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

businessinsider.com

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

#371

Post by techmagus »

devenblake wrote: post #364
banana_giraffe wrote: post #272

Looking at the leak others have pointed to, there are a surprising number of people working in a particular imaginary company: sqlite> select company, count(*) as c from usa where length(company) > 0 group by company order by c desc limit 10; company c ---------------------------------------- ---------- Self-Employed 459119 Facebook 181013 Retired 71210 The Krusty Krab 61550 Hollister Co. 42304 U.S. Army 39682 Stay-a…

Teens like to say they work at the Krusty Krab for some reason. No clue why but when I had Facebook I saw it a lot on peers' accounts.

I associate "The Krusty Krab" to fake/secondary/tertiary/spam profiles. People I know personally and those I was able to confirm as legitimate profiles doesn't use that or any other fake information (or just leave it empty most of the time). I only see such fake information in accounts used to advertise their business in someone else's threads.

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

#372

Post by cced »

procombo wrote: post #91
OminousWeapons wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really an answer to your question, but one partial solution to the problem of having your number leaked or sold is to setup a service like Twilio to act like a phone proxy. You can have Twilio forward calls it receives on a different number ("spam number") to your actual phone number ("real number"). You provide spam number to anyone who isn't a business or personal contact. Every few months, you rotate spam numb…

It's what I have done for years. Only costs $1/mo for the number and a couple hours learning their API. Your existing cell number can be ported over to Twilio if you are patient. The only problem is trying to use the number for 2fa. A growing number of banks (like Capital One) block Twilio services from recieving their SMS.

Can you think of any drawbacks of using this for important services like say PayPal? Or are you strictly using this for throw away products and services?

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

#373

Post by techmagus »

afinlayson wrote: post #329
dheera wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I don't use my real phone number with apps and HATE apps using phone numbers as a proxy for a user id. Get a virtual phone number if any service requires a phone number from you. Don't submit to this nonsense.

It's not about the information you give, it's all those friends and family who signed up for it and uploaded their address book... They now have your phone number and email probably your date of birth, and even some photos of you. They are like the credit companies, they have information on you whether you allow them to or not.

Exactly. People who save your details in their Address Book and click the "Sync your Contacts" when an app suggests it, are the loophole in privacy and security.

The only way is to have a separate set of email, phone numbers, for those family and friends who doesn't care about privacy and security, that way it is easy to dispose those information later.

Beyond that … if we truly want to avoid it … the only course of action is to not give them anything at all. Not a single email, not a single phone number, not even our home addresses.

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

#374

Post by lotsofpulp »

lostlogin wrote: post #311
kabes wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But facebook is not in the business of selling your data. It's in the business of selling your attention and it uses data to do so. There's nothing about this leak that changes Facebook's position in this market in this regard.

> But facebook is not in the business of selling your data. There are an awful lot of arguments against this stance and the argument supporting the claim appear to split hairs in a very convenient manner.

I can’t find any Facebook resource that says I can buy data, or any other reputable source that reports Facebook is selling details about people. Can you provide any?

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

#375

Post by Clewza313 »

djhn wrote: post #331
153791098c wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes so much further than this and it is absolutely frighting. The following sketched situations applies if you don't use Facebook at ALL. 99+% of every single person you meet has either FB, IG or WA installed on their phones and shares their phonebooks with them (assuming you live in [insert western country here]). There is also a very big chance at least some have your full name and address in their phonebook. F…

As a counterpoint I can think of dozens of personal acquaintances who are happily non-users and never interact with Facebook properties (retirees not into tech, busy executives, to cool for Facebook hipsters). If your country or social circle doesn't use WhatsApp, Facebook itself is already dying and Instagram is getting their lunch eaten by Tiktok.

> If your country or social circle doesn't use WhatsApp

Aside from China, Japan and Korea, do such countries exist?

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

#376

Post by Mengkudulangsat »

gpm wrote: post #101

Is it possible to download this without giving money to criminals? (The article says free, but my 2 minutes of googling hasn't found it, somewhat unsurprisingly). Is doing so legal? If the answer to both of those questions are yes... I'd like to take a peak. Mostly to check whether or not some numbers I know haven't been directly give to fb are there.

I have to say; the backyard Big Data analyst in me is salivating.

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

#377

Post by mensetmanusman »

jdjdjdjdjd wrote: post #179
mensetmanusman wrote: post #171

My actual phone number has net negative value. I mostly only get scam texts and phone calls. Everyone I know uses messaging apps and contacts me that way. I can’t believe Apple hasn’t offered a way to white list when your phone rings.

They have. Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers

This option still causes the call/sms to show a notification bubble... which is annoying since you can’t ignore it if you rely on notification bubbles to know if someone you know has messaged you.

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

#378

Post by jrnichols »

tyingq wrote: post #213
neogodless wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear god, fastpeoplesearch.com is a horribly obnoxious treasure trove of information.

Tried it, you're right. Got 6 of my past addresses, 9 past phone numbers, 8 relatives, all correct. Some incorrect info, but not much as a percentage. If you reverse search the PO Box address listed on the site contact page, you'll find an Amateur Radio license listed to a person that is probably the owner of the site, based on his past experience.

I am amazed and horrified at the fact data brokers like that are legal. and the hoops to which you must leap in order to get your information out of them, even with california privacy laws.

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

#379

Post by jrnichols »

Nerada wrote: post #344
happyhardcore wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the telegram has a text file with links to links by country, I've just stuck that at https://pastebin.com/3SvG1FJ0

Is there an alternative to ufile? I've tried three different browsers and none can get the download to work. It's possible I'm blocking some tracking domain at the router-level that's integral to the download functioning. Edit: Turns out I was blocking Google's captcha.

I was wondering this too, as ufile is really slow.

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

#380

Post by dhosek »

banana_giraffe wrote: post #272

Looking at the leak others have pointed to, there are a surprising number of people working in a particular imaginary company: sqlite> select company, count(*) as c from usa where length(company) > 0 group by company order by c desc limit 10; company c ---------------------------------------- ---------- Self-Employed 459119 Facebook 181013 Retired 71210 The Krusty Krab 61550 Hollister Co. 42304 U.S. Army 39682 Stay-a…

Before I deleted my Facebook account, it said I was chief sciolist at the Theodore J. Kaczynski Institute of Technology.
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