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Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

gizmodo.com

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Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#41

Post by glenstein »

phkahler wrote: post #28

I would imagine Facebook keeps placeholders for people you know that are not on Facebook. His father had made a contact with one of the relatives not on FB but with the other name. Perhaps the great aunt had him in her contacts as well. A name and/or phone number can represent a person in the graph without being a FB user. Why they made a suggestion so many degrees away is a little curious, but I think they mix those…

If non-FB/shadow profiles can be derived from phone numbers, or assumed relationships (e.g. "this person probably has parents"), might they also be derived from the contents of private messages?

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#42

Post by teamhappy »

jerf wrote: post #29
kuschku wrote: post #11

And this is why under German law the BDSG §34 exists, which allows every citizen to request, once every 12 months, for free, from every company a list of all data the company has on the citizen, how they got it, whom they gave it to, and all statistical models that were derived from the data, or that had an influence on the data. It’d be interesting to make a BDSG §34 request about "People you may know", just to see…

If a German HN reader would be so kind as to make that request and report back on what they get, I can absolutely positively guarantee that they will be the happy recipient of One Internet Point from me when they submit the story to HN.

You don't have to be German. Anyone outside the US and Canada has the right to access their FB data. See http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Get_your_Data_/get_your_...

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#43

Post by dredmorbius »

phkahler wrote: post #28

I would imagine Facebook keeps placeholders for people you know that are not on Facebook. His father had made a contact with one of the relatives not on FB but with the other name. Perhaps the great aunt had him in her contacts as well. A name and/or phone number can represent a person in the graph without being a FB user. Why they made a suggestion so many degrees away is a little curious, but I think they mix those…

Facebook do maintain shaadow profiles:

https://www.dailydot.com/news/facebook-shadow-profiles-priva...

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#44

Post by maxerickson »

haffi112 wrote: post #4

Or it is just a chance event? As it is not a controlled experiment and the story concerns a single individual I find the conclusion to be rather shaky.

There are roughly 300 million people in the US. A given person has, let's say, ~10,000 tenuous connections.

How often would a random selection of 1000 people from the 300 million be expected to intersect with the 10,000?

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#45

Post by dredmorbius »

The history of Jews in the Netherlands during the Nazi Holocaust, many of whom were identified through census records, comes to mind.

https://ww2gravestone.com/holocaust-in-the-netherlands/

For contemporary instances, consider that the present U.S. administration openly supports racist, neo-Nazi, White Supremecist, and similar organisations. Social-graph association of undocumented immigrants, Muslims, gang- (or non-gang-) members, or similar inferences, all come readily to mind.

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#46

Post by contingencies »

jerf wrote: post #29
kuschku wrote: post #11

And this is why under German law the BDSG §34 exists, which allows every citizen to request, once every 12 months, for free, from every company a list of all data the company has on the citizen, how they got it, whom they gave it to, and all statistical models that were derived from the data, or that had an influence on the data. It’d be interesting to make a BDSG §34 request about "People you may know", just to see…

If a German HN reader would be so kind as to make that request and report back on what they get, I can absolutely positively guarantee that they will be the happy recipient of One Internet Point from me when they submit the story to HN.

Cool. If someone figures out the process let's all do it. I quit FB yeaaaaaaaaaaars ago (~2008?) but would be keen to check the shadow profile. I wonder if you can do that? Incidentally I am German by third citizenship.

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#48

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Jdam wrote: post #19
manmal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably know your neighbors because you both have the same SSIDs in your vicinity.. I don't see FB not knowing this. Or if you allowed GPS, and neighbors did too, then it's even easier to make the connection.

My co-workers from the office are frequently recommended to me on FB. Since I don't have their number, it must be location based.

You don't need to have their number, if someone else has both of your numbers and has uploaded their contacts list then you're linked in that third party's list. Equally likely it's linked via the wifi SSID or GPS?

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#49

Post by eighthnate »

dayjah wrote: post #12

I've just assumed this is through whatsapp. I've logged into whatsapp with my phone number, fb know my phone number (2fa codes), and they've slurped my address book from my phone and then show me connections on fb that are a few degrees of separation. This is the only way I can think that neighbours I barely know show up on the "people you may know" feature -- we're connected through neighbours I know far better.

Also keep in mind that social media/corps don't just use their own data, they also buys search history, credit card transactions, bank information, etc from other companies as well. Granted most of these are "anonymized" but it wouldn't take much effort to link them all together.

For example, if you CC company sends your transaction history to FB without any identification information, FB could still know that transaction history by linking your smartphone location data to the transaction history.

For example, if they know you were at train station at X time and at a Rite Aid at X time and at a McDonald's at X time, they could go "map" that to a "CC customer data tranche". It is highly doubtful that two people would be at same locations at the same exact times with the same transactions at the same time.

FB is big enough to rely on their own data for most of their needs, but selling of your data is big business and everyone is doing it.

And as creepy as FB adding your neighbors to your "people you may know", the real creepy part is the B2B part where corporations sell their profiles of you to each other or to governments/colleges/etc.

And we are just at the beginnings of "datafication" of everyone. It's truly going to be a brave new world.

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