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In 2004, Zuckerberg Broke Into a Facebook User's Private Email Account (2010)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- spaceman1331 8y agoHe will be given a free pass because, as a jew, it is expected that he is morally challenged. Jews aren't given work that requires integrity. This is why.
- dmerfield 8y agoFacebook’s response to this story is revealing: > "We’re not going to debate the disgruntled litigants and anonymous sources who seek to rewrite Facebook’s early history or embarrass Mark Zuckerberg with dated allegations. The unquestioned fact is that since leaving Harvard for Silicon Valley nearly six years ago, Mark has led Facebook's growth from a college website to a global service playing an important role in the lives of over 400 million people." You get a similar argument in the recently leaked ‘Boz memo’: please ignore our unethical behavior, instead focus on how many users we have. Growth at any cost is justified.
- TAForObvReasons 8y ago> growth at any cost is justified. ... captured in the infamous phrase "Move Fast and Break Things"
- zeusk 8y agoBig If Things == Law
- TAForObvReasons 8y agoThings can be Laws, Ethics, and even Human Life as we saw with the responses to recent accidents involving self-driving cars
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- needToSay 8y agoFuck Zuck, let him burn in hell
- peacetreefrog 8y agoNote, again, this was their response when this article was written in 2010. "...since leaving Harvard for Silicon Valley nearly six years ago" is referring to 2004. Just clarifying, because when I first read this I thought, "what was Mark Zuckerburg doing in Harvard still in 2012?" It'd be interesting to hear what they'd about it today though. Probably nothing.
- rdtsc 8y agoYeah this nice corporate PR > We’re not going to debate the disgruntled litigants and anonymous sources "We're not denying it though. It is true. If they were false and we could debate and win the debate, we would" > The unquestioned fact is that since leaving Harvard for Silicon Valley nearly six years ago, Mark has led Facebook's growth from a college website to a global service playing an important role in the lives of over 400 > [...] instead focus on how many users we have Even more, it is interesting what they are implying here. If you can get people to give you their data and build a company on it, it somehow means you all of the sudden acquire a better personality, increased morality and are absolved of all the stupid things you said or did before. Now sure, people do and say stupid stuff when they are teenagers. I've done it. It depends when and what was done and at what age, what happened before and after. I can see being forgiving some thing up until the early 20s. People are still developing and personality could change I suppose. Though when it comes to his "dumb fucks" comment, I give him less of a pass of being a "teenager" because he was 26 already. Additionally, if these were just isolated incidents and everything before and after pointed to him taken privacy seriously but the whole company is built on the opposite of that.
- arachnids 8y agoZuckerberg was 19 when he made the dumb fucks comment. [2004] I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with your point, just saying that this incident took place earlier than you think it did.
- marricks 8y agoHave his actions done anything to show it's not relevant? He lead the company as a young man and is still pretty young. Reckless disregard for privacy has been a hallmark of his tenure.
- danso 8y agoThe decade immediately after you’re teens is a time period with a lot of change. Many people find career paths, spouses, and have children. Also worth considering is that FB is a much different company — structure-wise — than when it was just a social media site servicing Harvard students.
- loup-vaillant 8y agoThey're playing the status game. "Rewrite history" and "dated allegations" serve mostly to slander whoever made those claims. Then they raise Zuckerberg's status by pointing out his achievements. They're effectively saying the accusation isn't valid because Zuckerberg is nobility and the accusers are not.
- matte_black 8y agoIf it weren’t for Zuckerberg’s status these allegations wouldn’t have bothered coming out.
- sosborn 8y agoWhile that’s probably true, does that justify his actions?
- loup-vaillant 8y agoNo, but this consideration is evidence that the allegations may be false.
- sosborn 8y agoIt really isn't though. What happened after this incident has no bearing on what happened before the incident. Does his status provide a motive for a false accusation? Sure, but that is different from evidence.
- loup-vaillant 8y agoNo it isn't different, you failed Bayesian. Evidence is not causality, it can flow backwards in time. For instance, a mammography doesn't give you cancer. But it can detect one, and thus give you evidence that you had cancer in the first place.
- mygo 8y agoyour circular logic translates to “the fact that these allegations even bothered to come out is evidence that they may be false”
- kerng 8y agoFirst time I'm hearing about this. Wow. Thanks for posting. Was there never a criminal in investigation?
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- bsimpson 8y agoI'd be shocked if there was a criminal investigation into one college student snooping on another's email account.
