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Facebook Has Mapped the Entire Human Population of Earth (cnbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the it's-getting-creepier-by-day dept.

Facebook doesn't only know what its 2 billion users "Like." It now knows where 7.5 billion humans live, everywhere on earth, to within 15 feet. From a report: The company has created a data map of the planet's entire human population by combining government census numbers with information it's obtained from space satellites, according to Janna Lewis, Facebook's head of strategic innovation partnerships and sourcing. The mapping technology, which Facebook says it developed itself, can pinpoint any man-made structures in any country on earth to a resolution of five meters. Facebook is using the data to understand the precise distribution of humans around the planet.

16 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Well thats not creepy at all... by sjbe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just when I think Facebook can't be more creepy and intrusive they manage to surprise me.

    1. Re:Well thats not creepy at all... by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Just when I think Facebook can't be more creepy and intrusive they manage to surprise me.

      Just wait until they introduce implantable RFID chips in some manner palatable to the common idiot.

    2. Re:Well thats not creepy at all... by Headw1nd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is honestly next-level supervillain shit. I'm impressed.

    3. Re:Well thats not creepy at all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I signed up for Facebook very recently at the persistent urging of a group of friends. I was moving away and so, after years of intentionally avoiding Facebook due to privacy concerns, gave in and signed up so that I could keep in touch. I figured that as long as I was careful (fake birth date, restricting who could view my page, posting minimal personal information, not logging in with my primary computer, ect.) then they wouldn't be able to track me too much.

      Creepy describes what I got indeed. Before even making any friend requests or even viewing anyone else's page, Facebook already had a large number of friend suggestions already prepared. Some of which were recent people I saw regularly, which made some sense, but some where people I had only met a few times years ago. Facebook tracks you, whether or not you have an account. I don't know all the ways they track you, but I assume the phone app is a major one. As long as people running the app have your name & number in their phone, Facebook starts to build a profile based on the secondary data they gather, even if you are security and privacy minded in your own actions. There really should be laws against gathering data on people who never agreed to be part of your network.

      Still not entirely certain if I made the right decision to finally, after so many years, sign up. But I do not like or trust Facebook. The concept is good, I like that part of it, but there really does need to be stronger regulations concerning tracking and privacy.

    4. Re:Well thats not creepy at all... by slick7 · · Score: 2

      So, you can be served up on a platter for someone(thing) higher up on the food chain than you.

      --
      The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
    5. Re:Well thats not creepy at all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Few years ago they did a similar thing as an academic super computing exercise. They could map an area of a size of California in minutes, if I recall correctly. Take a pair of oil tankers and a satellite, put a super computer in one of them and an automatic cruise missile launcher in the other. Destroy all humans from any California sized part of the world. "Profit".

    6. Re:Well thats not creepy at all... by infolation · · Score: 2

      Facebook used satellite-based data

      always carry umbrella shaped like piece of rock, check

      and government census information

      never co-operate with the authorities, check

      to map the Earth's entire human population. The data set has a resolution of five meters and knows where man-made structures are everywhere on the planet.

      live in cave, check

  2. you cannot escape the monster. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Even if you never signed up. Even if you block their IP ranges. You cannot escape. People wave phones around, take photos, immediately upload them to Facebook. Facebook performs biometric analysis on everyone in the photo, even non-Facebook users, for "shadow profiles".

    What's that? You think you turned away in time? Oh, sorry:

    Since then, Facebook has continued to deepen and enrich its facial recognition technologies. An algorithm from the company’s artificial intelligence research group managed the seemingly impossible task of recognizing people 83% of the time even when their faces were not visible.

    Unless you are a hermit who never leaves his cave and has no friends, you ARE in Facebook's database, whether you signed up or not. Your image has been recorded, your face has been associated with your identity and your home address and thus forth. Unless you are among the few who block FB IP ranges, also associated with your internet usage when not on FB itself.

    You cannot escape this monster. You can try, but your friends and family are agents of it now too.

  3. Don't panic by fluffernutter · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now now, let's not all panic. Perhaps Facebook intends to do only good things with all this information!

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  4. BS by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Total BS. But it makes a good story.

  5. The Defintion of Terrorism by geekmux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    (US Citizen) "Hey guys, check this out. I combined information and I know where every single human on the planet is."

    (US Government) "Seize the terrorists assets immediately and throw him in prison indefinitely."

    [Meanwhile, over in the land of Too Valuable To Fail...]

    (Facebook) "Hey guys, check this out. We combined information and we know where every single human on the planet is."

    (US Government) "Oh wow, hey cool. Mind if we get a piece of that? Sweet, thx."

  6. Not enough users for Facebook... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    According to "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez, Facebook only has 2.5B+ people to convert into users. User growth stalls out after that as the few billion people who aren't users live in areas too remote for Internet access. Facebook will have to find new ways to grow that doesn't rely on adding new users in the future.

    1. Re:Not enough users for Facebook... by careysub · · Score: 3, Interesting

      According to "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez, Facebook only has 2.5B+ people to convert into users. User growth stalls out after that as the few billion people who aren't users live in areas too remote for Internet access. Facebook will have to find new ways to grow that doesn't rely on adding new users in the future.

      Or (actually "and") they could take it upon themselves to push Internet out to those remaining billions. Something like this.

      If you read the Wired article you will see that this mapping project is part of this 'universal Internet' access plan. And you will also see that 'universal access' means just having an Internet connection. It is not a net-neutral ISP connection. It is a "Facebook selected set of services" connection. They get on because Facebook says "yes". If there is any money to made now, or in the future, it will be Facebook's.

      According to Zuckerberg this is the epitome of "net neutrality" since the most discriminatory thing is not to have Internet, that, and the fact that he is permitting a few hundred other services on the connection compensates for the fact that he has complete control over that connection.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    2. Re:Not enough users for Facebook... by careysub · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Something like this.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
  7. Seems Implausible by CrashNBrn · · Score: 2

    Facebook claims to know where everyone lives...and Google Maps can't even find our house - it's claimed to be on a side street behind us where other houses that are on that side street are. They (Google) fixed it once after 6 correction submissions over 2 years, but it got retconned.

  8. Entire Human Population by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Entire Human Population"

    Perhaps "entire" doesn't mean what you think it does?