Slashdot Mirror
How Facebook Outs Sex Workers (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Gizmodo report: Leila has two identities, but Facebook is only supposed to know about one of them. Leila is a sex worker. She goes to great lengths to keep separate identities for ordinary life and for sex work, to avoid stigma, arrest, professional blowback, or clients who might be stalkers (or worse). Her "real identity" -- the public one, who lives in California, uses an academic email address, and posts about politics -- joined Facebook in 2011. Her sex-work identity is not on the social network at all; for it, she uses a different email address, a different phone number, and a different name. Yet earlier this year, looking at Facebook's "People You May Know" recommendations, Leila (a name I'm using in place of either of the names she uses) was shocked to see some of her regular sex-work clients. Despite the fact that she'd only given Facebook information from her vanilla identity, the company had somehow discerned her real-world connection to these people -- and, even more horrifyingly, her account was potentially being presented to them as a friend suggestion too, outing her regular identity to them. Because Facebook insists on concealing the methods and data it uses to link one user to another, Leila is not able to find out how the network exposed her or take steps to prevent it from happening again. "We're living in an age where you can weaponize personal information against people"Kashmir Hill, the reporter who wrote the above story, a few weeks ago shared another similar incident.
And now skype is doing the same thing and they don't see any problems with that.
You can't handle the truth.
criminalizing prostitution.
This is probably due to someone posting a photo with both people in it. Facebook will use facial recognition on photos, and when it sees two people in the same photo, I would expect it to suggest a connection.
Don't use Facebook.
Maybe she should stop using gmail?
but she's probably telling the truth.
I have no problem with people's chosen professions. Free country, free to exchange goods and services, and free to engage in known workplace risks for such, yadda yadda yadda. For something so socially stigmatized and illegal, though, it would be better to use a more secure and privacy oriented platform to connect with clients.
The author of "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" got hired by Facebook to revamp their advertising system by combining Facebook's logged in and anonymous user data with third-party demographic data. If you think you're browsing Facebook anonymously, the advertising system knows who you are. If the advertising system knows who you are, so does the recommendation system.
For this exact reason people should close their personal accounts. FB has gone too far in making links, even with accounts between their different programs.
Plus their mega-bloat-loaded apps degrade phone performance...
This is so simple it hurts. She carried her phone with her while performing sex work. Facebook tracks its user's phones locations. When Facebook saw her phone and her customer's phone spent time in the same location, it connected them. No conspiracy theories needed.
She needs to have a vanilla phone and a sex work phone, and only carry the appropriate phone at the appropriate time.
He loses to Scarlett Sims. The FJ answer is "What's A Wonderful Life."
...and this is how it knows who you associate with. In later versions of Android (and perhaps in iOS), you can deny permissions to read your contacts, but the app will likely work hard to get around that.
If you have contacts on your phone that you don't want Facebook to know about, then you must not load their app
- only access them through a dedicated, privacy-focused web browser (or an equivalent sandboxing app).
I like FaceSlim on F-Droid. I would never, ever run their app. That thing is a monster.
Is that one of her services?
No! Are you crazy? I won't delete my Facebook account.
I'll keep it in the empty state it is now, lest someone creates one in my name and abuses it to slander me.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yep,.. time to legalize prostitution.
A decade ago Facebook sent me an email, suggesting that I create an account (as I didn't have one) and also telling me that I probably knew three different people - one that I worked with, one that I socialised with and one family member.
None of those people had the same email address for me.
I wonder if the UK DPA or upcoming GDPR legislation will let me force Facebook to reveal their matching algorithm - see Article 15 paragraph 1(h) of the regulation (PDF at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal... )
Yeah, because they actually delete your data and will never your your dat, even if you never where on the site.
That was an example of sarcasm.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Your Facebook account is never deleted. Oh, sure. You can go through the motions of deleting your Facebook account. The moment you have to access a website via a Facebook account login, your account is immediately revived. You can "delete" it again but it never goes away.
If YOU use facebook in one location often enough and someone else uses facebook in the same location often enough, Facebook will assume that you know these people. Eg, when people in my apartment building pop up on people you may know.
"Leila", don't use facebook (or, I expect, have it running in the background) in the same physical location as you see clients.
How Facebook Outs Sex Workers
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
after figuring out her real name. I sometimes get friend suggestions from people where I suspect that the connection is that they looked at my profile.
This sucks.
Even though I have never had any relation with that company I've experienced similar, years ago Facebook mailed me with the sugestion to yoin people I know.
My stupid sister and a cousin had shared their address lists with Facebook and the algorithm added 1 + 1 is me...
At least they gave an option to opt out of further mail but I'm sure they are still following me around, even though I use plug ins to remove their spying icons from web sites.
I'll leave further comments to my signature.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
No. The problem is NOT solved. Even if you do not have a Facebook account and never use it, other people do. If other people include pictures of you, Facebook still tracks you. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be a serious enough crime for the police to take action - despite the fact that it is obviously life-threatening for anyone on witness protection - and probably many others.
Remember the guy battered to death with a can of spam? well, I think we can expect similar vigilante action before too long unless law enforcement gets a grip.
Location is part of the algorithm: basically Facebook knows that those 2 "accounts" were near each other for X amount of time.
I can think of a variety of ways Facebook could figure out who you interact with. The most obvious is that many people carry around a smartphone with the ability to track their whereabouts. It's not all that hard for a company like Facebook to notice that two people are in close proximity with some regularity if they have some tracking software installed on your smartphone or PC.
Frankly I value my privacy too much to want to have anything to do with Facebook. I simply don't trust the company to be responsible with data about me.
I'm not a Facebook specialist, but if she looked at only one her sex friends, only once, with her personal profile, the bound is made. Facebook will then start to suggest friends from her other profile. Unless Facebook uses here IP address and browser profile, and matches the two ?
Two people who are in the same location at the same time multiple times perhaps... The geolocation stuff is a bit spooky. Turn off your phone, pull the battery even.
If you don't have a Facebook identity, how can they suggest friends to you and display your friendship status to others? Dumping Facebook is not 100% a fix for this privacy fiasco, but it is absolutely a necessary step.
