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

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

#81

Post by tvladeck »

hkmurakami wrote: post #77
tvladeck wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter. The company that got the data then sold it on for $5, which gives us an indication of how much they had to pay [1] to get the data from FB in the first place. [1] I'm using "pay" loosely here. I have no idea what they had to give up or produce in order to get the data, but presumably FB received something of value.

I imagine this data came from the "allow this app to access XYZ of your information: YES/NO" thingy that pops up when authorizing apps on these social media platforms. The only payment to FB that I can think of would be in the form of marketing costs (or does FB have a developer membership cost like Apple?)

Most likely that's true. In this case the company dedicated time and resources to making an app, and Facebook is enjoying some of the fruit of those efforts. And the fact that this kind of data can sell for $5 gives us an indication of the value of those efforts. [1]

[1] Not necessarily a good indication, as this may be a last ditch effort convert _some_ value out of their app development efforts, and who knows to how many buyers the seller has sold this data.

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

#82

Post by joe_the_user »

unreal37 wrote: post #58

I suppose any 15 year old with programming skill can do this. Create an app (kill zombies!) and then when the popularity dies down, sell out your users info to the highest bidder. Kinda sensationalist at the end - "DO YOU STILL FEEL SECURE?" Uh yeah, I do. I get hundreds of spam a day that Google puts into a little folder for me to erase. Go ahead and email me, and join that exclusive folder right away. Oh you want t…

Sure, the only "security" that "hiding" a Facebook user's information provides is to ... Facebook. They are secure from users switching services and emailing all their friends about it.

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

TylerE wrote: post #72
notatoad wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Prices normally go down only when supply exceeds demand I don't think that rule applies for digital goods where the cost of reproduction is zero. The supply is infinite.

Nitpick: Cost per unit of digital goods is low , but not zero . Servers, bandwidth, CC fees, sysadmins, etc.

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by 001sky »

TylerE wrote: post #72
notatoad wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Prices normally go down only when supply exceeds demand I don't think that rule applies for digital goods where the cost of reproduction is zero. The supply is infinite.

Nitpick: Cost per unit of digital goods is low , but not zero . Servers, bandwidth, CC fees, sysadmins, etc.

Not a nitpick, beacuse the cost to enter the data by the user is also not zero (thus supply is not infite either). These are subtle but not trivial things to keep in mind, when dealling with massive scale (A billion users, ect.)

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

#86

Post by brianbreslin »

jklio wrote: post #51
brianbreslin wrote: post #25

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

The OED confirms naivety is also an English word that's been around since at least the 1700s. I am not implying naïveté is wrong in English, just that there is a simpler option should you so choose.

autocorrect on my ipad went with the more pompous version :-P

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

#87

Post by code_duck »

I'm quite skeptical of just about every offer to login with Facebook, or install an 'app' within the site, whether it's Apple, Etsy or some other dishonest corporation. Just about everyone wants mainly to gather your information for some other purpose.

Unfortunately, as usual your average user thinks nothing of clicking through the permissions page on FB without reading or understanding what it says.

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

#88

Post by rorrr »

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 ...

Try CURLing even a 100 of these URLs and see what happens.

Also, this doesn't give you the email.

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

#89

Post by bashzor »

shardling wrote: post #45
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?

It associates Mozilla too, unfairly imho.
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