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- propman 8y agoYeahh we need regulations on Facebook. The fact that he retains a majority voting share in the company, the fact that I now have zero trust in Zuckerberg AND Sandberg into doing the right thing, AND that there is no viable competition/users are too psychologically entwined to make the decision to detach from Facebook means the only checks and balances left against this unscrupulous individual is the US government. Unfortunately 80% are in his pockets, but that's the best bet we have. What's stopping him from using his master access to obtain any info he needs for a presidential election? Trust? Trusting him?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- danielrhodes 8y agoMaybe nothing, but in practice this would be hard to do. Access to this data would amount to material support from a company to a presidential campaign which under campaign finance laws would need to be reported and scrutinized. Additionally, Facebook is not just Mark Zuckerberg and likely the company would not like the data being used that way because it would risk their relationship with their users, which is far more important than Zuckerberg being president.
- r3bl 8y agoI get what you're saying, but considering what we've witnessed in 2016 and how ethics, honestly and law no longer plays any part in the White House, what used to be unimaginable to me, now is. That being said, I could see the future in which the next elections are a full blown, all-gloves-are-off one year long fight between Trump (Republicans) and Zuckerberg (Democrats). Partially because Zuckerberg really does seem like he's aiming for this with its actions, and partially because Democrats don't really seem like they've learned their lessons from two years ago. Now I'm not saying that's definitely going to happen, nor claiming that it's inevitable, nor that the chances of it actually happening are anything but minuscule, but I wouldn't be too surprised if such thing actually happens.
- 8y ago
- jstimpfle 8y agoThis is from 2010, not 2004.
- wyck 8y agoA brand founded by a deceitful, insecure, and altogether immature person is a problem when is effects so many people's lives. News at 11.
- dwighttk 8y agoThe break in occurred in 2004, but the article is from 2010
- peacetreefrog 8y agoOn the one hand, this is a very shitty thing to do. On the other, he was young and dumb and FB was very different than it is today. I suppose it could be red flag and indicate larger character flaws that have leaked into how FB operates now, but I'm personally glad I'm not being judged today for everything I did when I was 19.
- gowld 8y agoIt's not piss behind a dumpster from drunken night out being judged; it's the core functioning of the business and product.
- ada1981 8y agoOr rape an unconscious girl behind a dumpster and get three months in jail. #BrockTurner
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- Ysx 8y ago* It could be red flag and indicate larger character flaws that have leaked into how FB operates now. * I'm personally glad I'm not being judged today for everything I did when I was 19. These are two separate thoughts, kindly use a full stop.
- mainthread 8y agoSome people get life in prison for things they do at 19.
- techman9 8y agoI'm hopeful that Zuckerberg has matured at least slightly in the intervening 14 years.
- wfbarks 8y agowas wondering what type of journalist would decide to write an article like this, then realized the author came out of Gawker.
- tudorconstantin 8y agoWhat I don't understand is how the important leaders and influencers of the world, like Obama, or Bill Gates, or others, are not ashamed to show themselves near Zuckerberg. He started the whole Facebook with a theft from the Winklevoss brothers. That whole business is the fruit of theft. Yeah, he was young and stupid, but how many of you even considered doing such a thing to your employer? Yeah, he built a huge business based on it, but it's still built on thievery and deceivement. No matter how many seemingly good things he does, he is still a thief (by my moral grounds, of course, not by law)
- icebraining 8y agoThat would be a fun position for Obama to take; would he spurn Zuckerberg before or after giving Kissinger the Distinguished Public Service Award? I rail against Facebook, and think it's a dangerous system, but Zuckerberg is a damn saint compared to many of the people Obama and Bill Gates have shown themselves with. And the two are themselves far from .
- effingwewt 8y agoYou are comparing very different things. While I agree a lot of bad people are doing bad things out there, not many if any have the reach and control Zuckerberg does. I wonder if there is a resolution where Facebook can be fixed without government regulations that would likely have adverse effects on the internet at large. I don't even use Facebook and yet I am vulnerable as they doubtless have a complete profile on me based on tracking pixels and people with whom I socialize having accounts with them.
- tetromino_ 8y agoWhat reach? Surely you cannot compare Zuckerberg to Kissinger - a man who could (and by all accounts did) condemn hundreds of thousands of people to be shot, burned, raped, starved, and tortured.
- zeth___ 8y ago>What I don't understand is how the important leaders and influencers of the world, like Obama, or Bill Gates, or others, are not ashamed to show themselves near Zuckerberg. Because they are just as shity as him. They just hide it better. Show me a rich person and I will show you a criminal.