That she didn't use Facebook to connect with her clients, was a pretty big point. It says so right there in the synopsis: "Her sex-work identity is not on the social network at all"
Hi If Leila brought her "vanilla identity" phone with the FB app in her purse while meeting her clients, I'm fairly certain FB tracks patterns of FB users meeting in the same area on a regular basis to suggest they know each other. It can probably be confirmed by attending events where you do not normally go and where the same people go a few times and then checking if some of the faces you saw at these events start appearing in your friend suggestions list. Like the others were saying: if you have multiple identities, don't use FB at all.
That FB magically accessed other applications on her iPhone and hacked her life
vs.
She's actually not as smart as she thinks and DOES have common links.
That friend you met 'professionally' that then became a 'real friend' and got your other number? Oh, they share their contact info with FB for finding friends and now FB has both your numbers as one person. Done. You have pictures up of your face on both profiles? Facial recognition. Done. You accidentally add a client to the wrong phone, even briefly? Done. Your friend knows your professional name and also puts that in your contact? Done. You tell your bestie on FB Messenger about your work/work name/client/etc from your real profile? Done.
I don't doubt there's a fair level of data sharing, often with advertisers in-between, for the major players like google, amazon, and FB. People are just naive in thinking that the data they put online exists in a vacuum and never gets correlated with other data. Hell, is your recovery email your other email address? Yeah google knows all about your multiple persona's ...
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
I come from a middle eastern Muslim country. My views about religion and other issues will surely anger people I know. To vent, I made two accounts on facebook, one for my friends, and one where I express my views including religious ones under a separate identity.
On the 'anonymous' account, I just put my first name and at worst, extremely general hints about my life , since I assumed no one I know will see it. I used a separate, anonymous, e-mail for this account, and used to access it from a separate browser. The only link was probably my IP address / user agent, or maybe I tried to view my profile from the other account, but that's it.
I was once chatting with a real-life Muslim friend and she started making hints about statuses I post on my other account. Nothing serious happened, since shes a terrible Muslim herself, but this could have easily put my life in danger had this been known to other people. I learned to NEVER trust facebook with my privacy ever since this happened.
I swear there have been multiple occasions where I was discussing buying something with my wife - never having searched for it or referred to it on any computer in any capacity - within "earshot" of my phone, and then gone into Facebook and seen targeted ads for the thing that I was discussing.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
"People can always control who can send them friend requests by visiting their account settings," said the spokesperson. "If they select 'no one,' they won't appear in others' People You May Know."
Um, Facebook removed the option for "no one" to send friend requests years ago. The most restrictive now is "Friends of friends".
I am an infosec consultant and about a year ago started to see clients as suggested friends.
I keep facebook for family stuff in a closed group and never mix work with my personal life.
I figure it is tied to the mobile app.
Stop being on Facebook.
Except Facebook will remember you even if you delete your account.
Except Facebook will remember you even if you have separate accounts.
Except Facebook will find out who you are if you have friends and family on Facebook. Especially if they mention you by name in a Facebook post.
Except Facebook is probably tracking you right now because of all those little "like" buttons you can see everywhere.
Except Facebook... Oh, fsck it, I give up.
Frankly, who needs the NSA when you have Facebook? Oh, wait, they are probably working together right now.
Wasn't there a story about that creep Zuckerberg wanting to become President of the United States of Facebook?
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
From the article: âoeFacebook isnâ(TM)t a luxury,â Darling said. âoeItâ(TM)s a utility in our lives. For something that big to be so secretive and powerful in how it accumulates your information is unnerving.â
That's one of her problems right there. It may be a utility, but it is not a mandatory utility. It is opt-in. Life goes on just fine without it. Some sheeple seem to think it's required that you sign up for a facebook account. It's a proven privacy violator. And as far as ethics go, Facebook is in the same category as uber. Just use other technologies instead.
I chose to end my comments, not with a rim shot, but a long decaying F#7sus4
I remember a similar story a few months ago. A thief stole someone's phone and the perpetrator was suggested to the victim as "someone you may know." I think the consensus was, just visiting someone's facebook page pulls you into their potential network. I'm guessing she's visited her alter-ego's page at some point (and maybe some of her clients).
The only winning move is to not play. Just get rid of facebook and install uBlock and filters that keep social media at bay.
Perhaps Facebook just matches IP addresses
Maybe the EU needs to slap a $1B (or so) fine on them, and repeat as needed. Because the US sure as hell is not doing anything about this problem.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Facebook rummaged through her contacts and found those people. Equally, those people probably had her phone-number in their contacts.
Easy match for Facebook.
She should really not be using Facebook, as hard as that may be, as well as any other service that likes to make such "recommendations".
Even using two different phones and keeping all the "side-job-work" on a dumb phone with no internet access at all might not be enough, if she keeps both her normal phone and the dumb phone in her bag at the same time.
Facebook will likely notice that her "true indentity"-phone and her clients' phones are at the same place at the same time semi-regularly and deduct that they may know each other (which is true, after all).
There's hardly a way to "manage" or "influence" how Facebook handles this, so, again, the only way to win this game is not to play it.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
her clients were probably disturbed to see her in their "people you may know" list too
I once tried to create an anonymous (false identity) account on facebook, which I wanted to use to access the private group of a sportsclub that insists on using facebook for sharing pictures and videos, they also use whatsapp.
I don't want to be on facebook, because I don't trust them, so therefore I didn't use any of my know e-mail adresses or phonenumbers (I thought) to create the account.
In the short time the account worked (and I used tor-browser to access facebook, exclusively!) facebook suggested several people whom I know in real life, but who didn't know I was on facebook or with the sportsclub. The account I created did not have a picture of me, but of a doll that didn't look at all like a human face.
I have no clue how this can be done, but facebook has some very sneaky ways to find connections between people. This alone should be enough reason for anyone who wants to keep some social lives separate to avoid facebook altogether. And I'm sure that despite my not being on facebook, it has an entire profile of me waiting to be associated with my account, should I create one.
Someone summarized this quite well: don't use facebook.
My iPhone and Galaxy bug me every so often to turn bluetooth on for better location. This is probably BS unless they will read the nearby bluetooth devices you come in contact with at known locations like at retail stores.
