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Look Up Unknown Phone Numbers Using Facebook Reset Password

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Re: Look Up Unknown Phone Numbers Using Facebook Reset Password

#101

Post by lb1lf »

wwwwewwww wrote: post #79
kristopolous wrote: post #59

Y'all know we used to publish everybody's phone number in a book along with their address and then distribute copies to every household, right? We did it for many decades and it was fine. Every pay phone, which was a phone anyone with a couple coins could make anonymous calls from, had this giant book right there for your reference. Everyone knows this, right? If you didn't know someone's number you could look it up…

I'm sure not everyone knows this, because there are are people on this site who have not grown up with phone books. The article talks about a reverse phone book: according to the author, given a phone number, you are able to look up name (and profile picture). To my understanding there were no reverse-lookup phone books like that back in the day.

-In the good old days (sixties, presumably also earlier) police forces in at least some countries had phone books sorted both by address and by number.

(Source - flea market find, a Norwegian book on the state of the art in criminology, published c. 1965)

Edit: Oh, I just remembered that locally, the athletic union published a phone book with all subscribers in the municipality listed by number.

This was c.1990 - after call ID was an option if you bought a decoder (or was an ISDN subscriber), before Internet phone directories were a thing.

Re: Look Up Unknown Phone Numbers Using Facebook Reset Password

#102

Post by c22 »

cfjgvjh wrote: post #95
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even from facebook you could opt out. I am mostly sure you can create account without phone number

It might depend on your IP and other factors. I tried to make a new one about a year ago and could not do it without phone verification. Maybe they'll let you sign up without a phone number via Tor or something though. It's not just Facebook that requires a phone verification now, I can't even make a Google or Yahoo Japan account without it. At least on these services you can "reuse" previously used numbers by unlink…

I have an old Facebook account without a phone number linked to it. Every time I log on they badger me to link a phone number. Recently the field is pre-filled with a phone number I use that I never explicitly gave them...

If it is possible to make a new account without a number I am assuming it is not made easy.

Re: Look Up Unknown Phone Numbers Using Facebook Reset Password

#103

Post by bartvk »

vmception wrote: post #49
actuator wrote: post #48

This doesn't seem like something which is of concern but on a tangential note, I wanted to check how you guys maintain your phone number privacy. Consider the cases: - I absolutely hate giving phone number to new ecommerce sites as it is just a database that will eventually get leaked. The only one I can trust here is Amazon probably. - Phone number on packages. A person can read your name, address and phone number f…

I maintain dual sims in my iphone. For dates this means that my "burner number" also has blue text messages, revealing to them it is an iphone and that other features are available like facetime and airdrop in the future. I also maintain google voice numbers to set up additional accounts on places and more easily filter spam. Right now, my one device has three numbers on it. (2x sim, 1x google voice).

> I maintain dual sims in my iphone

That's a very good idea, thanks for this.

Re: Look Up Unknown Phone Numbers Using Facebook Reset Password

#104

Post by smichel17 »

dasb wrote: post #32
MattGaiser wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you just say that a password reset email has been sent? That is what we did when I worked in banking as a way to prevent this. Whether or not you have an account, the system says a reset email has been sent.

But then you confuse legitimate users that don't remember what email they signed up with.

I why not actually always send an email to that address? If the email isn't registered, change the message to suggest that perhaps they signed up with a different email, or they'd like to sign up instead?

Re: Look Up Unknown Phone Numbers Using Facebook Reset Password

#105

Post by Igelau »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #21

Those will work (maybe), but their usefulness is limited, as just about every bad call I get, is spoofed. I have a canned response txt, that I send, when declining the call. I often get “message failed to send,” but I sometimes get a confused text from someone, telling me they didn’t call.

TFA is terribly irresponsible advice due to how many calls are spoofed. I don't need someone tracking me down and raining hellfire down on me over a spoofed number that happened to be mine.

Re: Look Up Unknown Phone Numbers Using Facebook Reset Password

#106

Post by Macuyiko »

kuroguro wrote: post #100
jsnell wrote: post #11

Before gathering up the mob and handing out the torches and pitchforks, you should probably establish what the facts actually are. I don't think the author of this post has really done that. The way these systems should work, and appear to work in Facebook's case, is that the amount of information revealed depends on risk analysis. For example, I just tried recovery from an IP I've used Facebook from, and from a fres…

The author is a bit late to the party - this used to be a thing. IIRC you could just enter the phone in fb search and it would spit out the name + fb link even for private profiles. Someone I knew scanned down a whole country's numbers in a couple of months (there was some rate limiting and that's about it) - and that guy just did it for fun. I'm sure there were plenty of shady companies doing the same thing. After a…

You're right. I just looked up the time frame: in 2017, I did the same thing. It was widely known about and FB took way too long to fix it.

Re: Look Up Unknown Phone Numbers Using Facebook Reset Password

#107

Post by [deleted] »

lb1lf wrote: post #101
wwwwewwww wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure not everyone knows this, because there are are people on this site who have not grown up with phone books. The article talks about a reverse phone book: according to the author, given a phone number, you are able to look up name (and profile picture). To my understanding there were no reverse-lookup phone books like that back in the day.

-In the good old days (sixties, presumably also earlier) police forces in at least some countries had phone books sorted both by address and by number. (Source - flea market find, a Norwegian book on the state of the art in criminology, published c. 1965) Edit: Oh, I just remembered that locally, the athletic union published a phone book with all subscribers in the municipality listed by number. This was c.1990 - aft…

[deleted]

Re: Look Up Unknown Phone Numbers Using Facebook Reset Password

#109

Post by throwaway2245 »

kristopolous wrote: post #59

Y'all know we used to publish everybody's phone number in a book along with their address and then distribute copies to every household, right? We did it for many decades and it was fine. Every pay phone, which was a phone anyone with a couple coins could make anonymous calls from, had this giant book right there for your reference. Everyone knows this, right? If you didn't know someone's number you could look it up…

> Y'all know we used to publish everybody's phone number in a book along with their address and then distribute copies to every household, right?

By user choice. You had to register your phone number and address to be in that book.

It was immediately obvious to everyone what was going on: everybody received the same complete book of information and knew how that was published, with at least a system of opting-out (it was always opt-in, from what I remember).

Re: Look Up Unknown Phone Numbers Using Facebook Reset Password

#110

Post by throwaway2245 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #84
cik wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the issue is the meaning of privacy now. Decades were spent fighting for the right to not receive, or to receive targeted phone calls. We're now (at least my cohort) in a world where no one, ever answers the phone. Either you're in my phone book, or I'm never answering the phone. It's rather liberating.

That's not really a privacy issue, though. That's marketing issue . That is, we let marketers destroy phones as a medium of communication. The answer to that isn't to legislate hiding your phone number. The answer to that should be to legislate this type of marketing away . Advertising is cancer, and I'm constantly surprised by the ends to which people go to justify its continued existence.

Legislating away cold-call marketing is already done; it hasn't stopped it from happening, since it's almost impossible to trace the culprit.
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