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The Facebook phone numbers are now searchable in Have I Been Pwned

troyhunt.com

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Re: The Facebook phone numbers are now searchable in Have I Been Pwned

#221
post #68
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re a EU citizen contact your local data protection authority and file a complaint. It literally takes 5 minutes.

Relevant links. "What should I do if I think that my personal data protection rights haven’t been respected? " https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/refo... "European Data Protection Board Members" https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en

Yes, please do this if you are protected by European regulations.

I also wish we could do more to put pressure on Facebook and other bad players. Can’t help thinking this is viewed internally as just more work for the legal department followed by an X billion euro “cost of doing business” fine after so many years.

Re: The Facebook phone numbers are now searchable in Have I Been Pwned

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my 30s and I can't think of a single time I have ever received a phone call that I didn't expect. I've read that people not answering their phones is the number one reason that COVID contact tracing doesn't work. But your comment makes me think that you've never had food delivered. Never used an Uber. Never owned a business. Never bought or sold real estate. Never rented a place to live. Never went to a restau…

Most delivery services with an app have messaging built-in so you don't need to rely on calls, but I also know when I'm expecting a delivery or a driver to pick me up, and if an unknown call comes from my area code (the one I'm actually in, not the one my phone number is in), I'll answer that. It's pretty easy to distinguish between times I might expect a call and all other times. For all those other things, though,…

Most delivery services with an app have messaging built-in so you don't need to rely on calls

I've used dozens and dozens of delivery companies over the years, and the only delivery company I've found that doesn't have its people calling on phones is DoorDash, and even that uses SMS. Plus, most of the best places don't use services, they have their own people.

we had dedicated business lines

Doesn't help you when someone needs to contact you in an emergency, like the alarm company, or the landlord, or security, or the police, thousand other things.

For buying and selling real estate, there are agents that act as go-betweens and you can put their number on your contacts list.

Sounds good in theory, but doesn't work in practice. There can be dozens and dozens of people and companies involved in such a transaction, and you can't predict who they all are.

For renting, put the management company on your contacts list.

When the management company sends a vendor over to fix something, you don't know what number they'll call from.

To "never" get an unexpected, important call sounds like a side effect of a quiet life. I envy you.

Re: The Facebook phone numbers are now searchable in Have I Been Pwned

#224
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try creating a new facebook account today. The site won't let you do that without verifying a phone number. The difficulty level increases if you try doing so behind a vpn. Same goes for other SM sites like Twitter.

Don't they have a "real person" policy now? ie. not only phone number but as well a requirement to upload a passport style photo. Concidentally on entrance to US a camera makes a high resolution photo of every traveller during passport control.

I believe they have always had this policy, though it wasn't particularly well enforced when they opened up the platform to all comers. I actually had a Facebook account before I even first got a mobile phone at all, back in 2004 when you needed a .edu email address to sign up, which just meant they were delegating identity verification to the university. I think people were fairly comfortable with it back then because the only other users who could see you were people from the same school and it just mimicked the physical "facebook" that universities already published and made available to everyone with directory listings including your official photo and the phone number and room number of your dorm if you lived on campus. There was no open network. You could only even search for people from your own school.

Obviously, the platform has radically changed since then, but they have gotten a lot of mileage out of the illusion that you could freely share what you wanted because the only people who were going to see it were people who already knew you anyway, which was at least somewhat true at first.

Re: The Facebook phone numbers are now searchable in Have I Been Pwned

#225

Non-technical speculation, but based on my own experience as an ordinary Facebook user: I'm increasingly confident that this breach/leak has come about mostly through the privacy search setting (buried in Facebook's privacy settings - https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=privacy -) which allows "Everyone" to search for a number in order to find your profile if so enabled. This is a bit like an option that PayID/Osko…

Only ~32m of ~190m US FB accounts were in this breach, so it's not surprising if you live in that country and are not in the breach.

Looking at the full breakdown [0], a bunch of middle eastern countries have near 100% breach. It seems like they were the target, and all the other countries were just collateral damage maybe? Canada, US, UK, all sitting around 10-20%.

[0] https://datastudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/afa08373-621e-4e...

Re: The Facebook phone numbers are now searchable in Have I Been Pwned

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get a lot of value out of being reachable by people I do not yet know.

Found the guy who bought the extended warranty for his car

No, I have never bought an extended warranty. However, I did today make good money on a business transaction because a stranger was able to reach me. I also had to delete some voicemails about extended warranties. This is a worthwhile tradeoff for me.

Re: The Facebook phone numbers are now searchable in Have I Been Pwned

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a hard problem to crack. Some legitimate places need to be able to call you without you knowing them ahead of time. Say your sibling was mugged in Mexico and the local little police station let them borrow the landline to call the only number they still remember without having to check their contacts in their phone. Are you not going to pick up? There are a lot of these little edge-cases. Journalists, lawyers re…

I'm in my 30s and I can't think of a single time I have ever received a phone call that I didn't expect. I get several spam calls every day. I would make the trade (and recently have, I block all unknown numbers now).

All I can say is that I've had to make these calls myself and I was indeed quite happy when my family members picked up. It's hard to imagine it until it happens to you, but when you only have two phone numbers you have memorized and nothing else in your possession someone picking up is magic.

I know that we deserve something better than what we have now. I know we shouldn't have to put up with spammers calling constantly, but we don't live in a perfect world yet. We live in a messy world where sometimes people need to make a phone call and hope their loved ones pick up. I can think of a plethora of possible technical solutions, but that's besides the point. We need phone numbers to work. Let's focus on solving that problem, not trying to imagine it doesn't exist.

Re: The Facebook phone numbers are now searchable in Have I Been Pwned

#228
post #195
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. That article is about downloading, not deleting. 2. You don't negotiate with Facebook, you norify the regulators so they can asses another billion-euro fine.

How much money can you get as damages? Answer under the GDPR is probably: 0EUR.

It’s not the point. You can sue for damage if you want, but that is something else. The point of the regulation is to punish bad actors, not give money to users.

Re: The Facebook phone numbers are now searchable in Have I Been Pwned

#229
post #85
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re a EU citizen contact your local data protection authority and file a complaint. It literally takes 5 minutes.

I'm not sure citizenship is required?

Indeed, citizenship is not required. You just need to be a resident.

It would be hard to argue that privacy is a human right and then limit the protections to citizens.

Re: The Facebook phone numbers are now searchable in Have I Been Pwned

#230
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the same phone number for somewhere around 17 years. I kept this number even as I moved across the country (US).

I thought this was the norm. I've had the same number for 20 years now, though have moved through many different area codes since. But, I must be the odd one, because I get asked regularly why I have the area code I do, and the answer "because that's where I was living in 2001" doesn't seem satisfactory.

It's kinda nice living in a different area code from my phone. I know that if I get a call from 415, it's spam.
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