Want to know which corporates downloaded the 100M Facebook data?!

Originally found from Gizmodo

As many will know torrents are peer-to-peer which means if you are in seeding network you can get an idea of who is also grabbing the file you are getting...

Well, one smart user done just that and came up with a list of some big companies!

A.C. Nielsen
Agilent Technologies
Apple
AT&T - Possible Macrovision
Baker & McKenzie
BBC
Bertelsmann Media
Boeing
Church of Scientology
Cisco Systems
Cox Enterprises
Davis Polk & Wardwell
Deutsche Telekom
Disney
Duracell
Ernst & Young
Fujitsu
Goldman Sachs
Halliburton
HBO & Company
Hilton Hospitality
Hitachi
HP
IBM
Intel
Intuit
Levi Strauss & Co.
Lockheed-Martin Corp
Lucasfilm
Lucent
Lucent Technologies
Matsu#a Electric Industrial Co
Mcafee
MetLife
Mitsubishi
Motorola
Northrop Grumman
Novell
Nvidia
O'Melveny & Myers
Oracle Corp
Pepsi Cola
Procter and Gamble
Random House
Raytheon
Road Runner RRWE
Seagate
Sega
Siemens AG
SONY CORPORATION
Sprint
Sun Microsystems
Symantec
The Hague
Time Warner Telecom
Turner Broadcasting system
Ubisoft Entertainment
Unisys
United Nations
Univision
USPS
Viacom
Vodafone
Wells Fargo
Xerox PARC

Now of course, just because the IP is in the range of that belonging to a company does not mean it is the company.... but.... they will do anything for data like that.

Very intersting indeed......

Wasn't what happened illegal, the downloading of that data ? or was it data which was free to view..... if the latter then those companies have only taken Scant information from someone else's endeavours...

Regards
PurpleDOG UK

reply to post by PurpleDog UK


I am not sure on the legalities of it - it all gets very confusing but the logical answer would seem yes its illegal and you would then think someone downloading said illegal file (which then means they are distributing it) would also be breaking the law...

The information was publicly available - it was just a matter of collating it and then starting a torrent of it.

Interesting to see who downloaded it though - some big names in there who are officially against the use of peer-to-peer for their property.

There's nothing more than names in the database. There could have been more though such as telephone numbers, emails and any other data people have set to the default Facebook settings.

If you have a Facebook and intend to keep it - tighten up the privacy settings as far as you can before the next database contains all your unsecured info and finds it's way around the world in a blink.

-m0r

I do take things from Gizmodo with a pinch of salt but something like this I could really believe. Its all so corrupt nowadays.

I think most stuff was public data just not collated but I am not sure all the details were....?

I removed anything personal from my FB account months ago just leaving a presence for my company...

Personally I just don't get it !!??

Facebook and it's competitors, I mean why do people think they should post all their details on there .... it's just one HUGE marketing database or perhaps ID tracking system and all the sheep blindly follow one another onto it because 'Social Networking' is the thing to be involved with.... Bo****ks...

You can probably guess that I am NOT on any of those sites.......If i want to converse with someone then I use my mouth, a phone or in the extreme a piece of paper with a stamp on it - believe me it is far more rewarding to receive a letter about someone or thing than receive a Tweet or facebook post about what your friend had for dinner......

I hate those sites with a passion..... serves the users whose data was taken right !!!!!

Regards

PurpleDOG UK

slightly offtopic but have you ever considered creating FB, or Myspace, or any social network profiles of obviously fictional people? Or better yet, a profile of your least favorite CEO, so the next time some of these companies harvest personal data, it'll be their own CEO's getting harvested?

Very interesting list..

Some names you'd expect, media companies, banks, even the Church of Scientology didn't surprise me.

Interesting to see the UN, the Hague and those of defense contractor companies on there though...

@ AlwaysQuestion nice thread you have here.

reply to post by tristar

tristar
Yes it is isn't it......
Very revealing I think..

Regards

PurpleDOG UK

One name that does stand out to me is Raytheon. Raytheon is a US defense contractor and they have a Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) division.

Controversies
As the vast majority of Raytheon's revenues have been obtained from defense contracts, there has been a tight relationship of cooperation between itself and the U.S. Department of Defense and other U.S. government departments and agencies (e.g. in the Fiscal Year 2007 the National Science Foundation awarded Raytheon $152 million dollars in grants, more than to any other institution and organization in the country [14]). This, along with heavy lobbying, has led to perennial charges of influence peddling. Raytheon, for instance, contributed nearly a million dollars to various defense-related political campaigns in the presidential election year of 2004, spending much more than that on lobbying expenses.[15] And there are many tight ties between the company and all levels of government. For example, Richard Armitage, a former United States Deputy Secretary of State, is linked to the company through consultancy work. John M. Deutch, a former U.S. Director of Central Intelligence, sits on the board of directors, along with Warren Rudman, a former Senator. On the other hand, Raytheon has also been involved in several contract disputes with the U.S. Government.[15]

en.wikipedia.org...

So what are they up to with this list?

Report: NSA creating spy system to monitor domestic infrastructure
Internal Raytheon email calls system 'Big Brother'

The National Security Agency has begun work on an "expansive" spy system that will monitor critical infrastructure inside the United States for cyber-attacks, in a move that detractors say could end up violating privacy rights and expanding the NSA's domestic spying abilities.

The Wall Street Journal cites unnamed sources as saying that the NSA has issued a $100-million contract to defense contractor Raytheon to build a system dubbed "Perfect Citizen," which will involve placing "sensors" at critical points in the computer networks of private and public organizations that run infrastructure, organizations such as nuclear power plants and electric grid operators.

Heres the part that makes you wonder.

In an email obtained by the Journal, an unnamed Raytheon employee describes the system as "Big Brother."

"The overall purpose of the [program] is our Government...feel[s] that they need to insure the Public Sector is doing all they can to secure Infrastructure critical to our National Security," the email states. "Perfect Citizen is Big Brother."

rawstory.com...

Big Brother?Perfect Citizen?

reply to post by AlwaysQuestion


Uh... "USPS" really? That is rather creepy! Is our postal system really not tied to our government any more? Just another corporation?

The information, as another poster stated, is public. Why is this getting so much hype ? This is being sensationalized beyond the point of stupid. Here's a crazy thought.. The people who work for all those listed probably grabbed this useless information/torrent because of its size and they might typically have access to high bandwidth systems via their employer. If large corporations wanted this information they could just cut through the crap and delve into what the morons on facebook have already made public. Not rocket surgery.
brill

[edit on 30-7-2010 by brill]