Jack Linshi

Find out why Zuckerberg is always wearing a gray t-shirt, and why he wants Facebook to be like water

About eight years ago, Facebook’s employees—so few then that they could easily sit together in a circle—started a practice of holding employee town hall-style Q&As with CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg. On Thursday, the public was allowed in on this tradition for the first time, as Zuckerberg and other execs fielded questions posted on the event’s Facebook page and from a live audience.

Here are the most important, surprising and funny takeaways:

“My goal was never to make Facebook cool. I am not a cool person”

Facebook might be “losing its charm,” as one audience member said, but that’s only because Zuckerberg wants the central aspect of Facebook—the facilitation of communication and connections—to be something as regular, expected and uneventful as switching on a lightbulb or turning on a water faucet. Those aren’t necessarily “cool,” Zuckerberg explained, but rather are things “people can rely on.”

Facebook has plans for solar-powered drones that’ll beam down Internet access

It’s a futuristic pursuit, but Zuckerberg believes it’s Facebook’s responsibility as the world’s most popular Internet service—one-sixth of the world is on Facebook—to spread Internet to the 4-to-4.5 billion people who aren’t connected. The project, called Internet.org, is a partnership with other tech giants to bring affordable Internet access to the world.

COO Sheryl Sandberg let the audience in on one of her “major” contributions to Facebook

“One of the major things I contributed was I went around telling people Mark actually has more than one of that t-shirt, which people found to be very reassuring,” Sandberg said, referring to how Zuckerberg is frequently seen wearing his signature gray t-shirt.

There’s a reason why Zuckerberg is always wearing that one shirt

“I’m in this really lucky position where I get to wake up every day and help serve more than 1 billion people, and I feel like I’m not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things [like deciding what to wear],” Zuckerberg said. “Even though it kind of sounds silly that that’s my reason for wearing a gray t-shirt every day, it also is true.”

The average user sees less than 10% of his/her Facebook stories via the NewsFeed.

Zuckerberg said the average Facebook user only sees about 100 of their 1500 stories per day on their NewsFeed. The curated NewsFeed—Zuckerberg hopes it’ll be “the perfect personalized newspaper for every person in the world”—is part of the reason why businesses are complaining their free Facebook Pages are reaching fewer and fewer people.

Zuckerberg found The Social Network to be “hurtful”

Unlike what the Oscar-winning film suggested, attracting women was wasn’t one of the reasons Zuckerberg started Facebook. In fact, he said was dating Priscilla Chan, now his wife, at the time. It’s a portrayal Zuckerberg finds “hurtful,” as he said Facebook’s mission was first and foremost to help people stay connected to their loved ones.

Zuckerberg doesn’t want you to think of only him when you think of Facebook

“One of the things I think the media gets wrong about companies or inventions [is] they try to make it seem like one person did it,”Zuckerberg said. He pointed to his colleagues who were also involved in the Q&A as a testament to Facebook’s multi-person leadership, and told students in the audience that one of his keys to success was surrounding himself with supportive people.

Fingerprint scans are more secure, except when it comes to the Fifth Amendment

Cellphone fingerprint passcodes weren’t on James Madison’s mind when he authored the Fifth Amendment, a constitutional protection with roots in preventing torture by barring self-incriminating testimonials in court cases.

Yet those tiny skin ridges we all share were at the heart of a Virginia court case last week in which a judge ruled that police, who suspected there was incriminating evidence on a suspect’s smartphone, could legally force the man to unlock his device with its fingerprint scanner. While the Fifth Amendment protects defendants from revealing their numeric passcodes, which would be considered a self-incriminating testimonial, biometrics like fingerprint scans fall outside the law’s scope.

“If you are being forced to divulge something that you know, that’s not okay,” said Marcia Hofmann, an attorney and special counsel to digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation. “If the government is able through other means to collect evidence that just exists, then they certainly can do that without stepping on the toes of the constitutional protection.”

“The important thing is,” Hofmann said, “is it something you know, or something you have?”

The Virginia ruling was perhaps the most clear-cut decision among similar cases whose outcomes have varied significantly by circumstance. In United States v. Fricosu (2012), a court ruled because it was “a foregone conclusion” that the defendant’s password-locked data was incriminating, the Fifth Amendment didn’t apply. In United States v. John Doe (2011), the defendant, who had a hard drive protected by encryption, at first didn’t receive Fifth Amendment protection, but that decision was reversed by an appellate court that ruled that if Doe provided his decryption password, then it would “lead the Government to evidence that would incriminate him.” Last week’s Virginia ruling is a fresh example of what can happen when a 225-year-old law is applied to a field as rapidly changing as digital security.

“I think the courts are struggling with this, because a fingerprint in and of itself is not testimony,” said Hayes Hunt, a criminal defense and government investigations lawyer at Cozen O’Connor. “The concern is, once we put a password on something or in ourselves, we have a certain privacy interest.”

Judges across the country will only have to make more decisions about biometrics, as their use by everyday consumers is on the rise. Today, our data is protected by everything from iris scans at airports to heartbeat measurements and ear-print smartphone locks. “This whole area is in such a state of flux,” said Jody Goodman, a counsel at Crowell & Moring. “It seems like every week there are new things happening.”

Apple in particular is one of the most widely-recognized consumer technology companies that have adopted biometrics, though it wasn’t the first. Its latest flagship iPhones and iPads come with Touch ID, which lets users unlock their devices or make payments by scanning their thumbprints instead of inputting a numeric passcode. But while Apple and other companies with fingerprint scanners on their devices say the feature provides more protection from data theft, the Virginia ruling means that data protected only by an old-school passcode is afforded stronger legal protection under the Fifth Amendment.

