Court filings unsealed last week allege Meta created an internal effort to spy on Snapchat in a secret initiative called “Project Ghostbusters.” Meta did so through Onavo, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service the company offered between 2016 and 2019 that, ultimately, wasn’t private at all.
It’s Meta’s in-house wiretapping tool to spy on data analytics from Snapchat starting in 2016, later used on YouTube and Amazon. This involved creating “kits” that can be installed on iOS and Android devices, to intercept traffic for certain apps, according to the filings. This was described as a “man-in-the-middle” approach to get data on Facebook’s rivals, but users of Onavo were the “men in the middle.”
Facebook ultimately shut down Onavo in 2019 after Apple booted the VPN from its app store.
Prosecutors also allege that Facebook violated the United States Wiretap Act, which prohibits the intentional procurement of another person’s electronic communications. Onavo could also be considered straight spyware, but also seems to fall under the definition of wiretapping, according to prosecutors.
The court filings show chats and emails that depict Zuckerberg as being directly involved in these communications.
Prosecutors allege Project Ghostbusters harmed competition in the ad industry, adding weight to their central argument that Meta is a monopoly in social media.
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Court filings unsealed last week allege Meta created an internal effort to spy on Snapchat in a secret initiative called “Project Ghostbusters.” Meta did so through Onavo, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service the company offered between 2016 and 2019 that, ultimately, wasn’t private at all.
“Whenever someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer is usually that because their traffic is encrypted we have no analytics about them,” said Mark Zuckerberg in an email to three Facebook executives in 2016, unsealed in Meta’s antitrust case on Saturday.
It’s Meta’s in-house wiretapping tool to spy on data analytics from Snapchat starting in 2016, later used on YouTube and Amazon.
Meta acquired Onavo from an Israeli firm over 10 years ago, promising users private networking, as most VPNs do.
However, the service was reportedly used to spy on rival social media apps through tens of millions of people who downloaded Onavo.
Prosecutors also allege that Facebook violated the United States Wiretap Act, which prohibits the intentional procurement of another person’s electronic communications.
Things like this are why I think the whole Facebook “encrypted messaging” thing is just a scam to try and look like they respect your privacy. It doesn’t matter if you have the best encryption out there if the doors are wide open for them on either end and they’re keylogging everything you do.
Isn’t Snapchat terrible at security? Heard of someone who made a plane bombing joke in a private message and the airport wifi intercepted it and he got arrested
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I’ll never use a Meta/Facebook product if I can help it. They’re pure evil.
There is no doubt that it is meant to spy. I wonder if zuk bought WhatsApp with the intention to add Pegasus backdoor in it.
Just when I thought Facebook couldn’t go any lower.
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🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Court filings unsealed last week allege Meta created an internal effort to spy on Snapchat in a secret initiative called “Project Ghostbusters.” Meta did so through Onavo, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service the company offered between 2016 and 2019 that, ultimately, wasn’t private at all.
“Whenever someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer is usually that because their traffic is encrypted we have no analytics about them,” said Mark Zuckerberg in an email to three Facebook executives in 2016, unsealed in Meta’s antitrust case on Saturday.
It’s Meta’s in-house wiretapping tool to spy on data analytics from Snapchat starting in 2016, later used on YouTube and Amazon.
Meta acquired Onavo from an Israeli firm over 10 years ago, promising users private networking, as most VPNs do.
However, the service was reportedly used to spy on rival social media apps through tens of millions of people who downloaded Onavo.
Prosecutors also allege that Facebook violated the United States Wiretap Act, which prohibits the intentional procurement of another person’s electronic communications.
Saved 65% of original text.
Things like this are why I think the whole Facebook “encrypted messaging” thing is just a scam to try and look like they respect your privacy. It doesn’t matter if you have the best encryption out there if the doors are wide open for them on either end and they’re keylogging everything you do.
If you don’t hold the keys, your data may as well not be encrypted.
Guillotines.
Isn’t Snapchat terrible at security? Heard of someone who made a plane bombing joke in a private message and the airport wifi intercepted it and he got arrested
Id be surprised if there wasn’t basic encryption to prevent a man in the middle attack like you described.
In the article the talk about needing to install certs to read encrypted traffic from the app.