Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mozilla blogger bought 1 million Facebook entries (full name, e-mail) for $5

talkweb.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 114 posts

Re: Mozilla blogger bought 1 million Facebook entries (full name, e-mail) for $5

#41

Post by hk_kh »

tbassetto wrote: post #4

I don't see how the fact that he's a Mozilla blogger is relevant. The file contains "just" full name, e-mail and URL. Thieves got the information thanks to their Facebook apps (no idea of its name), it could happen with any third-party app.

Maybe it is a PR strategy to boost Persona, hence Mozilla was put on the title.

Re: Mozilla blogger bought 1 million Facebook entries (full name, e-mail) for $5

#42

Post by lazyjones »

How is that news? Many of these names can be probed for using the public FB API, without being logged on and without access_token:

e.g. try https://graph.facebook.com/1112112584 with curl or so ... (sorry random member from the published list)

Some spammers have probably been harvesting that API for a long time ...

Re: Mozilla blogger bought 1 million Facebook entries (full name, e-mail) for $5

#43

Post by negamax »

lazyjones wrote: post #42

How is that news? Many of these names can be probed for using the public FB API, without being logged on and without access_token: e.g. try https://graph.facebook.com/1112112584 with curl or so ... (sorry random member from the published list) Some spammers have probably been harvesting that API for a long time ...

Because that list also has email addresses?

Re: Mozilla blogger bought 1 million Facebook entries (full name, e-mail) for $5

#44

Post by Indyan »

lazyjones wrote: post #42

How is that news? Many of these names can be probed for using the public FB API, without being logged on and without access_token: e.g. try https://graph.facebook.com/1112112584 with curl or so ... (sorry random member from the published list) Some spammers have probably been harvesting that API for a long time ...

One additional data that I see in the list he purchased is email address, which is probably what the spammers would value the most.

Re: Mozilla blogger bought 1 million Facebook entries (full name, e-mail) for $5

#45

Post by shardling »

tbassetto wrote: post #4

I don't see how the fact that he's a Mozilla blogger is relevant. The file contains "just" full name, e-mail and URL. Thieves got the information thanks to their Facebook apps (no idea of its name), it could happen with any third-party app.

It gives context?

Re: Mozilla blogger bought 1 million Facebook entries (full name, e-mail) for $5

#46

Post by gondo »

mapleoin wrote: post #17
gondo wrote: post #15

what's so surprising about this? you can get list of valid emails and just run them through facebook search and you ll get names and profile URLs, both public information no matter what your security settings are. nothing special about this

Where do you get a list of 1 million valid emails?

anywhere, but thats not my point. the point is, that its the same as getting list of email addresses. and no1 would be surprised if i would publish list of emails but this list is suddenly security issue

Re: Mozilla blogger bought 1 million Facebook entries (full name, e-mail) for $5

#47

Post by gondo »

slig wrote: post #20
gondo wrote: post #15

what's so surprising about this? you can get list of valid emails and just run them through facebook search and you ll get names and profile URLs, both public information no matter what your security settings are. nothing special about this

I suppose you'd get rate limited.

there are plenty free proxy lists out there

Re: Mozilla blogger bought 1 million Facebook entries (full name, e-mail) for $5

#48

Post by cake »

mapleoin wrote: post #17
gondo wrote: post #15

what's so surprising about this? you can get list of valid emails and just run them through facebook search and you ll get names and profile URLs, both public information no matter what your security settings are. nothing special about this

Where do you get a list of 1 million valid emails?

You just crawl the web. I am not surprised either by this, I don't consider emails and first/last name as private data.

Re: Mozilla blogger bought 1 million Facebook entries (full name, e-mail) for $5

#49

Post by khill »

brianbreslin wrote: post #25

Excuse my naïveté, but what could one use this list for? Aside from spam email blast?

You could use it for phishing. It might make users more likely to click through and provide security information if you display their correct full name and even Facebook URL.
Post reply on HN