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533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online

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Re: 533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online

#111

Obviously it is bad if your personal data is compromised after you (or some else) upload it to an online service like Facebook. But in this case, it’s important to remember that phone companies used to regularly leak most of their customer’s phone numbers (and names) in the form of a telephone directory. So a question to consider is: suppose that the white pages were still commonly produced and contained most people’…

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Re: 533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online

#112

Obviously it is bad if your personal data is compromised after you (or some else) upload it to an online service like Facebook. But in this case, it’s important to remember that phone companies used to regularly leak most of their customer’s phone numbers (and names) in the form of a telephone directory. So a question to consider is: suppose that the white pages were still commonly produced and contained most people’…

[deleted]

Re: 533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online

#113

Don’t worry, Facebook will soon put out a press release including the phrase “we need to do better.”

I work in the security field and let me tell you something I realized: nobody cares about security. If someone cares about security, it's because they've had many many incidents in the past. We humans are not a species that is good at preventing, we are good at reacting.

the security handbook[^1] has a chapter on that actually, and they basically say that role playing is the only way of not getting burned. Humans are excellent at role playing, and it can help you prevent a lot of catastrophe without having experienced them before.

[^1]: https://securityhandbook.io/

Re: 533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every one of them will eventually be leaked. [X] Doubt

On a long enough timeline everything and everyone can be compromised (or the institution fails before then)

Exactly - either the data is basically not valuable at all (the category for which PII rarely fits) or else when the company collapses or is bought, the data moves too.

There's always an incentive to steal or leak it to other companies for money; so as long as the incentives are aligned with GATHER ALL DATA and KEEP IT FOREVER then yes, it will just be a matter of a time before each data store is compromised by mistake or purposefully.

Re: 533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online

#115
post #87
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem to be correct, although what does 'phone numbers' mean in this context? Quote: "WhatsApp, which was acquired by Facebook in 2014, does share some limited data with Facebook, including phone numbers. However, the firm has reassured users that messages will always be protected by end-t0-end encryption, which means neither WhatsApp or Facebook can see these private conversations" Source: https://www.fo…

As always, the spying agencies are NOT particularly interested in your actual messages, but your metadata. They want to know who talks to who. Limited data? What a bunch of horseshit.

"Limited" is a weasel word, as it can mean anything. e.g. a "limited time offer" can mean it lasts for 2 days or 2 years, because it is not unlimited.

Likewise, sharing a limited amount of information with Facebook simply means they don't hoover up every single bit. Perhaps Facebook is not interested in those automated texts you get confirming haircut appointments...

Re: 533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online

#116
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time someone argues that people can avoid the privacy problems of Facebook by simply not using it, I point out this issue (plus the shadow accounts).

I recently purchased a phone that had the Facebook app preinstalled. If I had to guess, the mere act of connecting to WiFi caused a whole slew of info to get sent.

I would think not, but my cluefulness regarding Android security/privacy is effectively nil.

Re: 533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online

#117
Are there immediate actions people should be taking at this point?

A lot of password reset flows work via username + SMS using "we've sent a code to your phone number (xxx) xxx-xx12". This database unmasks that phone number, so my assumption is this makes sms hijacking more viable, but perhaps someone more knowledgeable can weigh in.

Does Facebook allow password resets like this, and can that be disabled?

Re: 533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online

#118
post #97
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same fallacy that leads to apps asking for permission to access your whole picture library. Facebook could have an API by which an app can prompt its user to show a list of all of that user’s friends who have the app installed. The app would only learn the identities of people whom the user explicitly selects, and phone numbers would not be part of that identity.

It works for photos because the threat model is about protecting local files against malicious apps. But for phone numbers, you about protecting Facebook API (which is publicly available via the internet) against arbitrary devices, which Facebook has no way to tell from legitimate ones

What I mean is: Facebook should remove that API entirely. Apps do not need a way to look up a phone number in Facebook’s database. The “find my friends using this app” feature does not require this capability.

Re: 533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online

#119
I don’t have FB or or WhatsApp but my Insta account (using a separate email address and no personal details) keeps recommending my therapist to me. How are we still ok with this shit?

The sooner we get rid of the cancer that FB is, the better. I didn’t share my contact book with FB apps either. It was probably her—a person in her 70s, not necessarily experienced with tech.

The main reason this company exists, or that ad tech can maintain a facade of not being a mainly bullshit industry with made up metrics, is the lack of informed consent.

It’s almost funny how we accept the current situation as normal. Because, I think that we’ll look back at these times with disbelief of reckless we were and how cheap we’d sell ourselves.

Re: 533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online

#120
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatsapp doesn't share phone book data with Facebook.

Hi, how do you know? It is of personal interest to me as I don’t use FB but do use WhatsApp. It may also reduce the piling of downvoters.

Here's the source: https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/whatsapp-ceo-o...

Quote:

"Cathcart: It’s true that we do have some information about how people use WhatsApp and that we do know, for example, the device ID. We collect this only to secure our services and protect from attacks. When you use WhatsApp and allow access to your phone book, we only see the phone numbers, not the name.

DER SPIEGEL: Do you share these numbers with your parent company Facebook?

Cathcart: No, we don’t. The updated privacy policies will actually not change anything globally in our ability to share data with Facebook."

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