533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by anonymouse008 » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

rpastuszak wrote: post #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…

You do know how this happened right? Wifi SSIDs with similar strengths reveal if people are in the same area, then just correlate timestamps and viola!

I wouldn't throw the elder person under the bus on this one, the tactics are sophisticated, and honestly, just a precursor to what will happen with AR.

To give a bit more of how it's implemented (at least how I would propose it in iOS), Insta/FB/Whats queries available wifi SSIDs as a background process (or whatever they have for notifications/networking etc), and does the same to your therapist since you both have insta / fb / whats ... and based on the signal strength, can say with confidence you two were in the same room because XYZ Wifi strength is -Xdb just like yours (walls are strong signal augmenters), and you are both there for some time based on the background thread timestamp.

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

#182

Post by aloisdg » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

kevmo wrote: post #177

anticristi wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the problem is that many orgs see security as an overhead that engineers do to sleep well at night. A few more breaches, a few more fines and it will finally be seen as a feature to keep the CEO out of jail.

Probably 2/3 of billionaires belong in jail.

Probably most of them if not all.

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

#183

Post by rpastuszak » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

DSingularity wrote: post #160

rpastuszak wrote: post #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…

The reason we are here is because the one subset of the population which can do something about it has sold out. Is it the congressmen? No, it is us. Also the professors that taught us and the departments that accredited us. Either we did nothing to fight back or we are ourselves complicit and helped them build this world we live in.

I see what you mean but I think it's a bit more complicated than that. It's hard to make the right choice when most of the information you receive comes from the entities in whose interest is you not making the right choice (e.g. Google, FB).

An average HN reader is in a very comfortable situation compared to the remaining 99.9% of the population, who might not have time to think about this.

Unless, and I might've misunderstood you, by "us" you mean the people who work on those platforms, and have the time and resources to think about these matters, in which case I'd say that I agree with your statement. What's worse is how much brain power we're wasting on solving problems that shouldn't exist in the first place.

"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads"

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

#184

Post by badjeans » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

rpastuszak wrote: post #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…

> 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.

So what? What's the harm?

People sure like to write emotionally charged posts arguing for privacy, but they're always suspiciously low on details on what bad things (actually) happened.

Even in this case with phone numbers and other data leaked, so what? What harm do data leaks cause?

Seems like making a fuss about nothing.

> How are we still ok with this shit?

We're ok with a lot of shit. I think if we were to make a list of shit this would rank pretty low.

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

#185

Post by IG_Semmelweiss » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

zerof1l wrote: post #130

I_am_tiberius wrote: post #16

Would like to know if non Facebook users are included because Facebook has non Facebook user's phone numbers due to the fact that Whatsapp uploads the entire phonebook to Whatsapp. That means Facebook is likely to know your phone number although you don't use Facebook or Whatsapp.

I have WhatsApp and you can deny access to your phonebook. Everything works just fine

How are you able to send whatsapps to people you don't have a prior conversation with ?

I am doing the same boat...and was working fine until i lost & replaced my old phone. All conversations were lost, and this makes it challenging to use whatsapp for any non-group conversations (since I can't start any).

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

#186

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

anonymouse008 wrote: post #181

rpastuszak wrote: post #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…

You do know how this happened right? Wifi SSIDs with similar strengths reveal if people are in the same area, then just correlate timestamps and viola! I wouldn't throw the elder person under the bus on this one, the tactics are sophisticated, and honestly, just a precursor to what will happen with AR. To give a bit more of how it's implemented (at least how I would propose it in iOS), Insta/FB/Whats queries availabl…

> and viola

I love this typo.

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

#187

Post by thatcat » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

rpastuszak wrote: post #175

codethief wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my Insta account (using a separate email address and no personal details) keeps recommending my therapist to me What about your phone number? Does your therapist have it? Maybe your therapist granted Instagram/Facebook access to her contacts? Or maybe you yourself granted Instagram access and your therapist is in your phone's contact list?

Yup, I don't share my contacts with FB or insta, but I think that she did. I don't blame her, she's not a very "technical" person and the UX is not meant to help her make a conscious choice.

There are many other ways this could happen, did you google her address on your phone browser or something like that? IG always seems to give recommendations based on what I've watched on youtube recently or looked up somehow.

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

#188

Post by 14 » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

rpastuszak wrote: post #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…

The technology is just creepy. I recently experienced a wtf moment the other day when a friend stopped by and her new bf was in the car. We said hello and they soon left (I sell eggs). Later that day he is being suggested as a possible friend. I have my location services off but Facebook knew somehow.

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

#189

Post by FukHN » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

villgax wrote: post #47

Can't have shit on the Internet

Be careful HN will shadow ban you.. HN loves FB

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

#190

Post by rpastuszak » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

anonymouse008 wrote: post #181

rpastuszak wrote: post #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…

You do know how this happened right? Wifi SSIDs with similar strengths reveal if people are in the same area, then just correlate timestamps and viola! I wouldn't throw the elder person under the bus on this one, the tactics are sophisticated, and honestly, just a precursor to what will happen with AR. To give a bit more of how it's implemented (at least how I would propose it in iOS), Insta/FB/Whats queries availabl…

haha, that's a good point, but in this case I think it's more trivial than that: she probably shared her contact book with FB or Insta (still, not her fault imho).

But, at the same time I've worked with FB SDK which was just one big shit show. It's hard even to describe it without turning a comment into an essay, so I'll pick the two I found somewhat amusing: sending data to FB before the developer could pass user consent (or thereof), sending hashes of the (non-FB) libraries installed on your phone to FB servers.

Minor tangent: The best thing about the web is that user agents are still pretty good at fighting some of the tracking practices (ETP/ITP, cross origin security, etc...). It's actually quite impressive. Then, native is just one big black hole. This is why the current browser changes, although positive overall (less $$ from 3p tracking), are a double edged sword (pushing people towards walled gardens).