Tuesday, June 16, 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

    'Saudi economy is dependent on Indian workers'

    'Saudi economy is dependent on Indian workers'
    On Saudi Arabia's new "Nitaqat" labour policy that saw some 140,000 Indian expatriates returning home, Almunajjed said only those working illegally were affected.

    'Saudi economy is dependent on Indian workers'

    US College Board announces SAT overhaul

    US College Board announces SAT overhaul
    Creators of the US college entrance examination SAT have announced an overhaul of the test, eliminating mandatory essays, ending penalty for guessing wrong and cutting obscure vocabulary words.

    US College Board announces SAT overhaul

    Ukraine denies 'money-for-missile shield' talks with US

    Ukraine denies 'money-for-missile shield' talks with US
    Ukraine is not holding any talks on the deployment of US missile defence units on its territory in exchange for financial support, Ukrainian Ambassador in Belarus capital Minsk Mikhail Yezhel said Wednesday.

    Ukraine denies 'money-for-missile shield' talks with US

    Curious case of Yuan's strength: Still a one-way bet?

    Curious case of Yuan's strength: Still a one-way bet?
    Over the past four years, the gradual appreciation of the Chinese Yuan against the US dollar was considered a one way bet by currency traders.

    Curious case of Yuan's strength: Still a one-way bet?

    Vladimir Putin slams the 'coup' in Ukraine

    Vladimir Putin slams the 'coup' in Ukraine
    Putin said Yanukovych would have been killed if Russia did not give him refuge, and Moscow did so "on humanitarian motives". According to Putin, Russia received direct request from Yanukovych about military assistance. 

    Vladimir Putin slams the 'coup' in Ukraine

    Indian-origin man charged with rape of minor in Australia

    Indian-origin man charged with rape of minor in Australia
    An Indian-origin man was charged with raping a 13-year-old girl in the Australian state of New South Wales, a media report said Sunday.

    Indian-origin man charged with rape of minor in Australia