Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Data Miner Will Shock You
MojoKid (1002251) writes "A new website sponsored by Ubisoft as part of its advertising campaign for the upcoming hacking-themed game Watch Dogs isn't just a plug for the title — it's a chilling example of exactly how easy it is for companies to mine your data. While most folks are normally averse to giving any application or service access to their Facebook account, the app can come back with some interesting results if you dare. Facebook's claims that it can identify you with 98.3% accuracy based on images.The Datashadow app also offers the ability to compare various character traits and gives a great deal of information about total number of posts, post times and inferred values about income, location, and lifestyle. Is Ubisoft actually performing some kind of data analysis? Almost certainly not. This is far from an exhaustive, comprehensive examination of someone's personality or FB posting habits. The companies that actually perform that kind of data analysis are anything but cheap. The point Ubisoft is making, however, is that your FB profile contains enormous amounts of information in a single place that can be mined in any number of ways. All of this information absolutely is combined and collated to create detailed digital profiles of all of us, and the more we engage with various online services (from Facebook to Google Plus), the larger the data pool becomes."
Pity the article did not mention it: the site can be found at http://digitalshadow.com/ It seems to be US only, though.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
digitalshadow.com It's interesting to see what it says. I was suprised more by how much it got wrong, than by what it got right.
And thanks to "like" embedding in every other page on the net, they can use a cookie to follow you (nearly) everywhere you go without you needing an account.
The Firefox plugin "Disconnect" is excellent for blocking this.
That's what Ghostery is for...
I use Facebook quite a bit. I also leave nearly all of my information as viewable publicly. This digital shadow app couldn't even accurately present information that is publicly posted or information to which it was given implicit access by logging in through Facebook. Location, Active times, close friends, income.. All completely wrong. I think that page is just a ruse to gain access to your Facebook information, which will then be used for other purposes.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
Sidenote: While you are reading this, 6 trackers on slashdot.org are tracking you.
Just saying.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
No button embedded on any pages I see with their .com and .net blocked by my Hosts file, slightly faster page loads without needing to wait for their servers too.
That's what Ghostery is for...
Also:
echo "127.0.0.1 facebook.com" >> /etc/hosts /etc/hosts /etc/hosts /etc/hosts /etc/hosts
echo "127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com" >>
echo "127.0.0.1 facebook.net" >>
echo "127.0.0.1 www.facebook.net" >>
echo "127.0.0.1 s-static.ak.facebook.com" >>