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Web Scrapers Claim to Sell Personal Data on Facebook Users on a Hacker Forum

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Re: Web Scrapers Claim to Sell Personal Data on Facebook Users on a Hacker Forum

#151

Post by admax88qqq »

_moof wrote: post #85
admax88qqq wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a little different thought and I think you know it. There's a difference between information that government and big tech is scraping and storing, vs information that is publicly available to literally any random person online to scrape. Both are problems, but those are different discussions and we started with talking about the issue of truly publicly available information. I think that's an interesting topic…

A little different, yes, but what I'm saying is that it's not substantially different. Once data is collected, it won't be uncollected, and all it takes is one hack to permanently turn a private database into a public one. And the data that's being collected in these private databases is often justified on the grounds that it's not private information--i.e., if you're outside, you have no expectation of privacy. So i…

Sure, yes, I don't disagree with what your saying. It's just that corporate surveillance is like the favourite topic on HN right now. Almost every topic gets shifted to being yet another debate about corporate surveillance.

There is an interesting discussion to be had about what it means for information to be public, since public information is also now _searchable_ information, which never used to be the case. What are the implications for that when it comes to laws about what constitutes "public" information, and social norms on what we share publicly.

But once again instead of discussing that conversation, we're dragged back into the corporate and government surveillance, yet again.

Re: Web Scrapers Claim to Sell Personal Data on Facebook Users on a Hacker Forum

#152

Post by ToFab123 »

cvs268 wrote: post #51
_moof wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everything I used to be able to get in a phone book Fair, although you could opt out of the phone book. (And I don't think they had location/address, though it's been so long now that I can't remember for sure.) > I think people are grappling with the fact that the Internet just makes data scraping and processing possible on a scale previously unimaginable This is it right here. The scale and ease of access are ter…

> And I don't think they had location/address, > though it's been so long now that I can't remember for sure Same here. initially i too couldn't remember for sure. Then i remembered the scene from Terminator 2 (1991) in which it looks up Sarah Connor's phone-number and home-address in a phone-book! :-)

I Denmark phone books had postal address. Think this goes for many contries i think. You could even call directory inquiry and ask for someone's address and they would give it to you.

Re: Web Scrapers Claim to Sell Personal Data on Facebook Users on a Hacker Forum

#153

Post by culpable_pickle »

kbenson wrote: post #149
Strs2FillMyDrms wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the LGR channel has shown some DOS programs from before 1990 that had the entire catalogue of the US phonebook available in a neat DOS UI, where you just choose a location/state (or non at all) then enter a letter and it would filter every entry on the chosen filter... (Name was ProPhone 1993, so not really pre 90's) https://youtu.be/yBupNdYe08g?t=1078

I think we actually had that, bought on a whim by my Dad at a computer show in the 90's. We had some fun looking up how many people with certain first/last names were in the US, but didn't have much other use for it. And funnily enough, family members of mine have started multiple businesses named A-1 something . :)

Do you know why they used A-1 rather then A+? I've always wondered, but never knew anyone to ask.

Re: Web Scrapers Claim to Sell Personal Data on Facebook Users on a Hacker Forum

#154

Post by kbenson »

culpable_pickle wrote: post #153
kbenson wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we actually had that, bought on a whim by my Dad at a computer show in the 90's. We had some fun looking up how many people with certain first/last names were in the US, but didn't have much other use for it. And funnily enough, family members of mine have started multiple businesses named A-1 something . :)

Do you know why they used A-1 rather then A+? I've always wondered, but never knew anyone to ask.

I don't know, but I'm also not entirely sure how phone books sorted back in the day (they predate ASCII by quite a bit), or if it was even consistent across locales (probably, at least before the baby bells), so for all I know A- sorted before A+, and nobody wants to be just A-.

Re: Web Scrapers Claim to Sell Personal Data on Facebook Users on a Hacker Forum

#155

Post by jobigoud »

cafard wrote: post #143
_moof wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everything I used to be able to get in a phone book Fair, although you could opt out of the phone book. (And I don't think they had location/address, though it's been so long now that I can't remember for sure.) > I think people are grappling with the fact that the Internet just makes data scraping and processing possible on a scale previously unimaginable This is it right here. The scale and ease of access are ter…

They did have one's address in the phone book. Now, you had to have a decent city map, and some sense of the city numbering scheme to know where that address was.

Most city maps I used would have a street index and a grid coordinate system overlaid on the map so you would only search within a square like "D5" for example.

Re: Web Scrapers Claim to Sell Personal Data on Facebook Users on a Hacker Forum

#156

Post by gizdan »

skinnymuch wrote: post #131
gizdan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, that's what I mean with "Facebook gives you the illusion that you can opt out of this data being public". I recall when I still had Facebook, many people would randomly add you and pretend to be random people, sometimes famous, sometimes they "just want to be friends". I know most people have some settings along the lines of "no one except friends can see all this data". This is an issue, because people will a…

Many people added you like that? Just asked a few people. No one gets many FB rando requests that aren’t super obviously fake. It isn’t that common. I’ve had FB since 2007. Don’t recall there ever being a surge.

Prior to me becoming more privacy conscious I had 700+ "friends", of which less than 250 I actually ever met or was acquainted with. I recall one very specific interaction with one of those random requests of some person adding me and claiming to be Demi Lovato (I'd no idea who that was at the time) with their name spelled really oddly (I can't remember exactly, but they were trying to spell Demi Lovato but with random word or characters in between to make it look mildly like Demi's name, but not really). This interaction was somewhat of a wake-up call and that's when I realised I shouldn't be accepting random requests.

Afterwards my friend's list hovered around 150. These were family, close friends, less close friends, and acquaintances. I also had hundreds on my friend requests lists by the time I deleted my FB around 2015.

Re: Web Scrapers Claim to Sell Personal Data on Facebook Users on a Hacker Forum

#157

Post by gizdan »

kbenson wrote: post #150
gizdan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So basically, everything I used to be able to get in a phone book. Honestly, at this point all of that information should just be considered public, because it obviously is. With a phonebook (at least back in the day), you didn't risk having your account exposed and sold for a few dollars. Nor did that risk someone getting access to thousands, if not more, bank accounts or whatever through automation. In addition,…

Social engineering did not begin with computers, that's just when we put a fancy name on it. Personal information has been used to impersonate people in person or over the phone for a very long time.

I understand, but social engineering 1.5 billion names in a spreadsheet that can be automated is lots easier than social engineering 1.5 billion people in a phone book with no real automation available.

But again, the big difference here is that Facebook gives you the illusion that your data is private. With a phone book, when you opt out, you're opted out.

Re: Web Scrapers Claim to Sell Personal Data on Facebook Users on a Hacker Forum

#159

Post by Jessicahorn »

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