Details of 100m Facebook users collected and published

It's simple.. you don't put anything about yourself on a social networking site that you wish to remain private. To do otherwise is stupid.

IRM

Originally posted by zroth
reply to post by Extralien

 

This will undoubtedly create a huge uprising.

BP Spill = doesn't matter to Americans.
Social Security = doesn't matter to Americans.
Civil liberties = doesn't matter to Americans.
Human rights = doesn't matter to Americans.

Facebook privacy = OMG, President Obama…YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!!!

Nothing is more important than privacy on a totally free service where no one ever lifted a finger to build the site in the first place.

I totally agree with this statement... only when something gets personal do people make any effort to get it resolved... Maybe if oil dropped out of the sky on a major American city would something be done.

reply to post by RMFX1


Looks like it's nothing that can't be found via a google search for people.

If you know how to use the security settings in Facebook then your profile is quite safe & nothing to panic over. I've got it set to what I want to reveal and it works exactly how I have set it.

I don't really understand why everyone keeps attacking Facebook when it's the fault of its users for being too stupid to understand privacy settings.

The security is there, just people are too inept to use it and for that I believe they deserve having their data mined and have no sympathy for them

This is an excellent article about Facebook privacy, for those of us who're already there, have friends there and don't want to close our account, but don't want to be data mined, either.

On another note, I hope that "security research" company gets abducted by aliens and anal probed.

[edit on 29-7-2010 by David_Reale]

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by RMFX1
Just a list of names it seems:

Filename Description
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
facebook-urls The full URLs to every profile

The url is not just a name. In fact there are privacy concerns about urls. Some people have proposed making them online identifiers. You can find out the city someone lives in from their URL, and more like the exact address if you're law enforcement, in the US, thanks to the Patriot act.

I don't know how you've reached this conclusion. These files contain nothing that any of us can't get by simply going onto facebook and searching on someones name or email address, which will bring you to a page with links to the URL for their facebook page. There is nothing damaging at all in any of these files. Facebook users who have their privacy settings set accordingly are not featured in this list. The information contained within is harmless.

Personally, I think that this is nothing more than this security company making a name for themselves and also a case of the BBC jumping the gun and releasing the story without properly researching, or understanding it.

So this guy wrote a script that will harvest a load of data that is already freely available.

BIG DEAL!

[edit on 29-7-2010 by RMFX1]

The corporate companies are losing the battle for copyright theft Piratebay,APPLE,Spotify have all won their cases and now suddenly something appears on the internet that will stirr the cooking pot.

Facebook is a cleverly designed database set up and initiated with government approval after the site FRIENDS REUNITIED, became a huge hit. People I speak to say "Anita who?" "BBN TECHNOLOGIES WHO?" when I try to tell them that any information is accessible even if you have a password. Yet they ignore me and carry on uploading all their data on to their sites.

What can I say, people are more interested in social networking than going out and talking to people and of course who cares about the oil spill right? .....WRONG!

FACE BOOK CONSPIRACY

[edit on 29-7-2010 by franspeakfree]

reply to post by Extralien


facebook is starting to be BS. Some people they love to add you, but you try speaking to them they just ignore you and never reply on your stuff. I hate people like that. I have only talked with three people outside my own circle of peeps. One from taiwan and two from the UK. I hate the ones that delete your comments to especially if it ain't rude.

Its great to see this.

Facebook deseve this intrusion after the song and dance they did over capturing/brainwashing 500million users last week.

The funny thing is I think most of the people using it don't care.

Anyway, anybody who thinks there is anything secure about facebook should have a look at this old vid.

I can't believe people are frantically downloading this file "omg I want to see if they have my name".

It's just a recursive fetch of all the PUBLIC profile info on Facebook! If they "have your name" it's nothing that literally millions of people cannot see already anyway. If you are so paranoid about privacy, try not having a public profile on social networking sites. (Note this is not addressed to any particular ATS members, but other panicking people I have seen today).

Ironically, most of the people downloading the file are not actually interested in seeing if it contains data on them, but rather they want to spy on other people (if it actually contained any private or otherwise unaccessible data). They pretend they are worried that someone has their phone number when in reality they are hoping to score some pictures of that cute girl across the street.

Dling now just for the heck of it

People ought to wise up and check their privacy settings, basically get to know how to secure them! Thats the first thing I did after joining Facebook especially if you want to ad pics etc. of your family.

reply to post by Extralien


The funny part is that now there are probably 100m users wanting to see The Pirate Bay shutdown as well since it's there where the info is available to the public.

