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A database of Facebook users’ phone numbers found online

techcrunch.com

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Re: A database of Facebook users’ phone numbers found online

#121

Post by ajxs »

jacobush wrote: post #109
ajxs wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course your real identity is probably involved somewhere. It's just that I, and many others like me, don't think a third party should know what my real identity is. It's not their business. Edit: Unfortunately it probably is their business. A poor choice of words.

Aren’t we already at a tipping point where your FB identity effectively is your real identity? For many purposes the companies don’t have to care your ”real” identity

No, not really. I don't apply for jobs, book flights or vote with my Facebook account. I'm not concerned with what kind of insights that Facebook can infer from a fake Mickey Mouse account. I'm concerned about the possibility of being discriminated against in the real world based upon data gleamed from my online interactions.

Re: A database of Facebook users’ phone numbers found online

#122

Post by nullymcnull »

viraptor wrote: post #120
onion2k wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the fact that never seems to happen, no.

What do you mean never? It has a name and is pretty common in Bitcoin exchange fraud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_swap_scam

The specific UK mechanism that is the subject of this subthread was introduced in July; it's not what your wikipedia link describes (social engineering to get a number ported).

Re: A database of Facebook users’ phone numbers found online

#123

Post by 1000units »

pawelk wrote: post #26
1000units wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This appears to be for emails and passwords, neither of which are reported to exist in this dump.

For now. Let's throw some money their way to make search by phone number happen? I have donated just last week and I will do that again next month.

A less virtuous person would just pay criminals a hundred bucks or some other trivial fee to have direct access to the data that's being collected (and mishandled) about him. The song and dance required to keep these leaks out of public sight only enables victimizers, and there would be a magnet link in this very thread if they didn't have deep pockets and a vested interest in relegating this news to a one-and-half-page internet news blurb.

Re: A database of Facebook users’ phone numbers found online

#124

Post by mtgx »

This is why I strongly advocate for "data being a liability when you have experience a data breach."

This solves two things:

1) services will only store the user's data they REALLY NEED

2) lack of strong security: services will be much more incentivized to secure the data they do collect and store.

Not only did Facebook fail to protect this data, but much of it they also collected without most users even realizing, such as when "accepting to install the Facebook application" and then retrieving the contact list in the background.

Re: A database of Facebook users’ phone numbers found online

#127

Post by bubble_talk »

So let us say I go to some page which lists some "potentially well off" folks, like this one:

https://github.com/orgs/google/people

or this:

https://github.com/orgs/microsoft/people

or even this :-)

https://github.com/orgs/facebook/people

Given GitHub actually even provides a convenient, public, unauthenticated API, it makes it even more easy:

https://api.github.com/orgs/facebook/public_members

And then I match it with their personal phone numbers in the dataset (apparently its now offline, but maybe another one will reappear at some point).

And then I can just call these phone numbers and sell them stuff? And its perfectly OK because even if a dataset like this goes into the wild it acts as nothing more than "just a phone book"?

Re: A database of Facebook users’ phone numbers found online

#129

Post by codedokode »

ineedasername wrote: post #78
elorant wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the only reason. They also allow advertisers to target based on specific phone numbers. It's one of the creepiest features, along with targeting based on e-mail.

What's targeting by specific phone numbers? Area code as a proxy for geo location, or something more sophisticated?

You upload a list of your customers' phones or emails and Facebook or Google allow you to show ads only to those users.

Re: A database of Facebook users’ phone numbers found online

#130

Post by codedokode »

dataflow wrote: post #37
bifrost wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was still reported to HIBP, its probably a worthwhile search.

Off topic, but I'm amused to see xkcd was hacked. And that its database used MD5 for hashing emails, passwords, and IP addresses!

Hashing an IP address (or phone number) doesn't add much security because such hashes are easy to reverse. Better idea is to delete IP address after some short time. You might keep it for a week on month to prevent mass registration, but after that time you don't need it.
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