I wonder if it's reading the bluetooth ID's of phones you come close to and depending on the time spent in the vicinity and location suggest friends
Facebook makes suggestions based on correlated movements and positions. If you arrive and depart from the same location at the same time as another person a few times it may suggest them as a friend. There isn't really any mystery to this (unless you are someone like a journalist or Facebook user who never read any of the agreements you accepted).
We could have a debate as to whether or not this should be opt-in, or legal, or whatever, but there shouldn't really be any debate that it is an effective method of determining people who might know each other, and there shouldn't be any mystery that it's done when it has all been plainly discussed before. You can at least opt out of some of it, or adjust your privacy settings to prevent it.
Just imagine that Facebook is your mom and every time you load up the app it's like calling your mom and telling her where you are. And everyone else around you is also calling your mom and telling them they are there too, and you and everybody else are constantly calling back every 10 minutes to give her updates. Provided your mom has a lot of time on her hands and takes really good notes, pretty soon she's going to figure out who you are hanging out with.
There has to be a lot more going on in addition to location tracking.
When I signed up to Facebook two years ago it immediately started to suggest a couple of friends that I had last seen in person 9 years ago, live on another continent, and with whom I had not been in touch for 2-3 years. How did Facebook know? There are a couple of ways facebook could have connected us:
1) they tried to find me on Facebook before and Facebook stored that information
2) Facebook scans connections between accounts with similar names on other sites (in this case flickr)
So I would guess they use location tracking and really everything else they can get their hands on.
This is only a problem if you insist on living a double life. If it hurts when you do that...
“I don’t want my 15-year-old cousin to discover I’m a porn star because my account gets recommended to them on Facebook,” Darling told me by phone.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
Facebook requires you to use your real name on your account. Failure to do so is a violation of their terms of service and they can lock your account.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
You aren't quite getting something. If you don't have a Facebook account, even if Facebook knows you as some entity with a certain set of demographic information that possibly knows certain other people, it isn't going to recommend you to them as a possible acquaintance as you have no Facebook account to recommend them to.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Its a combination of Facebook cookies/advertisement cookies where this person used SAME computer to login and go to various websites. Facebook engine recognized the similar cookies and connected both identities as possibly very close since they shared a computer.
data analytics that would make even the STASI say, "whoa, that's going a little too far"...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
FB (and everything audience network touches) is aware of a user's device id(s) as soon as they log in, regardless of account. FB will connect them all and recognize them as the same user entity - as the source of truth. The intention is to serve the user all the same ads regardless of device or app, the side effect is everyone else can identify the user regardless of device or app.
I've seen FB place people in my "people you might know" if we use the same wifi network (presumably to connect to FB) within a small time frame. No connections to these people other than time/space. Sounds like the lady from the summary needs to use two phones and never have them turned on at the same time.
Stop being a whore
Here's what they say they need all of that for.
https://support.signal.org/hc/...
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Um, you realize that more than one person on Facebook can have the same name, right?
The only thing unique about a Facebook account is the email address used to create it. Everything else can be cloned wholesale from another account, making it extremely hard to know which one is the real one.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Facebook ToS says that you cannot use a fake identity. In many cases when signing up, then even want to see a photo identity (school card, license, etc...) before they approve your account.
The obvious solution is to abide by their ToS and don't use a fake account.
You must have a separate phone that has none of the contacts from the other. Including yourself. You can never check the email from the other system. Having any part of your Phone, or PC touch the other life will create the link and you're back to square one. I don't have a facebook account because they asked me to join and said these people know you "Join US". They already knew too much about me without me even using their system so they can go fly a kite. Your lives must never touch. You cant have friends who know both identities who can contact either identity. If they do facebook creates the link and infer the people of your secret identity might know your other identity. It's more dangerous because you can't trust someone to know that you've gone missing or not. Best advice, don't use facebook.
The obvious question is: why does she even have the "vanilla" (non-sex-work identity) profile? That's not a rhetorical question, either. The "why" matters. Facebook isn't for everybody; it's not even a good idea for most people.
There are reasons you might have to have a profile on Facebook. (e.g. I have to have a profile in order to be the administrator and developer for some of my employer's "app id"s (API keys); and yes, I have already warned them that if/when my time at the company ends, if no one else steps up and takes ownership, then some of our Facebook interfaces are going to break when I delete my profile.) And maybe she's required to have a Facebook profile for her non-sex work too. If so, ok, then I guess that does indeed totally suck for her.
But if she has a Facebook profile but isn't required to by her employer, then I'd like to hear why she has one. That's sort of like running MS Windows when you don't have legacy requirements that give you no other choice. Untrapped people shouldn't be using Facebook any more than they should be using Microsoft products.
If she has no reason, then I'd say creating that "vanilla" profile was a silly and reckless thing to do, even if she didn't have the other identity. As usual, I tend to resort to "victim-blaming," but I insist that is the very best outlook in our current day, when so many people go to so many extreme degrees to do obviously-stupid things that everyone knows have no possible outcome other than causing harm.
You know when you sign up for Facebook that you're doing a dangerous thing. If you do it anyway, then you're accepting that you're ok with the inevitable. And if your boss makes you do it, then right then is when you're deciding between the obvious downsides vs how much you want to keep working for your boss. I chose the riskier path and I have a Facebook profile as a result, so that I can have app ids. But what's your story?
So this article addresses how to protect people living double lives like sextile workers? If you're a secret sex worker you're taking a risk. That's life.
If both people have the Facebook app on their phones, and they (or their phones) are in close geographic proximity on a regular basis, then Facebook might think that those two people know one another.
She probably needs to keep one phone for her "regular" life and another for her job.
Almost certainly the problems stem from using the same equipment (with the same MAC address,) or the same internet connection (with the same IP address) or a combination of both, CONSISTENTLY, or she has pictures of herself on both, which changes in makeup and clothing will do nothing to stop an algorithm from figuring out that these are pics of the same person... and that her posts to the profiles are consistent with them being from one person. Also, if she's posting photos from the same CAMERA which stamps every photo it takes indelibly with ITS identity, with its fingerprint, it makes it super-obvious that that's all one person.
I'll just bet if she had been using TWO different cameras, two different LOGINS, with the different e-mail addresses, from different IP addresses, and NO piece of equipment used for one has EVER been used for the other, with different usernames on the equipment... that it would make it at least difficult to pin the two together.
