The media and its misunderstanding technology

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Mobster
Soldato
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9 Apr 2012
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13,166
I see the Daily Mail today reporting that Facebook should "hand over" the password to a Facebook account to the police.

First of all, doesn't this set a dangerous precedent?

Second of all, how could Facebook do this? Facebook don't know the person's password, they do not store it. This is literally web security 101, NEVER store a password. What is most stunning is how the Mail don't seem to know this, when a five second Google would give you this information.

When our media doesn't even understand how technology works - including apparently how to use Google - how can they be trusted to act in our best interest?
 
And yes, if there is a genuine reason for the police to have it and it is requested through the official channels, then it should be given over.
 
Whilst they don't know the password, they can reset it

I've always been of the opinion, that anything you post online is fair game. Facebook messenger is a grey area though, but I have no trouble with granting police access.
 
I honestly don't think that the DM actually care either way. If it sparks argument/debate then it raises their profile and money can be had.
 
Just read the article. It’s about the young 13 year old girl stabbed in Southampton, Lucy McHugh. Police in the U.K. want the password of a suspect, but as Facebook is based in the US, they won’t give it out unless the U.K. police apply to through the US justice department. Stupid bureaucracy that’s wasting valuable time.

If Facebook make so much from the U.K., surely they should have a base in the U.K. that can deal with issues such as this more efficiently.

The suspect has actually been jailed for 14 months for not handing over his password.
 
I assume this is the article?; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...holson-jailed-refusing-Facebook-password.html

I don't think this actually about 'passwords' per-se, I think the daily mail are simply using that to simplify things,

To me it looks like a continuation of non-cooperation, between West Coast tech companies and law enforcement. Because that account is on facebook's platforms, I'm 99.9999% sure Facebook could hand over everything to the police if they wanted to, passwords wouldn't have anything to do with it.

I find it fascinating how much real power these tech companies have, it's literally unprecedented.

robfosters said:
If Facebook make so much from the U.K., surely they should have a base in the U.K. that can deal with issues such as this more efficiently.
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Yeah, I'd agree with that - FB do have an large engineering office in London and their EU HQ. I find it pretty silly how they can operate a social media platform which may contain evidence relating to a murder, yet - any and all decisions relating to handing that evidence over, must go through a challenging and lengthy US DOJ application..

Interestingly, Nick Ferrari announced he's talking about this on LBC in the next hour,
 
Screeeech said:
Yeah, I'd agree with that - FB do have an large engineering office in London and their EU HQ. I find it pretty silly how they can operate a social media platform which may contain evidence relating to a murder, yet - any and all decisions relating to handing that evidence over, must go through a challenging and lengthy US DOJ application..

Interestingly, Nick Ferrari announced he's talking about this on LBC in the next hour,
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It’s really not unreasonable to expect them to set up a small department in one or both of these bases for this sort of stuff.
 
I don't think passwords matter, it's the evidence the court would need - Facebook would easily be able to hand it over if they wanted too. I think the word password is being used because that's what most people understand.
 
robfosters said:
Yes they can, as they obviously do when ordered by the US justice department.

I also remember a while back, when they wouldn’t give MI5 access to text messages following the terror attacks over here.
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Obviously they can reset an account or even just give the police a direct login to that account of their own, etc.

Giving the password itself isn't so easy if a site is doing security proper as it would never have been stored in the original form anyway only a "hash" that matches it which you could reverse engineer into a valid password but it won't necessarily be the same characters as the user was using.
 
May be a laborious process to get the data but those channels are also there to protect people. Wouldnt want your data being distributed willy nilly (lol, yes facebook did/does that anyway.....)
 
Gigabit said:
how can they be trusted to act in our best interest?
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As an aside when was the last time the media acted in our best interests? I always take it as a given any one outlet is acting in their own best interest ultimately even if individual members of staff hold themselves to higher principles and use a range of sources to try and find the most likely truth.
 
robfosters said:
Yes they can, as they obviously do when ordered by the US justice department.

I also remember a while back, when they wouldn’t give MI5 access to text messages following the terror attacks over here.
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You don't know how security works. They can't just "hand over the password". To say so shows a complete misunderstanding of how encryption works.

Facebook would have no idea what the password was. This is exactly why when you ask for your password, they cannot give it to you.
 
Gigabit said:
You don't know how security works. They can't just "hand over the password". To say so shows a complete misunderstanding of how encryption works.

Facebook would have no idea what the password was. This is exactly why when you ask for your password, they cannot give it to you.
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I know what you mean, but as others have said, password or not, Facebook can easily give access to an account.
 
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