Court documents confirm that Facebook spied on encrypted data via Onavo VPN

Documents have been made public about "Project Ghostbusters", Facebook's program to intercept and decrypt the encrypted traffic of Snapchat users. They did this via Onavo, "a VPN-like service that Facebook acquired in 2013" and shut down in 2019 after they were accused of paying teens to use it in order to spy on them. By funneling all user traffic via a VPN they control, Facebook were able to do adversary-in-the-middle attacks so they could "read what would otherwise be encrypted traffic so we can measure in-app usage" on competitor apps. Pedro Canahuati, the then-head of security engineering said "I can't think of a good argument for why this is okay. No security person is ever comfortable with this, no matter what consent we get from the general public", but they did it anyways. Absolute bastards.


If you liked this tiny snippet of content from The Sizzle - Australia's favourite daily email containing the latest tech news & bargains - then sign up for a 30-day free trial below. No credit card required! Learn more about The Sizzle at https://thesizzle.com.au