Facebook spooked after MPs seize documents for privacy breach probe

British MPs have made unprecedented use of Parliamentary powers to send a serjeant at arms to the hotel where the boss of a US software biz was staying to seize potentially damaging documents on Facebook. The cache allegedly shows internal messages – including from Mark Zuckerberg – that demonstrate the social network actively …

[Arthur the cat]

Re: Missing Information

First off, brilliant stroke by Parliament. For a change, someone was awake at the wheel.

But

a) how and why was the "victim" of this attack carrying such sensitive data around with him in the UK or, if he wasn't, how could he be compelled, with no legal role in FB, to access and hand over the data?

b) how did the authorities over here even learn that the opportunity existed?

How about the answer to both questions being "because it was a set up". The CEO of Six4Three can't release the files to the public because of a US court order. The CEO wants to release files to the public to help in his battle with Facebook. The CEO just happens to come to the UK carrying a copy of the files, which he doesn't need for the journey, and the parliamentary committee just happens to find out he's got them, and sends round the boys.

The CEO (possibly) has a defence of force majeure against the charge he revealed sealed documents, the DCMS committee gets their hands on documents they want and look like heroes. Both parties are happy.

[WorsleyNick]

Re: Missing Information

If it was a setup, then one hopes that he did not leave a data trail (email/sms etc) that led the committee to know that the package was there for the taking. Face to face after running into Newspaper man in the Hotel lobby might do, anything as long as there was no data trail.

[Dazed and Confused]

Re: Missing Information

But

a) how and why was the "victim" of this attack carrying such sensitive data around with him in the UK...

A couple of thoughts.

1) Who can be arsed to clean up their PC before making foreign trips. He probably just had the stuff all over his disk. 14 copies in different emails and a few actual copies in folders he was working on at various times.

2) He was over in London consulting with legal types for fresh approaches to the attack. He presumably allowed to discuss the stuff with lawyers. Alternatively he's talking to banking types about financing the legal case. Sure there are these services in the US, but he might be thinking it never hurts to get a second opinion.

Beer? coz it's beer o'clock and this all sounds like a pub conversation.

[whitepines]

Re: Missing Information

I'd go with 1.) but with a modern twist. Who bothers restricting access to files they can normally access "in the cloud" before taking a foreign trip? This should be standard policy, that any employee has their account locked before a trip (after they pull the files they do need onto a clean laptop) but I know of almost no one doing so.

Maybe that will change now?

[post-truth]

Re: Missing Information

Win-win. Well played by both sides.

[adam payne]

British MPs have made unprecedented use of Parliamentary powers to send a serjeant at arms to the hotel where the boss of a US software biz was staying to seize potentially damaging documents on Facebook.

Well maybe not all of our MPs are gutless after all.

I'm impressed and shocked at the same time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably just a coincidence how this Ted bloke comes all over the way over to the U, just happens to be carrying the exact documents sought by the Committee, who just happen to know which hotel he holed up in, and then whole panto just happens to make The Observer's publication deadline under the byline of somebody who writes specifically on the topic of Facebook or big-tech privacy breaches?

Great theatre.

[John Brown (no body)]

"Great theatre."

Is this the interval now? Have I got time go get an ice cream or drink?

[T. F. M. Reader]

Contempt?

So is this Ted Kramer guy now in contempt of the US court that sealed the documents? I seriously doubt the fact that he had to comply with the UK laws is a valid defence. After all, he didn't have to take the docs on an overseas trip with him. If he needed to work on them he could have accessed them remotely.

Which begs the question: would the UK authorities apply the law that mandates disclosure of (VPN) credentials to him?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Contempt?

"would the UK authorities apply the law that mandates disclosure of (VPN) credentials to him?"

No, they just tell him to produce the documents. How he does that is his problem.

