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Re:Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN by Wowfunhappy on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @09:57PM (#19032236)
Regardless of whether Facebook was also trying to deceive users specifically—which we'll never know—they likely wanted to deceive Apple. I'm not going to blame any developer for attempting to bypass Apple's stupid restrictions.

Using intermediaries also allowed Facebook to technically not violate Apple's enterprise certificate contract (because the intermediaries were in violation instead).

Re:Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN by morpheuskafka on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @10:32AM (#19035827)
> Using intermediaries also allowed Facebook to technically not violate Apple's enterprise certificate contract (because the intermediaries were in violation instead).

I actually though they would have done that, but it used the regular "iPhone Distribution: Facebook, Inc. (In-House)" cert, they didn't even create a shell entity and get a new one. Reports say Apple has revoked this cert, breaking all internal (legitimate) apps and possibly creating quite a bit of chaos for internal ops.{1} Their separate Apple Developer Program organization account, used to deploy TestFlight public and private betas and App Store apps, as well as local deployment to a small number of devices without Apple involvement for development testing, is not affected.

The intermediaries may or may not face consequences if they have separate agreements with Apple, but they did not use any Apple products to do their part and have not violated anything with Apple.

{1} https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203551/apple-facebook-b...

Re:Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN by Wowfunhappy on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @10:59AM (#19036121)
Huh, I stand corrected. I'm pretty surprised Facebook used their own cert. The fact it has been revoked was 100% predictable.
Re:Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN by acct1771 on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @10:06PM (#19032282)
When collecting data like this, best to leave it to the pros - whether they're internal, or you have to contract out.