BUT... you know how you NEVER see Batman and Bruce Wayne in the same place at the same time, or Clark Kent and Superman? I'd also bet that when a pattern is established where Facebook has ONE user who logs in on one piece of equipment/one MAC address/one IP address... then who later that day (and NOT simultaneously) logs in from another piece of equipment/a different MAC address/a different IP address)... they can discern the likelihood, especially over time, that two different profiles or account or logins belong to one person or not.
Bear in mind, over time, it's almost certainly the case that Facebook can infer when you're awake and when you're asleep, when you work, etc., and since you have but ONE physical body, they can determine when two different users, often with the same pattern of typing, same grammar peculiarities in their posts, same spelling errors, etc., who HAPPEN to have the same exact work and sleep patterns, or whose movements reported by equipment HAPPEN to overlap at one point...
I bet it's possible, if one really cared to do so, to reliably fool Facebook into thinking that two or more accounts belonging to a single person belong to different people... but I'll also bet that doing so is REALLY hard, really time-consuming, requires a LOT of resources, (basically you have to be able to afford two separate places under your control, two internet connections, etc., and you have to never take any piece of internet-connected or trackable equipment (like a smart watch, for instance) from one to another, etc.,) and that's just the beginning. BUT... also bear in mind that over time, continuing to keep Facebook fooled gets harder and harder as more and more data pile up. It would probably be easier if you could hand-off one of your identities to someone else with whom you otherwise have no connection to log in and browse or make posts for you, so that you can do so at random times that don't correlate with the browsing and posting habits of your other self, but then, that other self is no longer really YOU, is it.
Oh, and for all the people I've already read, and all the ones currently angrily banging away at their keyboards about how people need to be jailed for violations of privacy... you've apparently forgotten a few key things:
ONE: every Facebook user AGREED to all of this. You had to to establish an account, which means you had to agree to their terms of service, as they may periodically amend from time to time without notice, and to which your use of the service implies and affirms your agreement? You know, it was in that big block of vague, arcane text you scrolled to the bottom of without reading before clicking on the "I ACCEPT" button. Remember that? Even TRYING to fool Facebook is probably a violation of some term or another in that terms of service document you didn't read... but I'm sure they don't kick you off for that, as you're still valuable to them, as a product to sell to advertisers, so why would or should they stop you, especially when screwing with you is so much more fun, showing you ho
I take great pains not to have anyone I work with or anyone at my work be a friend or a friend of a friend on my facebook account. So because of this I would rarely get "People you may know" notices on facebook for anyone I worked with. I recently got a new Samsung S8 phone and after I installed the facebook app on my new S8 phone I started to get "People you may know" notices for people at work. And for people I haven't talked to in years. I did some investigating and found that all those people are currently in my contacts on my new phone as I transferred my contacts from my old phone. So F*** You Samsung and Facebook for allowing this to happen. I now need to get two phones. A work phone and a private phone, and no facebook on the work phone. I have been holding off on doing this but now need to.
(I just believe that it is going to be deleted)
Or, more likely, one or more of her clients found out her real identity (sneaking a peek at her mail, or her ID), and looked her up later on social media. Incoming hits from other people linked her to them.
I'm pretty sure it's using location API from the mobile OS. It most likely noticed that her phone was in close proximity to these other Facebook user's phones on a regular basis. From there, they are making an assumption that interaction is occurring.
I noticed this happening to me when I started dropping my child off at school in the mornings and suddenly after about 2 weeks of that I was seeing the friend suggestions for the other parents appearing in my feed. We've never had pictures together, never been tagged in events together, I never even spoke to these people.
Unlikely. Location, possibly inferred by comments on local politics or events, and definitely ip address and photo geotagging, put people in the same city.
From there, a tenuous link can suggest people you may know, not people we think you know.
People put extra weight on a successful suggestion that they didn't want, and ignore the wrong suggestions.
There are all kinds of explanations here, but I would need to interview several people to figure it out exactly. Facebook is likely mingling ad data and hits to the fb "share" links and putting them together to get a composite identity. How they overlap may be as simple as that.
Actually, the username is unique. You can change it, but even then it still needs to be unique.
Given that I also have a unique name, it's kinda hard to "prove" that someone isn't me if that name comes up on FB. Then it's nice to be the one who has the account that is "in" my name instead of "therealwillsmith" or some bull like that. It makes the whole deal a bit more credible.
Be it as it may, I know that it's at best going to discourage those that aren't really committed to slander, but it's as much as I can sensibly do.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Browser information leaking:
Most people are unaware that every site you visit can see every other site you visit(ed) and every tab you have open.
All Facebook would need to discover a secret identity is for you to login to that email (or any account for that identity) in the same browser as you login into Facebook.
1. Anything confidential should be done in Firefox private tabs only (get the Ublock Origin plugin).
2. Separate different kinds of services and identities to different browsers. Only use Facebook (real identity), gmail and youtube in Chrome. Never login in on Firefox where you do other business.
3. Clear your browser data periodically and give them less to mine and less to associate.
4. The same is true with Phones never contaminate a Phone with information from one other the othe.
ISP data collection
1. This year ISP's can start collecting information on users directly and none of that will matter. The far right has once again sold away our basic rights for just a few dollars. It's the greatest threat to personal privacy since the 2005 Real ID law, the greatest favor to foreign intelligence services the far right has ever done. The far left would no doubt do different kinds of damage if they were every to take power. Good people on the right and the left need to fight against the congressional protection of the privately owned big brother/foreign intelligence agent existential threat to the USA.
What are these "privacy rules" that you're talking about? Assuming they exist, are you saying that one of the rules is that you can't reveal information about other people, even when they consent? (As you know, Facebook users have consented.)
I knew this was possible, but did not know it was widespread. Thanks for sharing.
Obviously. She thought she was being smart, but people still don't understand networking.
Six or seven years ago, when I first started using Facebook, it kept suggesting a landlord I'd had five years previously as someone I might know. He was an okay guy, but we never socialized beyond pleasantries when I handed him the rent check and we had no online connections at all. I presume FB is either searching through municipal records or purchasing banking data.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
"Allow listing in friends you may know" checkbox
Greed is the root of all evil.
