Security News > 2022 > September > Facebook Has No Idea What Data It Has

Facebook's stonewalling has been revealing on its own, providing variations on the same theme: It has amassed so much data on so many billions of people and organized it so confusingly that full transparency is impossible on a technical level.

In the March 2022 hearing, Zarashaw and Steven Elia, a software engineering manager, described Facebook as a data-processing apparatus so complex that it defies understanding from within.

The hearing amounted to two high-ranking engineers at one of the most powerful and resource-flush engineering outfits in history describing their product as an unknowable machine.

The special master at times seemed in disbelief, as when he questioned the engineers over whether any documentation existed for a particular Facebook subsystem.

At one point, the court-appointed special master noted that the "Download Your Information" file provided to the suit's plaintiffs must not have included everything the company had stored on those individuals because it appears to have no idea what it truly stores on anyone.

The systemic fogginess of Facebook's data storage made answering even the most basic question futile.

News URL

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/09/facebook-has-no-idea-what-data-it-has.html