News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN. Parent comment

Re:Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN by dathinab on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @06:04AM (#19034149)
Hm,

- installing root certificate to access encrypted data (potentially of websites? including banking websites?)

- means bypassing security mechanism put in place to prevent people to access data send to a server (from a browser/app)

- means potentially bypassing DRM, too

=> isn't that illegal even if the user agrees to it? (at last in the US where some especially DRM related laws are strange)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN by Ninn on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @07:13AM (#19034434)
No that is absurd, this is standard practice for almost all enterprise setups, as a central component in the deep packet inspection solutions used in network security. So the chance of it being illegal as the user has agreed to participate is absurd. The only thing that would make it so would be to lie about the functionality and intrusiveness.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN by danesparza on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @08:38AM (#19034886)
Remember that in the case of the Facebook VPN, they were asking teens to install it -- which means the teens involved (according to US law) are a protected class: under adult age. Under age folks can't legally agree to participate in anything.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN by salawat on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @12:09PM (#19036951)
Keep in mind, just because everyone does it doesn't mean squat for is it legal or not. It means it hasn't been tested in the legal system, such that a judgement has been passed regarding legality.

If somehow, the practice were found to be a key part of circumventing some large industry's means of controlling something, it could realistically end up becoming illegal once subject to legal scrutiny.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN by Retr0spectrum on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @06:43AM (#19034321)
How would this bypass DRM?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook has been paying people to install a “Research” VPN by Wowfunhappy on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @10:09AM (#19035613)
I think the parent is implying that HTTPS encryption is a form of DRM. It's a reasonable question because AFAIK, the DMCA doesn't specifically call out DRM but rather any security/protection measures, so I can see how HTTPS would fall into that.

(However, upthread comments indicate that using certificates to see HTTPS traffic is a fairly common practice in enterprise setups)

[ Parent | on HN ]