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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

#381

Post by lostlogin »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #374
lostlogin wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

https://theatlantic.com/article/578599/

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46618582

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/facebook-d...

This one is interesting and refutes the argument you are making

“When the company argues that it is not selling data, but rather selling targeted advertising, it’s luring you into a semantic trap, encouraging you to imagine that the only way of selling data is to send advertisers a file filled with user information. Congress may have fallen for this trap set up by Mr. Zuckerberg, but that doesn’t mean you have to. The fact that your data is not disclosed in an Excel spreadsheet but through a click on a targeted ad is irrelevant. Data still changes hands and goes to the advertiser.”

https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/14/18140146/does-facebook-s...

It’s in reaction to this below link in the NYT which is also interesting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/facebook-data-pri...

I argue that FB makes money by collecting data, then selling it. What’s the opposing view?

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

#383

Post by flycaliguy »

dr_kiszonka wrote: post #365
banana_giraffe wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26682774

In the US, are there any legal repercussions for accessing such data? I wouldn't want to get into any trouble.

You won’t get in trouble but trust your gut if you’re just curious.

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

#384

Post by ransom1538 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #131

I mean, at this point I think everyone should just accept that at the very least their name, age, address(es), email(s), phone number(s) and screen name(s) have been fully leaked if you have ever had any kind of online presence. Not saying that's right or good, but at this point it's just a fact. So if that's the case, I think we should move beyond really even trying to think of this info as private or a marker of id…

"I mean, at this point I think everyone should just accept that at the very least their name, age, address(es), email(s), phone number(s) and screen name(s) have"

Yes. I think the scary part is WHAT these identifiers are connected to. EG. your email being linked to a private antifa community, pro-Taiwan communities, adulteration meetups, etc.

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

#385

Post by noobquestion81 »

noxer wrote: post #51
londons_explore wrote: post #28

Looks like this is the "To match users to their friends by phone number, you need an API which can take as input a phone number, and return information about if that number has an associated account" problem. There is no way to let a user find their friends on a service without such an API. Yet if you have such an API, someone can simply brute force all phone numbers worldwide (there are only 10^10), and now they hav…

Telegram had this issue too and they made a setting "who can find me by my number" you set it to "my contacts" so only mutual contacts can find each other.

This is a genius fix because in order to enforce your own privacy you must betray the privacy of n+ friends. Awesome.

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

#386

Post by hutch120 »

smdyc1 wrote: post #355
malaya_zemlya wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://t.me/freedomf0x/12553 I haven't checked the content myself, but this tg channel is usually legit

Were there any leaks of Australian data? I can only see Austria in pastebin (spelling mangled as Austriaia)

The file Austriaia.zip is data about Austria NOT Australia.

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

#387

Post by viraptor »

techmagus wrote: post #371
devenblake wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Culture / group related maybe? I have barely any friends on Facebook with real work details - a lot of them are made up. Especially doctors like to keep their profession (and real names) private.

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

#388

Post by viraptor »

Clewza313 wrote: post #375
djhn wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The US is also pretty heavy on iMessage usage and FB messenger still dominates WhatsApp.

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

#389

Post by znpy »

gbear605 wrote: post #345
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…

I definitely know real people (especially highschoolers or college students) who put fictional jobs in their profile. Also common is using some fake name, like that of a fictional character.

Fake name, of course.

I deleted my account when Facebook started asking for is verification of my name, that was absolutely unacceptable.

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

#390

Post by wyclif »

techmagus wrote: post #373
afinlayson wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That is exactly how I deal with it. I use a throwaway webmail address and a Google Voice number. No way they're getting my real email or phone number that I use for work and clients.
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