Harvard Student Loses Facebook Internship After His App Exploits Privacy Flaws
BOSTON (CBS/AP) — A Harvard University student says he lost his internship at Facebook after he launched a browser application that showed privacy flaws on the social media giant's mobile messenger.
Aran Khanna's app, called Marauder's Map in a nod to Harry Potter, showed that users of Facebook Messenger could pinpoint the exact locations of people with whom they were communicating, even complete strangers.
Khanna posted the app in May and tells Boston.com 85,000 people downloaded it.
Facebook asked Khanna to disable it. A week later Facebook released a Messenger app update addressing the flaw that a company spokesman said had been in the works for months.
Khanna then received a call from Facebook telling him the company was rescinding his internship offer because he had violated the Facebook user agreement.
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