The solution for those seeking more legal cover for their data, though, is surprisingly simple. If a defendant’s data is protected by both a thumbprint and a passcode, he or she could invoke the Fifth for the thumbprint, thereby blocking access to the data — at least according to the precedent set by the Virginia case. But for now, iPhones at least lack this option, probably because it’s not being demanded by consumers.

“I think Apple will respond to what the market demands,” said Goodman. “Most people don’t want to be bothered [by additional security]. That’s why the fingerprint technology was created in the first place.”

A plug-in personal assistant on your service 24/7

New report says Skype, Facebook Chat and even "off the record" Gchat aren't actually that secure

So-called “secure messaging” systems, including popular apps like Skype and Facebook Chat, don’t actually live up to their supposed safety, according to a report released Tuesday by a digital rights group.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Secure Messaging Scorecard judged the security of over 30 e-mail, social media, voice and video calling apps across seven categories, including whether the provider can read your messages and whether your previous communications are secure if your passkeys are stolen.

Some of the most popular chat platforms, including Facebook Chat, Snapchat, WhatsApp, BBM, AIM and even “off the record” Google Chat, lack the encryption necessary to protect communications from the app’s makers, though they do encrypt messages during transit, the EFF’s scorecard says.

The most secure mainstream chat apps are Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime, which are encrypted so that neither outsiders nor Apple can access your conversations. Still, both lack security functions to verify your contacts’ identities, and they also don’t release their code for independent review.

Of the 38 systems evaluated in the scorecard, only six managed to fulfill all seven categories: ChatSecure, CryptoCat, Signal/Redphone, Silent Phone, Silent Text and TextSecure, all lesser-known apps purpose-built for the security-minded.

Aside from Mxit, a messaging app popular in South Africa, the other app that failed all seven of the security indicators is QQ, a hit Chinese messaging app with nearly 1 billion users.

The EFF’s full scorecard can be viewed here.

"This is not Sodom and Gomorrah"

Her lawyers demand "a prominent public apology"

Lena Dunham’s lawyers have threatened a lawsuit against a conservative organization after it published an article claiming that a passage from the Girls writer’s new memoir indicates she had sexually abused her younger sister.

In a letter dated Nov. 1, Dunham’s legal counsel explains to the right-leaning media outlet Truth Revolt that its story, titled “Lena Dunham Describes Sexually Abusing Her Little Sister,” was “highly defamatory,” according to the document obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. Her lawyers also demanded “a prominent public apology” and an immediate and permanent removal of all forms of the article, the letter said.

The writer-actress went on a self-described Twitter “rage spiral” over the weekend in response to the Truth Revolt’s allegations that parts of her new book, Not That Kind of Girl, describe her “experimenting sexually with her younger sister Grace, whom she says she attempted to persuade to kiss her using ‘anything a sexual predator might do.'”

Dunham further addressed the situation Tuesday in an exclusive statement to TIME, in which she said she does not condone abuse. She also acknowledged that her word choice was inappropriate:

Childhood sexual abuse is a life-shattering event for so many, and I have been vocal about the rights of survivors. If the situations described in my book have been painful or triggering for people to read, I am sorry, as that was never my intention. I am also aware that the comic use of the term “sexual predator” was insensitive, and I’m sorry for that as well.

Critics say President Erdogan's extravagance is a sign of his self-righteousness

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s presidential palace, over 30 times the size of the White House and four times the size of Versailles, is costing Turkey $615 million, the country’s finance minister said Tuesday.

The lavish residence, which had an expected price tag of $315 million, comes with a $185 million Airbus presidential jet tailored to Erdogan’s design preferences, according to Bloomberg.

For years, the former Turkish Prime Minister had been accused of abusing taxpayers’ money when he helped design the extravagant, 1,000-room building known as the White Palace. Several court orders were ineffective in stopping the construction and expansion of the building, which totals over 3.1 million square feet.

Erdogan’s critics believe the mega mansion is a sign that he feels superior to the law that governs the country, an economist at GlobalSource Partners told Bloomberg. Other critics have likened Erdogan’s palace to the People’s Palace built by Romania’s communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was infamous for his brutal and repressive regime.

[Bloomberg]

From the second half of 2013 to the first half of 2014

Facebook reported a nearly one-quarter increase in the number of government requests for user data over the last year.

Government requests for user information rose by 24% between the second half of 2013 and the first half of 2014, while the number of government requests for content restriction rose by 19%, the report said. Specifically, 34,946 requests were made by governments around the world for user data between January and June of 2014.

While government requests are made for criminal investigation purposes, Facebook said that it ensures that all inquires are legally sufficient. The social media company is currently challenging a bulk search warrant on 400 users, which Facebook believes violates privacy and constitutional rights.

“We scrutinize every government request we receive for legal sufficiency under our terms and the strict letter of the law, and push back hard when we find deficiencies or are served with overly broad requests,” Chris Sonderby, Facebook Deputy General Counsel, wrote in a press release.

While Facebook emphasizes its resistance against unjustified criminal information requests, its latest report is decidedly less focused on the number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) orders and National Security Letters (NSL) the company has received. The two U.S. laws allow the government data surveillance for security reasons, but companies aren’t legally permitted to disclose exact information about their requests.

The latest challenge to make FISA and NSL requests more transparent is instead being spearheaded by Twitter, which sued the Justice Department in October to provide more information to its users.