Thursday, June 11, 2026
ADVT 
International

Indian American Harvard Student Loses Facebook Internship

IANS, 13 Aug, 2015 02:14 PM
    Facebook cancelled an Indian-origin student's internship after he exposed a serious privacy flaw in the social media giant's messenger service, a media report said.
     
    Aran Khanna's application, Marauder's Map, used data from Facebook Messenger to map users' location when they sent messages, Boston.com reported on Wednesday.
     
    The computer science and math student at Harvard University in Massachusetts, US, posted about his app on social media sites Reddit and Medium in May this year and soon it went viral.
     
    The app caught the attention of Facebook and Mr Khanna was asked to disable it.
     
    However, before it was disabled, the extension was downloaded more than 85,000 times and "shared on over 200 publications", according to Mr Khanna.
     
    About a week later, Facebook released a Messenger app update to provide users "full control over when and how you share your location information".
     
    Facebook cancelled Mr Khanna's summer internship, saying he did not meet the high ethical standards expected from the interns.
     
    The student accepted another internship with a tech start-up in Silicon Valley and later detailed the experience in a case study titled 'Facebook's Privacy Incident Response: A study of geolocation sharing on Facebook Messenger' in the Harvard Journal of Technology Science

    MORE International ARTICLES

    US, Iran resume bilateral n-talks

    US, Iran resume bilateral n-talks
    The meeting between the two sides came after Iran and the P5+1 group comprising the US, China, France, Russia, Britain and Germany failed...

    US, Iran resume bilateral n-talks

    'Protesters to shift to new site in Islamabad'

    'Protesters to shift to new site in Islamabad'
    The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), the two political parties staging anti-government protests for about three...

    'Protesters to shift to new site in Islamabad'

    Al Qaeda to launch Indian branch: Report

    Al Qaeda to launch Indian branch: Report
    Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has announced in a video message the creation of an Indian branch of his militant group to "raise the flag of jihad" across South Asia, a media report said....

    Al Qaeda to launch Indian branch: Report

    Obama to convene UN summit on foreign fighters threat

    Obama to convene UN summit on foreign fighters threat
    US President Barack Obama will convene a Security Council summit on "growing and dangerous phenomenon" of foreign terrorist fighters, American...

    Obama to convene UN summit on foreign fighters threat

    Ebola outbreak racing out of control, says UN officials

    Ebola outbreak racing out of control, says UN officials
    The Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa is racing ahead of efforts to control it and at least $600 million is needed to get the unprecedented epidemic under...

    Ebola outbreak racing out of control, says UN officials

    Earth set for close encounter with asteroid

    Earth set for close encounter with asteroid
    At the time of closest approach, 2014 RC will be approximately one-tenth the distance from the centre of the Earth to the moon, or about 40,000 km....

    Earth set for close encounter with asteroid