[chivo243]

It's time

That the neighborhood bully took Marky out on the playground and stole his lunch money, for starters. Reg readers please feel free to add insult to Marky's injuries

1. Steal his lunch money

2.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's time

2. is obvious. Put his head down the bog and flush it, then post the pictures on Instagram, Baidu and vKontaktye.

[Fred Flintstone]

I rather love the irony..

.. of Facebook getting zuckered by the exact same method Facebook itself has used to skirt the laws: they asked the data from someone else.

If only I could believe Parliament was capable of doing something that ironic deliberately..

:)

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Richard Allan aka Lord Allan

RCJ on the BBC...

Mr Allan is actually Lord Allan, a former Liberal Democrat MP given a peerage by Nick Clegg, who in a strange turn of events has now become Facebook's global public-relations and policy chief.

On Tuesday, they hold a public hearing where Lord Allan, of Facebook, will be one of the witnesses and could face cross-examination about information the American legal system says should remain private.

Time for some popcorn

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Richard Allan aka Lord Allan

I've been wondering who introduced the Political Featherweight Clegg to Zuckerberg

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Richard Allan aka Lord Allan

Clegg may be a political featherweight, but he is far more aristocratic than Cameron, Rees-Mogg or Johnson and has far more connections. I suspect it's only choosing the wrong party that prevented him from being PM. He has all the other attributes, including the ability to do handbrake turns on policy.

[Anonymous Coward]

data hose

I'm thinking another kind of hose, hoses.

[Anonymous Coward]

Parliament has teeth ....... and uses them properly for once !!!

Somewhat surprised that so many people are asking why the CEO of Six4Three had the documents on him ???

Remember he was surprised by the House of Commons serjeant-at-arms in his hotel and after refusing to comply with the requests for the data, marched off to Parliament to be threatened with fines/prison *now*.

Most people would give some thought to avoiding being sent to prison in a foreign country.

He would simply obtain via email or remote login whatever was required and plead to the US courts that he was compelled by threat of imprisonment to hand over the sealed data.

I know I would not go out of my way to defend Facebook and their so called privacy by going to a foreign prison.

Well done parliament for keeping up the pressure and using our laws for *our* benefit rather than Mega Corporations getting their own way as per usual.

Damian Collins should be in line for a Knighthood for services to the country, for real, rather than the usual reward for supporting some weak PM or other in an hour of need.

[Anonymous Coward]

Move fast, break everything....

"Facebook defrauded app developers by changing data access policies."

In Menlo Park that's called a business model.

[ThatOne]

Naive?

It's all a plot to be given some juicy exec jobs at Facebook too, after which the whole unpleasantness will suddenly disappear. Papers? What papers?

[cantankerous swineherd]

paging nick clegg

[Anonymous Coward]

paging nick clegg

Bugger all the Bugger All Democrats will do for you.

[I don't know any "Spartacus", my Lord]

Reminds me of the old joke "Would Nick Clegg come to the lost property office, please, that's a Mr Nick Clegg to the lost property offfice, where we have your spine. . "

[GeordieSteve]

For a long time now I have felt that Europe needed its own OS's, Search engines, Social media etc.

The thought that something like a young person posting something stupid online and thirty years later that post being used by a foreign government (currently probably the US) to black mail them to me is a real threat to Europe's security. I am surprised that the political classes in Europe have not considered such dangers to their independence.

[Scott 53]

Do people really do this?

This is not what I aim to do when I mirror my screen.

[Anonymous Coward]

In light of resent events on the use of Parliamentary powers to seize papers from Facebook and the use spying apps used to weaponize data it's not implausible that Facebook provides the data to third parties by looking the other way and therefore damaging democratic principles and constitutions of other countries as a consequences changing the outcome of future events. In the UK Parliamentary powers (As some of you have said "To the Tower") is serious.

[Susan Vash]

"""The app dev said it had invested $250,000 in an utterly charming app that allowed users to find pictures of their friends' friends in bikinis"""

Seriously?

Another reason as to why I refuse to use FaceBook. I may not be missed, but at least my skimpy's are not public display.