I have never used Facebook; I donâ(TM)t think Iâ(TM)ve ever even browsed there. I also went through a really unpleasant divorce 3 years ago. And now, whenever I start dating someone, Facebook offers my ex up as a potential friend.
Fsck you Facebook. Let me move on with my life.
So the problem isn't that she's knowingly and repeatedly breaking the law, and leading a double life? The problem is that a computer program is getting confused (by her double life), and potentially outing her? Sorry. She's the problem, not Facebook.
Many on the left would love to decriminalize sex work. I think if you look at opinion-pieces on this, you'll find virtually everyone for legalization to be either a libertarian or a liberal.
Only a useful set off apps...
No! Are you crazy? I won't delete my Facebook account.
I'll keep it in the empty state it is now, lest someone creates one in my name and abuses it to slander me.
How does this help? Isn't it trivial to impersonate someone on Facebook, given that names are not required to be unique and identity is not verified?
Is not possible that who can collected the info was WhatsApp app?
Until a couple of years ago I refused to be a part of Facebook. But, over time I was worn down by the family using it as their main source of communication about trips and what not. Eventually I got an account. I tried using my real name which, at the time, Facebook wouldn't allow. Facebook wouldn't allow my brother to use his real name either. So, my brother made up a fake account for me. Which took a little work as Facebook used to really hate fake names.
Anyway, when I logged in for the FIRST time Facebook suggested my father as my first contact.
That's some scary shit, right there.
Her customers found her on Facebook themselves and after doing so they came up as suggested friends.
The criminalization of prostitution doesn't fix any of those negative aspects. Decriminalization allows us to tax it. When we tax something we keep records and make requirements/offer services to the workers in that industry. Those requirements/services would be aimed at reducing the issues you're speaking of above. There will still be illegal prostitution, but legalization would greatly diminish that.
Prohibition didn't solve the evils of alcohol, they exacerbated them. The war on drugs hasn't stopped drug us, it's simply exacerbated the negative affect it had on society.
The first-order vs. higher-order stuff you're prattling about above is not directly connected with party affiliation. Stupid people only think about first-order affects. There are stupid people on either end of the spectrum.
Meanwhile, please point me to one member of congress presenting a "proper solution that provides far more balance and tries to avoid unintended side effects" for the ills of sex workers and their clients. By which I mean a solution other than "more prison, bigger guns."
People on some other websites can't keep their identity a secret, so why should you Mr Anonymous Coward?
So 'weaponizing personal information to use against people' is what we call living in reality?
Look, if lots of people happen to think being a whore isn't great and don't want to associate with you because of that, you need to accept reality instead of complaining that you're not able to have a secret identity to fool them. Can't have both.
Theorizing how she could have been 'outed' * She took steps from separating her 'real' life from 'work' life', but did she do the same to seperate her 'work' life from her 'real' life? Did she conceal her real identity from her workers? Does she avoid being photographed on smart devices? All it takes is for them to mention her real name in their 'work' social media or to tag her on a photograph for Facebook to make the connection. * Does she avoid posting self-photographs on her 'real' life Facebook page? Facebook's photo recognition could be sophisticated enough to correlate her photos with any photos her 'workers' may have snapped and uploaded, along with location & timestamps to make the connection. * Does she keep seperate smart mobile devices an/or turn off personal info collection like GPS? If she has location tracking turned on for her 'real' life smart device, then facebook can correlate that she frequents places, establishments, and timestamps and notice that she's often at the same places & times as her co-workers and that she may know them.
Sounds like you and your friend are good Muslims.
What happens when you try? Please describe the symptoms you observed after your wife, siblings and parents all stopping using Facebook (and stopped loading their javascript SDK, like-button iframes, etc).
You walk around with your cellphone. You have location tracking / GPS turned ON.
Facebook is knows exactly where you are.
Your "FRIENDS" are doing the same. All they have to do is compare the geographical information and viola you get a suggestion.
This happens to me all the time with people that move into rental homes around me. I never email them. I never connect with them on facebook. I might run into them while walking my dog! Then all of a sudden I have a friend suggestion. The only way this is happening is because they have both parties geo-located.
Turn off the GPS lady!!!! (if you can, lolz, because just because the icon is OFF doesn't mean its really off)
They can even use Wifi access points nearby to locate your approximate position.
Updates to two different accounts coming from the same IP? Or through the same ISP? I've noticed that Google Maps, for instance, tries to guess my physical location even through a corporate firewall. The problematic identity should probably show a different origin, but sex workers are probably unlikely to think of that.
I suspect that one part of Facebook's data mining is to find other users geographically close to you, and this is what tripped her up. A simple solution might be to have her alternate identity not use facebook or any social media widget (like instagram) that has a connection to facebook. (Suggestions for you: "Laura Goodbooty" is now on Instagram as nicebutt1039. Follow?" Oh geeze...) Of course, it's too late for that now. She may have to move out of the area.
So. Sex workers on Facebook. That would explain the occasional friend request I get from accounts that only contain three or four pictures of a 20-ish girl in yoga pants and handbra. And here I just assumed it was the NSA.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The problem is that many prostitutes lie about their age and you are likely hooking up with a 16, 17 or 18 year old. Now 18 might be technically legal age but numerous studies have shown that even well adjusted individuals do not really mature until they reach 25 years of age.
Now consider that they prostitute you are getting serviced by might have run away from home because she was being abused by her father or step father.
So essentially, you are potentially abusing a child who had been abused by a caregiver in her home previously. Even if they are 18 or 19, their mental and emotional development has been retarded by previous abuse. They are in no position to consent to sex with an adult.
So you are no better than someone like Harvey Weinstein. Does any of this alter your view of prostitution? It is not a business deal between equals and I have not even brought up pimps and human trafficking into the picture yet.
Liberals often only look on the surface whereas conservatives look at the big picture. Try to be a big picture type person. Consider the effect your actions might have on others and where they might have come from.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Facebook knows you exist.
IIRC, they yanked every public record they could and created ghost profiles for everybody. They update the ghost profile with data from the real profile, if it exists.
Facebook partially does this via reoccurring common GPS locations during the same time frame. I travel North America attending a certain theme of trade show, sometimes hitting upwards of 20+ shows a year for work. People I've personally NEVER met are pretty much my entire "people you may know" list, and just looking at their public posts and photos, it is quite obvious they attend some of the same shows I work. This person in particular probably has both phones in her purse at the same time, so Facebook sees the common travel patterns of the two, and assumes they're related.
