Facebook Hand in the Spyware Jar

BILL'S RANT — PRIVACY SHOULD NOT BE FOR SALE

It has been said that through television you allow people to come into your home that you would never let enter in real life. Now multiply that by a thousand and you have Facebook.

Technology is amazing and is generally used for the good and betterment of society. But, in the wrong hands it can be a thief and threat to you and your family.

In his book “1984”, George Orwell laid out the danger of a world where personal privacy and freedom did not exist. The moral to the story is that “Big Brother” should never have control over us, and for the most part, people agree.

Why is it then, that people seem so willing to hand over their privacy and freedom to the likes of Google, Facebook, and Amazon — the big three of privacy mongers?

Google and Amazon —though just as insidious as Facebook— are much more subtle. Google offers so-called free services to capture even the most minute detail about you and your daily lives, while Amazon sells you products at bargain basement prices to learn about your personal tastes, especially their Alexa voice control devices which have been proven to eavesdrop on you and your family.

Facebook on the other hand is blatant, perhaps ham-handed in its approach to amassing personal files on all its willing users.

Michael Potuck is an editor for 9to5Mac and other tech journals who reported yesterday on yet another revelation on the deep, evil intent of Facebook.

Potuck reported, “Over the last few years, Facebook has had a slew of privacy and security blunders and more details about one of them have come to light through a new court filing as the social media company is suing the spyware company NSO Group.” The editor says, “It turns out Facebook tried to buy controversial government spyware to monitor iPhone and iPad users.”

It goes back to 2017 when Facebook was building its Virtual Personal Network (VPN) a way to allow you to mask your identity on the internet to, supposedly, protect you from spying eyes.

The project was called Onavo Protect which was offered for Android and iOS users throughout the world. Facebook soon found that the personal privacy efforts built into iOS by Apple was limiting the harvest of personal details. In short, Facebook could not grab as much detail as they did in Android.

With the billions of dollars FB has amassed from providing its so-called free services, they approached a company called NSO Group, famous for the spyware it creates for government agencies, to find ways to improve the harvest from Apple device users.

Specifically, Facebook wanted to use parts of a program called “Pegasus” to better monitor iPhones and iPads. The folks at NSO Group wisely said no thanks.

Facebook continued with its spyware, masquerading as a VPN, until Apple removed it from the App Store in 2018.

Undaunted in its signature clumsy way, Facebook returned to the App Store with similar software re-branded as a “research app”. 

This time FB offered to pay teens to load the research app on their iPhones and iPads so they could harvest their personal details and data use. Again Apple removed the app. A few months later, in 2019, Facebook gave up on the project.

The point is, Facebook was willing to pay big bucks to gain access to your personal data. The company, and its founder Mark Zuckerberg, has become wealthy beyond all measure by selling your info to advertisers. You might think your little corner of the personal information business might not be worth much, but the billions of dollars in the Facebook bank account prove otherwise.

It is said that if their products are free —Google and Facebook— then you are the product for sale!

Add your comments below.