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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

#141

Post by abrugsch »

velox_io wrote: post #134
nullymcnull wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I'm also in the UK, I've had the same phone number for at least a decade. It has been easy to carry your phone number to a new provider for as long as I can remember. You just contact your existing provider, tell them you wish to leave and need the PAC code. After they beg to stay and throw you a sweetheart deal. They'll send it via text or post.

you have been ABLE to do that for as long as I can remember (I've kept the same number since 2005 now on all the major networks. I only didn't keep my number prior to that because it was a work provided contract) but depending on which you were dealing with would put up a number of different obstacles when you contact them to make the process as painful as possible (to keep you as a customer... THREE I'm looking at you!) so the new automated SMS process introduced in July is a welcome addition

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

#142

Post by kuu »

nano81 wrote: post #119
Lewton wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your phone number would still be in facebooks database...

This article is not about facebook’s database it’s about phone numbers scraped through search which ended up in a third party database

"numbers scraped" from Facebook's database. Of course this is about Facebook's database

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

#143

Post by cmbailey »

wodenokoto wrote: post #132
bubble_talk wrote: post #127

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 wi…

Couldn’t you already match those lists against the phone book?

Cellphone numbers do not appear in regular phone books.

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

#144

Post by ZeWaren »

amaccuish wrote: post #140
_puk wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK it's as easy as sending a text [0] to get your number ported to a new carrier. Carriers must oblige. 0: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-rele...

It's actually a terrible system though. It relies on the original issuer of the number maintaining essentially a "proxy" to your new provider. So if I transferred from o2 -> EE, and o2 had network issues, it's possible (and has happened to me personally) that I am affected even though I have left o2. I think also calls are actually physically routed through the original network. Lots of weird things can happen like t…

I've been switching back and forth between two providers for the last 5 years, and I've always wondered now that I'm back to my first provider if calls/texts to me go directly to A, or go A->B->A->B->A.

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

#145

Post by raisedbyninjas »

ben174 wrote: post #32
raisedbyninjas wrote: post #30

Heads up: T-mobile will allow you to take over an account if you can guess one of the most recent phone numbers that the target account has called.

Is this true? Got a link for reference?

Sorry, no link. Just personal experience when we lost the account info for an employees phone.

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

#146

Post by nroets »

captain_qwark wrote: post #138

Is it that difficult to encrypt phone numbers before storing to a database? Or do they just use ridiculously easy to break encryption algorithms? Or does Facebook just not care?

Facebook used to have a feature that allowed users to find a profile if they have a phone number. I found it useful when I received a text from an unknown number. Especially to protect myself from being catfished.

If I understand correctly, someone collected all the queries and all the results and made a phonebook.

I think Facebook cares, but at the same time they always benefited from these measures where they let their users see as much as possible.

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

#149

Post by mannykannot »

reaperducer wrote: post #3

Facebook: "This dataset is old and appears to have information obtained before we made changes last year to remove people’s ability to find others using their phone numbers." Not that "old." Some of those "update" dates are just a few days ago.

The new normal in public relations seems to be to make irrelevant or simply mendacious excuses which seem to suggest that they don't have a clue, but which actually show their contempt for their users.
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