Facebook even recognizes people that are NOT on Facebook. You can find "your full name profile" on Facebook, just in case.
Facebook keeps track of everything, if you have 2 accounts, but use the same browser, a cookie will keep track of that easy. Facial recognition does the rest.
Even LinkedIn does this, one of my retired colleagues walked into the office, he had the LinkedIn app on his phone and everybody got a notice not even 5 mins later "you may know so-and-so". GPS tracking on the app had matched their locations.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
For people who use FaceBook: Why use the app? It's a web site. I even remember reading articles years ago about how they went through all kinds of effort to make their web site super mobile friendly. By installing the app, you give them access to your photos, contacts, location, etc. What possibly reason would there be to do that?
Probably snoops your browser history and tracks to which cell towers your phone connects to as well.
A while back, son of a distant cousin (distant in relation, close geographically) had some issues with his PC so he called me for help.
It sounded like the issue was power related but he assured me that his PSU had enough power to run it all.
It was the PSU. He read the wrong numbers on the box.
BUT... After I downloaded a GPU test to check my suspicions about his computer, which naturally required an internet connection, and he took his computer home with an advice what to buy so his games would no longer crash the system - he starts appearing as "people you may know" on my Facebook profile.
Despite the fact that we have no direct connection on Facebook. His dad is not on any social network. Same for his mom.
And he's too young to be in social circles of our mutual cousins.
But once his computer connected to the internet through my router... there he is.
On another note... got a new phone which (naturally) has cell tower broadcast notifications turned on by default.
Which I notice only as it starts pinging me with notifications as I go around town and move between different cell towers.
Coincidentally, during that same walk I notice a former colleague on the other side of the street, going home from work.
He doesn't even notice me, he's on the other side of the street, there's traffic between us, and I'm not about to shout and wave or jump around for him to notice me.
We never were that close anyway... which is the reason why I don't have him in my Facebook contacts.
But we do both have some of the same former colleagues in our friend lists... and I was just in his neighborhood.
And there he is the next day on top of the "people you may know" list. He was probably on it the whole time... but now he's on top of it.
As soon as his phone and my phone were near the same cell tower at the same time and as my phone connected to my wireless router once back home.
Facebook has shadow profiles on everyone already.
All it needs is for some of the gathered data to start matching to geographical and time coordinates one's technology, friends or even interests leave all over the place - and it can start making some pretty educated guesses.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...strongly suggests that you never resize it, and constantly presents warning dialogs about canvas fingerprinting.
Facebook has an .onion site, and works well with Tor browser.
Not even hard-core neoliberal economists believe this tripe.
There are many categories of market that capitalist democracies prohibit universally and unconditionally, such as selling your children, burial remains (but I dug them up on my property!), endangered-species penis powders (as in "made from" rather than "made for"), consumer products under a severe-hazard safety recall, and Oscar statuettes.
I added that last one just to get your bile up, but before you do, take heed that it's the only one on my short list imposed by the market itself, rather than government fiat.
Why Academy Award Winners Can't Sell Their Oscars
Seriously, raise your game. All you're managing to do is give respectable libertarians a bad reputation.
Whether sexual service constitutes a valid marketplace has been hotly contested in nearly every society known.
Clay Shirky: "Little Rice" | Talks At Google
Around 51m11 Shirky talks about duplicity on the part of the Chinese government in allowing corporate VPNs to bypass the firewall, but not personal firewalls. Somewhere else in that talk, he talks about the (large) category of activities which are "illegal, yet allowed" (until further notice—which will arrive abruptly, if it arrives at all).
Most societies "allow" the dopamine trade (sex, drugs, alcohol) but make substantial efforts to push it to the dark margins. (This compromise vastly predates neoliberal ideology, which hasn't changed a damn thing about how this part of the economy works.)
The one dopamine trade, fructose/sucrose, that historically escaped the heavy thumb, having recently been identified as such (the American metabolic syndrome epidemic is impossible not to notice in the healthcare spending balloon) has actually gone mano a mano in public debate in the way you seem to think this whole sphere operates.
Sugary Drinks Portion Cap Rule
What this rule amounts to is not having more than half a liter of dangerously sweet liquid show up on your receipt as a single line item (no-one is stopping anyone from ordering a six-pack of 12-ouncers, all for personal consumption; I don't even think the rules prevented McSodaCorp from offering three for the price of two).
Because homo economicus is a giant myth, the inability of McSodaCorp to list the 50-ounce portion on their display menu changes the purchasing behaviour of people who never in their wildest dreams would have purchased a 50-ounce portion (this effect is known as the framing effect). The putative "cap" doesn't stop you from arriving in the same place, supposing you were choosing on such a rational basis in the first place (which most people are not, in small affairs).
I'm legitimately torn and I see both sides. On this issue, I think either path is viable. A society might choose more nudge or less nudge, and then experience different pros and cons (please note when adding up the utilitarian total that the prematurely dead fail to exercise much big-f Freedom during the imprudently excised portion of their otherwise naturally allotted span).
Society also regulates alcohol portion size, but this rarely prevents anyone determined to do so from getting entirely slozzled. Fructose eventually kills through one of the same metabolic pathways by which excess alcohol consumption leads to fatty liver disease. Both chemicals lead to dependency loops, but only one causes people to slur their words. There's even a perspective that alcohol is ultimately less dangerous for many people, because you can only get shit-faced once per evening, rather th
You seem to have overlooked where he wrote "from a separate laptop". Canvas fingerprinting work on a per machine basis. That's what the "fingerprint" refers to. It is not a way to link activities between different machines.
But Conversation, Tigra(sp?) etc, all available via F-droid.org can allow you to use any federated XMPP server to chat with anyone else on an XMPP server. If you are concerned about privacy, find a trustworthy server you can all connect to, or start up your own only for friends. With OTR and account verification you can be plenty sure your encrypted messages aren't being MITM'd, with the ratchet cipher stuff (not available in most clients yet..) you can even do the same for whole chat channels (conference in XMPP parlance) of users.
