Facebook Retroactively Makes More User Data Public

mjn writes "In yet another backtrack from their privacy policy, Facebook has decided to retroactively move more information into the public, indexable part of profiles. The new profile parts made public are: a list of things users have become 'fans' of (now renamed to 'likes'), their education and work histories, and what they list under 'interests.' Apparently there is neither any opt-out nor even notice to users, despite the fact that some of this information was entered by users at a time when Facebook's privacy policy explicitly promised that it wouldn't be part of the public profile."

Comments

Re:Don't worry

[Alien1024]

I used to think like that, but the worst thing about facebook privacy is not what you disclose about yourself (which after all is what you choose to disclose and nothing more), but what others publish about you. Here is some news for you: even if you don't have an account, you are probably already on facebook. Unless you live in a cave or avoid social life at all costs, chances are someone already uploaded a picture with you. It's preferable to have an account so you'll usually (though not always...) get to see those photos, comment on them, etc. That's the only reason why I signed up in the first place.

Facebook Deepens Ties with Intelligence Agencies

[Philip K Dickhead]

The "real danger" isn't youthful indiscretion. It's profiling in a giant model by Government AND commercial interests in ways that will forever affect your ability to get a job, find insurance or even your ability to freely travel.

How do you build a panopticon, a prison for a society in which real power lies outside of government, in the hands of private commercial and financial interests? Honeypots. Google and Facebook and whatnot. Everyone is so anti-Government, like the stupid Reaganites. That's like being against a small-town cop. He's got the gun, alright - but he works for the man in the big house, at the edge of town. Hired. The enemy isn't Barney Fife - It's Old Man Potter.

How does this relate to Facebook?

You present a real, but minor threat, versus the real evil Facebook represent - along with the darkest nightmare of Google.

Remember, Watson, at IBM supplied tabulation equipment for improving the German Census in the 1930's. Technology was welcomed, and was going to modernize, to improve every German life. Except for a minority or two, of 11 million...

Cypher: "All I see now is blonde, brunette, redhead."

Facebook has been gradually boosting its profile in Washington D.C. over the past year and is on the hunt for a second senior lobbyist to add to its office of four. Disclosures released a few days ago show that, on top of lobbying the usual suspects Internet companies reach out to like the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. senators and representatives, the fast-growing social network has also been busy deepening ties to government intelligence and homeland security agencies. ...
What's interesting about Facebook's lobbying in D.C. is what it spends money on despite its small size. It was the only consumer Internet company out of Google, Amazon, eBay, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple to reach out to intelligence agencies last year, according to lobbying disclosure forms. It has lobbied the Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- an umbrella office founded in the wake of Sept. 11 that synthesizes intelligence from 17 agencies including the CIA and advises the President -- for the last three quarters on privacy and federal cyber-security policy. It has reached out to the Defense Intelligence Agency too.

Well, Facebook has always been an "op" http://cryptogon.com/?p=13749

Now, combine those observations with the next two pieces of information:
Virginia Tech Is Building an Artificial America in a Supercomputer

As many as 163 variables, mostly drawn from the U.S. Census, come into play for each synthetic American. Called EpiSimdemics, the model almost perfectly matches the demographic attributes of groups with at least 1500 people, according to Keith Bisset, a senior research associate who works on the simulation's software. The software generates fake people to populate real communities and assigns each person characteristics such as age, education level, and occupation to mirror local statistics derived from the most recent national census. In accordance with the data, some individuals are clustered into families, while others live alone.

Every synthetic household is assigned a real street address, based on land-use information from Navteq, a digital-mapping company. Using data from a business directory, each employed individual is matched to a specific job within a reasonable commute from the person's home. Similarly, actual schools, supermarkets, and shopping centers identified through Navteq's database are also linked to households based on their proximity to the home. When an artificial American goes grocery shopping, the simulation algorithm assigns probabilities that