- barbegal 8y agoI don't necessarily buy this story because the facts don't really add up and there is no real evidence that this occurred. The source of the story is described to be one of Mark's friends "Here's how Mark described his hack to a friend" and not the journalists "We reached out to Tim McGinn and Elisabeth Theodore for comment. Both declined to comment.". Given the evidence is based on a verbal account to a friend there is a slim probability that Mark made the story up. It also seems odd that the details of the hack are laid out so precisely. It is stated that he found the passwords to exactly two email accounts, one of which belonged to Tim McGinn given that "In one account he accessed, Mark saw an email from Crimson writer Tim McGinn to Cameron, Tyler, and Divya.". Mark looked for "members of the site who identified themselves as members of the Crimson" but it would have been easier to find the specific people involved instead. And why use failed login attempts if you have access to actual user passwords. I can't think of any reason why you'd log failed passwords but not real ones (except for maliciously stealing passwords). Finally, how did the email from Elisabeth Theodore to Tim McGinn become public given neither commented on the story. From other parts of the story, it seems likely that Tim McGinn was a source (who else would have known about Mark getting upset with Tim on the phone). So it seems that Tim gave the email to Business Insider however Business Insider does not explicitly state that. This suggests that neither they nor Tim have any real evidence that this "hacking" actually occurred.
- crescentfresh 8y agoUnrelated, but this reminded me of my very first real, salary developer job where I added logging to the web application. I remember logging failed password attempts specifically; I didn't give a second thought to simply logging the values of all form fields, seemed easiest at the time in case the developer changed the names of the fields. It wasn't until a review by one of the senior devs that saw passwords in the log files - and with eyebrows raised asked "wth are you doing" - that it dawned on me, "oops". I'm glad that never made it out to production.
- acct1771 8y agoOut of curiosity, did you look at the end-result log files yourself before the review?
- crescentfresh 8y agoI did! I however did NOT fail to enter my credentials correctly locally, and the rest of the logs were filled with random forms submitted during testing. "Yep, all looks good on my machine!".
- arnaudsm 8y agoWhy are the media talking so much about Facebook's mistakes of 10 years ago, while there are much worse problems in privacy at the moment ? Grindr, China's rating system, NSA's algorithm in Pakistan.. Corporate culture changes a lot in 10 years, Facebook is the wrong target.
- jlgaddis 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism > Corporate culture changes a lot in 10 years ... Not at Facebook, apparently.
- seattle_spring 8y agoIt has to do with the general population's complete misunderstanding on how ads are targeted, combined with the fact that it's hip to upvote and share anti-FB hit pieces.
- RyanShook 8y agoWhere are the sources that prove Zuckerberg illegally accessed someone’s email? Did I skim over them in the article?
- gabept 8y agoI'm not in defense of Zuckerberg, but I have seen and fortunately stopped some young entrepreneurs doing atrociously invasive things in order to better understand and expand their product. I don't think this is necessarily a case of wickedness, but instead lack of knowledge and immaturity when the event happened.
- zeth___ 8y agoGoing into someone else's email to read what they have to say about you is something that even a three year old knows is wrong. If you have dealings with people like that and you're helping them don't be surprised when you find out they have used their money to open a child rape hotel somewhere in the developing world.
- JasonFruit 8y agoThere's a big difference between email snooping and . . . that.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- therealdrag0 8y agoThat's an absurd comparison/slippery-slope.
- bitmapbrother 8y ago2004 Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Friend]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks 2018 Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Facebook Zuck: Just ask Zuck: I have over 1 billion emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Friend]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks
- eecks 8y agoThe 2018 one is not a real quote.
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- eatinggrin 8y agoThat doesn't imply the they were storing in plain text. I don't know why you think that.
- abhi3 8y agoI’m getting a 404 on the article link now. Did someone (on a Sunday evening) notice that this story resurfaced on HN and had their lawyer send over a cease a desist to business insider to get it taken down?
- bdcravens 8y agoUp for me.
- cmurf 8y agoErgo, a long history of double standards and hypocrisy. Congresscritters on Tuesday are gonna set him on fire. Chances are that's all they do, unless setting him on fire brings about some actual political capital, and specific policies, to do something about facebook or privacy in general. But I think the critters have benefited from lax privacy laws, it's made them and their donor base wealthy and powerful, and a good deal of them will not want broad privacy protection for any number of reasons. If their approval is around 10%, and Zuckerberg's is around 20% (estimates, but point being Zuck's is probably higher than Congress), they'll see making him look bad will at least in the short term make them look informed, sympathetic and serious. Even if they get a +1% for giving him a hard time, they'll see it as a win. It'll be a spectacle for fans of schadenfreude.
- bdcravens 8y agoMany comments here can be summarized "but he was only 19, young and dumb ..." However many 19 years olds do things that impact the rest of their life and don't get that excuse. "But doing illegal things is different..." Isn't accessing someone's email without consent illegal?
- mudil 8y agoI came up with a new term for Zuckerberg, Google boys and others in the business of invading privacy: spioneers.