time. If the Lord has prospered your financially, we ask you to donate to help us continue to send out free Bibles at this level, and even higher than we are at the moment. It takes a lot of prayer, and a lot of resources to do all this. Praise the Lord we are doing it, all of us together, labouring in the Lord’s harvest field. TO THE FIGHT!!!
When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.
But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)
“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB
Censorship
After Years Of Censoring Christians And Conservatives, Is Anyone Surprised That People Are Leaving Facebook In Droves For Sites Like Tik Tok?
Facebook Meta stock lost $200 billion in value in one of the biggest stock drops in history, as users flee for freer sites like Tik Tok.
Bad news, Mark Zuckerberg. People aren’t really interested in Facebook censorship anymore — let alone your metaverse fever dream. Facebook stock lost $200 billion in value in one of the biggest stock drops in history, as users flee for Tik Tok.
Today, hundreds of millions of ex-Facebook users are wildly cheering one of the biggest stock market collapses of a single company in modern times, a $200 billion devaluation of Meta formerly known as Facebook. Why did Facebook Meta stock crash so hard? Because so many users have fled fascist Facebook for places that don’t censor, ban and suspend you for having a differing opinion like Tik Tok and others. If Facebook disappeared from the planet tomorrow, that’d be fine with me. But don’t go getting your hopes up just yet.
“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” Ecclesiastes 8:11 (KJB)
Companies like Facebook Meta, Google, Amazon and even Elon Musk are part of the prophesied coming kingdom of Antichrist, and as such, I fully expect to see Facebook showing record profits in a relatively short period of time. But after having our NTEB Facebook page unpublished last month with its hundreds of thousands of followers, I am going to sit back, pour myself of steaming hot cup o’ joe, and enjoy this little victory against the tyrant Zuckerberg.
Facebook crashes after user base started shrinking
FROM FUTURISM: Stock prices for Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, took a swan dive on Wednesday after the company revealed both a profit decline and, for the first time in its history, a shrinking userbase— leading to a sell off that resulted in a $195 billion stock plunge, Bloomberg reports.
If it holds, the 22 percent dip could be the biggest collapse in market value for a US company in stock market history. A look under the hood shows that the company is dealing with several problems that have culminated into a perfect storm of dwindling profits.
For one, Facebook has yet again failed to grow its daily or monthly active user bases as it faces stiff competition from TikTok and many other upstarts. The company’s advertising growth also slowed as changes to Apple’s iOS made targeted advertising more difficult. There’s also the case of the company’s moonshot goal of creating a workable metaverse. Meta’s AR and VR unit Reality Labs posted a more than $10 billion loss in its first ever financial report, according to CNN. The numbers don’t bode well for its future viability.
“Investors will look at these numbers closely as a first indicator of how far off the Metaverse is from being a profitable reality,” Tom Johnson, global chief digital officer at media agency Mindshare Worldwide, told the broadcaster.
Zuckerberg’s metaverse was always going to be a bit of a long shot. If the recent stock crash is any indication, convincing large swaths of the population to remain on Facebook and purchase a cumbersome VR headset to do depressing metaverse activities is going to be a near impossible task. READ MORE
Meta shares sink more than 20% as Facebook loses daily users
Shares of Facebook’s parent company Meta plunged more than 20% late on Wednesday after the social media company posted a weaker-than-expected forecast. Facebook’s global daily active users declined from the previous quarter for the first time.
Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church
- HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page
When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. Even all the way to South Africa. We even restarted our weekly radio Bible study on Sunday nights again, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.
But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. If every one of the 15,860+ people on our daily mailing list gave $4.50, we would reach our goal immediately. If every one of our 150,000+ followers on Facebook gave $1.00 each, we would reach 300% of our goal. The same goes for our 16,400 followers on Twitter. But sadly, many will not give, so we need the ones who can and who will give to be generous. As generous as possible.
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJV)
“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB
- HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page
THE BIG STORY
Support Now the End Begins
Donate by mail to:
NOW THE END BEGINS
PO Box 3378
Saint Augustine, FL 32085
You can also donate through the WayGiver link right below. We need and appreciate your support, thank you!
END TIMES
CHRISLAM
FALSE TEACHERS
THE METAVERSE
REAL UFOS
ISRAEL
THE MOTB
CATHOLIC CHURCH
FAKE NEWS
ABORTION
THE THIRD TEMPLE
BILL GATES
GEORGE SOROS
-
George Soros7 years agoProof Of George Soros Nazi Past Finally Comes To Light With Discovery Of Forgotten Interview
-
Election 20167 years agoDEAD POOL DIVA: Huma Abedin Kept Those Hillary Emails That The FBI Found In A Folder Marked ‘Life Insurance’
-
Election 20167 years agoCrooked Hillary Campaign Used A Green Screen At Today’s Low Turnout Rally In Coconut Creek FL
-
George Soros7 years agoSORE LOSER: George Soros Declares War On America As Violent MoveOn.Org Protests Fill The Streets
-
Donald Trump7 years agoDonald Trump Will Be 70 Years, 7 Months And 7 Days Old On First Full Day In Office As President
-
Headline News7 years agoIf Hillary Is Not Guilty, Then Why Are Her Supporters Asking Obama To Pardon Her? Hmm…
-
Election 20167 years agoWikiLeaks Shows George Soros Controlling Vote With 16 States Using SmartMatic Voting Machines
-
End Times7 years agoFalse Teacher Beth Moore Endorses The Late Term Partial-Birth Abortion Candidate Crooked Hillary