If you need an alternative for voice chat you can look into Plumble (android client) plus murmur for push to talk style voice chat with either tcp or udp encrypted channels (It supports 128 bit AES for UDP or transmitting audio over the up to 256 bit AES TCP control channel.) Given this you have alternatives for secure transmission of your communications, assuming your devices are secure, but only limited security of association, since the server admins or any servers you pass through on a federated server connection could snoop on your metadata.
Each step you add makes their job that much harder, and done by enough people could help bankrupt their surveillance apparatus. It is too bad then, that not enough people will concern themselves with it to make it financially draining to do :(
Pretty much, if your two cell phones are in the same room multiple times, facebook thinks you are friends.
This can be down solely based off of gps, but it can also be done by inaudible audio communications between the phones.
Lastly, if she goes to a client and connects to their wifi, it would be easy to determine. Or even if the wifi availability are the same between two users at the same time.
These are just all educated guess, but it wouldn't be hard to figure out who you are in a room with if you had access to everyone's cell phone and could run software on anyone's cell phone.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The word is prostituite.
Finally Johns get their BFF experience for free, thanks to Facebook.
So let me get this. The Johns get her info and call her number on her burner phone.
She then sets up a time and sees if her "John apartment" in Fremont is available. It is, she texts him back that the "Grocery Store" is open and that business lunch is approved. The John then goes on the Google Maps app on the phone to find the location of the apartment on a 3 month lease. She goes on Facebook to post her new picture of her puppy. Google goes through the phone's phone logs to see that the phones are linked by calling history and then later the GPS portion of the Facebook app links their Facebook accounts. They should logically be friends already. Then again, she probably uses her only phone for business because she is a prostitute and is used to making a whole lot of bad decisions in her life.
So this is what I would do.
Make sure the burner phone is a flip phone.
Turn off your other phone within 5 miles of your "Place of business"
Tell your Johns the same, because sure as heck their wives will present this evidence at their divorce. Or buy a safe and put the phones in it during business.
There is more to be done, but that is a start.
I have multiple email addresses under my real name - work, different email services - and two addresses using variants of "DutchUncle". At some point Facebook started trying to connect them together. Connecting information is their stated business.
They might not be using GPS "location data" per se, but I'll bet they look at which phones are sharing the same WiFi hotspots at the same time frequently.
Aye, there are strange forces at work. Potentially IP Address among other data being utilized.
For instance:
I use Gmail from Chrome. In Firefox (main browser) I never login for YouTube nor Google searches.
Last week, I used YouTube from Chrome (which I almost never have), not logged in. The recommended list of videos was your standard fare of celebrity crap, late night news and politics.
I logged into YouTube from Chrome - the recommended list of videos now included dozens of things and sections matching (unlogged in) Firefox Google searches, and previously watched videos on YouTube from Firefox.
Which shouldn't really be happening, cookies are generally disabled and uMatrix blocks most third-party domain activity that hasn't been whitelisted.
(Interesting that Slashdot's HTML edit box doesn't require manual line <br/>eaks anymore).
It has become plain impossible for an average social network user to avoid something like this.
I'd guess IP, location, or perhaps even something else ousted her.
And Facebook doesn't give a fuck, because it's that sort of thing that helps them convince advertisers to pay them money.
After a big party or festival, I often realize that Facebook suggest me relations with people I've been in the same place with, even though we didn't confirm attending or being interested in the same events, even though we didn't tag each other or didn't add new common friends. My guess is that either Facebook makes connections through common friends actions, or it uses our GPS location to put us in the same place at the same time.
I have many email addresses. Hundreds. It makes spam and email management easier. (if you're a procmail geek like me anyway) Long story short I have some email addresses that I am surprised to see spam on. Thinking carefully about where and how the various addresses had been used, and considering the spam content, I realized that the addresses had been harvested from someone ELSE'S contacts list. A contact that I emailed in the past with said address. I would not be surprised if Facebook is harvesting some of my information from other people's contacts.
There is a certain "Heisenberg" principle to this kind of thing. You can't interact with reality without leaving traces by altering said reality. Those alterations can be tracked. In the old days it was just fingerprints, but now something as simple as being in the same photo with someone can permanently associate you with them. Because well, that photo.
So key to maintaining the veneer is to minimize not the collection of data, but the creation of it. For example don't do things that alter photon paths in front a photon recorder. For starters.
Unless they maintain two phones, and turn off the "vanilla" phone before traveling to appointments. The "work" phone should never be used at "home" for Internet, because Facebook icons are everywhere are going to track that phone's Internet use and either identify it as the same person or at least someone who lives in the same household.
Doing "work" and "vanilla" life on the same phone is going to make it impossible to separate the two. Even blocking Facebook's access to contacts and the phone dialer isn't going to be enough. Giving Facebook access to contacts and the phone dialer is going to give them an instant map to "work" life.
This is explicitly Zuckerberg's intent.
"To take another grand theory, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has exclaimed his desire to liberate humanity from phoniness, to end the dishonesty of secrets. âoeThe days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly,â he has said. âoeHaving two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.â
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Within a valid working context Facebook suggested a new colleague from a new firm based on location information at our best guess. Also likely linked to the fact that we had at least one mutual friend. In a world of three degrees of separation not an unlikely scenario. I'd stronly suggest turning of location based information where possible if you feel relationships may be compromised by Facebook or Googles algorithms.
How many John Smiths do you think there are on Facebook? It's more than one.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
When 2 cell phones are regularly at the same exact location, using the same WiFi hot spot, etc., it's not a real deal to make it up that "they are related". Add some pictures and facial recognition... And if she is using a "friendly fingerprint phone" - I mean please!!! Where is the "secret algorithm"!?
When their phones are connecting to the same wi-fi hot-spots and same cell towers at the same time, there's a connection. If her different phones have the same owner or same residential address, that's another connection. If her different phones visit the same web-sites, that's a pattern. Using different devices to log into the same account provides identification. Using those relationships to find a real-world connection, is a matter of time.
It is called "Facebook", not "Maskbook" or "Hoodedbook" or "Costumebook".
Did you consider not fucking them?
