Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Created Secret ‘Project Ghostbusters’ to Snoop on Snapchat, Other Rivals

Javier Olivan, next Facebook’s head of progress, responded that he had been “looking into this with the Onavo team”, referring to the VPN software Facebook acquired in 2013. Olivan tasked Guy Rosen, Onavo’s leader, to coɱe up with “out of the box thinking” to handle Zuckerberg’s demand.

Mark Zuckerberg Meta Selfie ( Facebook )

By July 2016, the Onavo crew had created software that was decipher and catch traffic coming from a particular domain on iOS and Android devices. In an inner internet, Facebook was given the idea of a “man in the middle” approach that allowed it to “read what would otherwise be encrypted visitors so we can measure in-app usage. “

The secret data collection, dubbed” Project Ghostbusters” in reference to Snapchat’s spirit logo, continued for at least three years, expanding to include YouTube and Amazon. However, not all Twitter executives wȩre comfortable with the job.

” I ca n’t think of a good argument for why this is okay”, wrote Pedro Canahuati, Facebook’s then- head of security engineering, in an internal email. No security official always feels at ease with this, no matter what we ask for in return for public support. The general public just does n’t know how this stuff works”.

Despite these concerns, Project Ghostbusters proceeded under Zuckerberg’s law to get a competitive advantage ovȩr rival programs. The sealed documents also reveal that Facebook used outsiders to persuade users to install the software, with no apparent Onavo branding until users took additional steps to evaluate the tool.