

Google Engineer Builds Facebook Disconnect - bwaldorf
http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/20/google-facebook-disconnec/

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lwhi
You know you're heading down a rocky road when third parties are creating your
app's privacy functionality.

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pmjordan
s/third parties/Google/

(I realise this isn't an official Google product)

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uptown
You can use FacebookBlocker to accomplish the same thing with extensions for
Firefox, Safari, and Chrome:

<http://webgraph.com/resources/facebookblocker/>

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gacek
A browser extension to block a single service?

Use a general "browser firewall" and add <http://*.connect.facebook.*/*> to
the list of blocked urls...

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jules
The browser extension is useful, even more so for non-technical people: you
click a button and it's installed.

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iuguy
How many non-technical people do you know that use Chrome as their primary
browser?

I ask this because while I know plenty of tech savvy people that use Firefox,
I'm in the minority on the Chrome/Chromium front amongst them, and I don't
know a single non-technical person who uses Chrome.

~~~
jaspero
I know quite a few non-technical person who use Chrome. I cannot guarantee
that they know how to install an extension though. Most of the non-tech people
uses internet primarily for FaceBook and they shouldn't be concerned when they
see their FaceBook on say, CNN.com.

~~~
jules
Installing this extension is as easy as clicking the big Install button on its
page and then click Install when Chrome asks you whether you really want to
install the extension.

~~~
jaspero
You still need to go to Chrome extension website right? It's not that when you
go to a website that has FB connect, the Chrome asks if you want to block it
or not. That would be effective though.

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jamesjyu
FWIW, you do not need to go the Chrome extension website to install an
extension. It can be hosted by a 3rd party via a simple link on any website.

~~~
jaspero
Yes, I get your point, but if you take an example of CNN, they are not going
to have a link to disable FB Connect.

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jules
Right. But they aren't going to have an explanation on how to block FB connect
with your firewall, so it's not really a disadvantage of an extension.

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j_s
Direct link to the Chrome extension:
[https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ejpepffjfmamnamb...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ejpepffjfmamnambagiibghpglaidiec)

It is a bit odd to blame this on Google unless the guy created it at work.
From the page: "the work here is entirely my own and in no way endorsed by
Google."

edit: disclaimer is on the actual download page!

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nozepas
Of course one should be 'worried' about privacy with his/her data on facebook,
but i don't think one should care less with the information google has about a
huge amount of people.

Just as a reminder: they know what you look for on the web (google itself),
they know what you talk to your friends (gtalk), they know what you get via
email (gmail), they know what videos you watch to (on youtube) and they now
even have a browser which is being adopted by a lot of people pretty fast.

Maybe one does not use all those services but many people do, and depending on
how you look at it, probably google has a lot of more 'private' information
about one's life than facebook.

That, of course, doesn't mean 'FB disconnect' is a bad idea. It's just that i
get 'scared' when someone who know a lot about you (google in this case) build
something trying to look as they 'protect your privacy'... (i also keep in
mind that google is not prone to providing data about users, but they have the
ability to)

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revorad
Why is it bad if google or facebook know a lot about people? Can you give me
some examples?

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pyre
Pooling all of that information into one place is begging for it to be abused.
Would you still be asking the same question if it was s/Facebook/NSA/g or
s/Google/FBI/g or even s/Google/KGB/g? Once all of this information is in
place how hard do you think it will be for such organizations to get access to
it? Just because the 'big bad guberment' isn't the one doing the collecting
doesn't mean that the information cannot be abused internally, or externally
to the company compiling it.

~~~
revorad
Usually these discussions sound like some people are worried that the
corporations themselves will do something bad with the data (sell you more
stuff you like ! _gasp_!).

Government misusing data is the only thing I could think of. But what's the
evidence for that fear? If the organisations you mention wanted to go after
people, can't they already do so?

With this kind of reasoning, the internet itself should qualify as a huge
setback to privacy. The point is that the advantages far outweigh the
disadvantages.

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bosch
I'm hoping a Facebook engineer designs something similar for Google's privacy
issues...

~~~
ramanujan
An Adwords blocker for Chrome?

An tool which automatically logs you into Facebook when presented with a
choice of OpenIDs which includes Google's?

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Kliment
I do something similar with adblock filters. I don't use Facebook, so I have
no privacy issue with connect, but it does improve load/render times by
multiple seconds.

~~~
iambvk
I too don't have a facebook account and the worst issue with Facebook connect
is, its login box steals keyboard focus and completely annoys my browsing
experience.

I hope he releases this as Firefox extension too.

~~~
Snoddas
FacebookBlocker <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/212323/>

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joeyh
What's interesting to me is that this is done in Chrome, which has given eg,
Adblock some trouble since it does not really allow extensions to change the
page content, only hide parts of it. Would be interested in a technical look
at how it's managing to filter out the facebook bugs given that limitation --
or has Chrome been updated to give extensions more power?

~~~
izak30
knowing nothing else about chrome extension development:

Rapportive appears to modify page content in chrome

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msy
I do this system-wide on OSX via Glimmer Blocker
(<http://glimmerblocker.org/>) using a modified version of the Facebook Like
filter on their wiki (<http://glimmerblocker.org/wiki/Filters>). Has a nice
bonus of speeding up page load as well.

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middlegeek
Can't this be blocked on a FB level already? I don't see those "FB Connect"
boxes anymore. To be honest, I cannot even remember what setting I changed in
FB, but it seems to work. (I also have disabled applications and not sure if
this makes a difference but I use Adblock Plus as well.)

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mloc
This cannot be good for Google. If I was an exec at Google I would be very
nervous about this. This is a good excuse and opportunity for people to start
writing more ad blocking plugins. I am sure Google would not want that.

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jaspero
It's a blessing for people like me who see the 'you are not authorized to
visit this site and will be reported' kind of message on your office computer.

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mongx
another great extension for improving sanity and privacy on facebook is f.b
purity. The app blocking functionality, helps protect your privacy from all
those spammy quiz and game applications that appear in your newsfeed
<http://www.fbpurity.com>

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danielnicollet
If you are that worried about Facebook privacy, just create a fake account and
stuff it with fake data on your fake persona. This way, not only you will be
expressing your disdain for Facebook's lack of privacy, you'll also be saying
to Facebook: I don't like you but I use you ;-)

Or better yet, use OpenID.

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StavrosK
Come on, we already have a perfectly good protocol for this, OpenID. It's
unfortunate how big companies try to lock users in their own authentication
services rather than educate them about OpenID (although I think the new
JanRain widgets turn OpenID into a "Connect with X" service, which is great).

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patio11
OpenID is not a perfectly good protocol. It is a total mess. Implementing it
is an exercise in pulling teeth. Every major implementation was vulnerable to
a timing attack until recently, which severely compromised the security of
both sites which actually accept OpenID. The user experience is an abomination
which requires users understand concepts which strike them like ancient
Aramaic. Half of the spec, which you have to implement, is devoted to
requirements put there for ideological reasons which no user is actually
interested in (delegation). The core use case -- that any site on the website
can ask for your holiest of holy credentials and you should just give them out
-- appears to be the world's most widespread phishing attack, organized by
sleeper agents planted on the spec committee whose dark masters tasked them
with undermining everything we have ever taught users about password security.

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joeyh
Delegation is of great interest to anyone who runs their own web site but
prefers to not run their own openid server.

(Won't touch the other trolling.)