It's pretty clear from the comments I read here that people often want to present separate identities to different groups of other people. I think that after cyberbullying news stories, Facebook took the position that none of these desires are to be treated as legitimate. Certainly, in every case that someone desires to hold multiple identities, someone with whom that person interacts will be unhappy about it. While I consider that having separate identities so one might connect with like minded people while avoiding religious persecution is a good thing, the people enacting the religious persecution will disagree. Ideally, one would be able to simply tell Facebook "I want to keep these identities separate," and they would do the rest. That would also benefit Facebook, because they would much less frequently be scaring users by showing how powerful is their knowledge. However, this immediately puts Facebook into the same boat with encryption services, because government law enforcement will want access to knowledge of connections between identities, and not always for reasons Facebook might support. The ultimate answer likely lies in plausible deniability. Facebook's AIs will need to not only learn that separate connections are by the same person (clearly getting pretty easy), but also learn why that person wants to keep them separate. That way they can not admit to knowing about the religious freedom related connections, but "accidentally" out the cyberbullying related connections. Those AIs are still learning, though. Give them some time.
One way this can happen is through photos you've taken. If you don't strip the metadata out of all photos before sending them to Facebook, then Facebook can recognize that photos posted on both accounts came from the same device. If those photos are not widely posted, it pretty clearly identifies the accounts as at least belonging to closely associated people.
Is there a concerted effort to churn out negative news about Facebook and Google?
I am completely surprised that farcebook was able to make that connection - really you haven't heard of cookies?
Did you ever hear about a whore who walks up to a guy to tell him she likes him and would like his number and change his life? Whores will only take from life. Nothing they do should be worth any money, yet dumb guys are willing to give them money for illusions. In my opinion, if women want equality they should ban whoring.
cat /etc/hosts | grep face
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
127.0.0.1 facebook.com
127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 connect.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 developers.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 ads.interfacelift.com
maybe she is using Instagram. Facebook owns both apps and I'm sure they are sharing data freely between them. That could be how the link was established.
> I'm not sure the split her is left vs right
oh, the freudian slips
bonus: captcha is "exotic"
I bet big bux that face recognition was involved. There must be a picture of her with an acquaintance or common that links her to her clients and work. That and x degrees of separation is the how facebook makes the link to her 'secret' life. The combination of millions of pictures it has and the personal profiles and it can make a good guess at connections. Welcome to the now, where privacy is a thing of the pass.
The Facebook app is on just about every smartphone, and slurps up data... *EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT*. Let's say you signed up as Jane Doe with phone # 555-987-6543 for 2-factor authentication. Let's say the several of your friends who do *NOT* have a FB account, have you listed in their contacts list as JOHN SMITH at phone # 555-987-6543.
The FB app on their phones will slurp up that data and "phone home". Now Facebook knows that phone # 555-987-6543 really belongs to John Smith, not Jane Doe. Phone numbers are unique; they have to be.
Facebook can pay millions to telcos and OEMs to include their app on smartphones. Given a list of phone numbers and names, and access to contact lists, it's a simple excercise to craft an SQL query to figure out who is in who's contact list... i.e. people you may know.
Suggestion, what if you get a second phone, a "burner phone" on a cheap Pay-As-You-Go plan, and do *NOT* share the phone number with anyone? Would that throw a wrench in the works? Do telcos sell subscriber data to Facebook?
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
My name is worldwide unique. If you google my name, you will find me, and only me.
Plus a few things I have invented just in case some nosy prospective employer is snooping around. ;)
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Our mobile devices are too convenient for tracking and sharing details.
I like being able to share pics / messages with friends and family but why FB needs to dig into my browsing, places visited etc.. very invasive. Would like a cheap FB, SNS device that is largely offline except when I want to check or post a status. A little watch or small device with wifi & BT. Business opportunity... Andy more folks might find this more essential than a ceramic , titanium housing.
Business
Every cell phone has unique identifiable attributes. They are using these now to identify.
So if you want to keep two distinct lives separate, you essentially need to have two separate phones. And I would go so far as to say on two separate plans. Keep your everday on a main service provider. Keep your incognito you, on a pre-paid phone.
How about you don't do stuff you're ashamed of? That way, not even the facebook will be able to snoop you out. "Sex worker" my ass, it's called prostitute.
Lets put it in simple terms, social media kills your privacy. The best solution for people who don't want their real work being known is to avoid FB at all, and tell friends and family that they don't have time for online social networks.
Better be safe than sorry!
She probably posted from the same IP for each account
The most likely culprit is GPS. Facebook suggests people you've spent a significant amount of time near as friends. She and her client should turn off GPS a couple of miles away from where they meet.
At a friend's house and had a passing conversation about their new ladder-style towel rack. I never searched for such a thing in my life, but Facebook began to present ads for them to me. I first thought Siri/Alexa/Samsung TV, but am now suspecting (after comments here) that using their wireless was the trigger.
Because if not, there's a good chance Facebook was simply responding to an earlier cookie.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I have NEVER created a Facebook account, do not allow anyone to use my picture online, and even block Facebook domains in my /etc/hosts. Yet I have received ads inviting me to join based on people that I know. They are very accurate, with a success rate of about 75%.
How can I demand that they delete all of my information from their database? Provide a username that doesn't even exist.
Filthy rotten data peddling scum will burn in a hell that they do not believe in. But it doesnt matter because karma is a bitch. They will get theirs. Most of these data grubbing hogs who have venture capitol in these filthy companies are the same who run our government and courts. May they all burn in hell for their otrocities here on Earth.
They find your number they add you to contacts and go to facebook app >add friends>from contacts>there you are at the top of the list. Better not use your face picture. If any detail is not private on your profile they can just search your name and that detail. Your name and city of origin. Oops you made a big mistake, you left that one public, now you're f***ed!
A lot of issues going on here.One of them has to do with authority. For example does Facebook (or others) have the authority to do certain things. Not everything that doesn't have a law prohibiting it is the right thing to do. And God forbid that they think that just because something is "wrong" that they have the authority to do something about it (about as ridiculous as someone making a citizen's arrest over someone parking in the wrong space). How authority pertains here is that if they have regular people working on this "outing" phenom that its a patently creepy idea trying to track down prostitutes for the purpose of bringing them to justice. Police officers don't experience a temptation to do so on the grounds that they are authorized to do so.
Someone's logic is a little suspect on this one and its not as uncommon as you might think.