Facebook can’t stand the bug in its security flaw, sacks developer

MUMBAI, INDIA: Seems like Facebook is investing heavily on the diaspora of developers, but does not have the stomach to digest bugs in its security system.

Even though Aran Khanna, a student developer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was to begin his summer internship at Facebook, complied with the demands of the social media company to pull off the extension, he received a call from Facebook which informed him of his unceremonious termination as he `had violated’ Facebook user agreement when he scrapped the site for data.

The fact is Khanna has revealed the extension in a privacy flaw in the Facebook system, and had not made it public, since he was to being his internship at the company.

The background:
It must be recalled that there were reports about a Chrome extension called Marauders Map that allowed Facebook users to see exactly where their contacts are messaging them from.

Some days later, Khanna noted an extension which grabbed a user’s location data from Facebook Messenger plot it out on a map.

The location is believed to be precise and therefore, makes it easy to identify a person’s vicinity. To make things easier, it can fetch location data from the past as well as long as location sharing is enabled; a feature offered by default on iOS and Android apps.

Khanna released the flaw but was quickly asked to pull down the extension, since it was giving FB bad press. He was also asked not to speak to the media.

According to one report in the Boston, “The day after Marauder’s Map was posted, Khanna said his future manager at Facebook called him and asked him not to talk to the press. That evening, Khanna received a call from Facebook’s global communications lead for privacy and public policy, who reiterated that Khanna shouldn’t talk to the press because the story had become damaging.

According to the report, “Khanna complied, redirecting all press inquiries back with Facebook. The next day, Facebook asked him to deactivate the extension. He did, but also updated his Medium post and the extension’s description to make it clear that Facebook asked him to disable the map.”