Originally posted by thomas_
reply to post by Extralien

 

The funny part is that now there are probably 100m users wanting to see The Pirate Bay shutdown as well since it's there where the info is available to the public.

No, the Pirate Bay simply hosts the torrent file. After the torrent file is released, shutting down the site does little to stop the torrent and usually nothing, since other torrent sites like BT Junkie will start distributing their own copies within hours for a particularly popular file like that one. I mention BT Junkie because they are generally next in line when The Pirate Bay goes down.

And thank God, if there is something the government does not want people to see through broadcast there really is just about nothing they can do to stop a torrent.

I disabled about 100 applications yesteday. I didn't know when I clicked on some of these silly things (What is your redneck name) that they were actually data mining my account. Most people think it's just an innocent game.

Am on fb but set all my things to private. You can't search for me only find me through friends ..

Originally posted by BuBoo

Originally posted by zroth
reply to post by Extralien

 

This will undoubtedly create a huge uprising.

BP Spill = doesn't matter to Americans.
Social Security = doesn't matter to Americans.
Civil liberties = doesn't matter to Americans.
Human rights = doesn't matter to Americans.


I totally agree with this statement... only when something gets personal do people make any effort to get it resolved... Maybe if oil dropped out of the sky on a major American city would something be done.
----
As an American I love and hate this place, the leaders that run it, everything. That is the image America has now because of our leaders, while look at the rest of the world with corrupt governments, starving populations, and the various problems around the globe. Its not that we think the things don't matter, its that WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO? You do almost anything here and everywhere you get jailed or punished wrongly. Writing letters to higher-ups don't do much, as you can tell. The real problem is the people chosen to run the country, NOT THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT. Did Hitler and his nazi army start the holocaust or did the people that had to live there start it?

The things our government does should not be our fault. Do people anywhere protest constantly, and live to see another day? Can you can prove to me that protesting does anything positive or change anything? Think of all the problems with your government, Are you protesting to change things you have not started?

Government is the best example in humanity of one group of people controlling another. Every country has a government, so everyone is subject to whatever your government thinks is the right thing to do, EVEN IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH IT. You, Me, Everybody, has to deal with this.

[edit on 29-7-2010 by Quasar_La-Zar]

[edit on 29-7-2010 by Quasar_La-Zar]

i just started using facebook again proeprly last week, great timing.
brb: going to put all my info as private again

Originally posted by Blazer

Ironically, most of the people downloading the file are not actually interested in seeing if it contains data on them, but rather they want to spy on other people (if it actually contained any private or otherwise unaccessible data). They pretend they are worried that someone has their phone number when in reality they are hoping to score some pictures of that cute girl across the street.

I think this is a very big part of it. Society is being encouraged to spy on each other. This then makes it acceptable for government to spy on everyone. Privacy will soon be a redundant word , not only on the internet but in life in general.

And this would be just the excuse they need for clamping down on the Internat.

I smell a Nazi.

Originally posted by Blazer
I can't believe people are frantically downloading this file "omg I want to see if they have my name".

It's just a recursive fetch of all the PUBLIC profile info on Facebook! If they "have your name" it's nothing that literally millions of people cannot see already anyway. If you are so paranoid about privacy, try not having a public profile on social networking sites. (Note this is not addressed to any particular ATS members, but other panicking people I have seen today).

Exactly!

Or even better don't use the internet at all!

Way too much paranoia for my taste. And saying that people using social networks have been brainwashed is simply too funny to even be taken into account. It's a service like any other, either you choose to use it or not. No one has been forced to use it as far as I'm aware.

And let's not forget that the data fetched was only the data that the user decided to make publicly available by setting or simply neglecting the existence of the privacy settings in Facebook.

Regarding the government involvement mentioned earlier I would say that the government needs no Facebook or any other social network of it's type to track you down. They have access to anything they see fit including your data here in ATS, Hotmail, Gmail, Google or even in the servers from your very own service provider or any other site or telecommunication providers they want. So it's laughable.

Want privacy? Rather be a ghost? Has things to hide?

Then better live like you would in first century or something. No cell phones, no internet, no credit cards, no bank accounts, no medical records, no nothing. Go analog monkey style and be happy.

Good thing I actually understand privacy and have my profile locked down so I barely return a result in the search and non-friends can't even see my profile picture let alone friends. The people bemoaning facebook for a lack of privacy need to learn how to configure their settings then it would be a non-issue.