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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.

6 of 635 comments (clear)

  1. this isn't new by Cederic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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... )

  2. Had the exact same effing thing happen to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  3. Re:And now skype by fisted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I was going to install signal because of all the good things I heard about it, my phone presented me with a *massive* list of permissions the Signal app wants:
    - read sensitive log data
    - find accounts on the device
    - read your own contact card
    - modify your own contact card
    - read calendar events plus confidential information
    - add or modify calendar events and send email to guests without owners' knowledge
    - find accounts on the device
    - read your contacts
    - modify your contacts
    - approximate location (network-based)
    - precise location (GPS and network-based)
    - read your text messages (SMS or MMS)
    - receive text messages (MMS)
    - receive text messages (SMS)
    - send SMS messages
    - edit your text messages (SMS or MMS)
    - directly call phone numbers
    - directly call any phone numbers
    - modify phone state
    - reroute outgoing calls
    - read call log
    - read phone status and identity
    - write call log
    - read the contents of your USB storage
    - modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
    - read the contents of your USB storage
    - modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
    - take pictures and videos
    - record audio
    - view Wi-Fi connections
    - read phone status and identity
    - send WAP-PUSH-received broadcast
    - receive data from internet
    - view network connections
    - create accounts and set passwords
    - pair with Bluetooth devices
    - send sticky broadcast
    - change network connectivity
    - connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi
    - disable your screen lock
    - full network access
    - change your audio settings
    - read sync settings
    - run at startup
    - set wallpaper
    - use accounts on the device
    - control vibration
    - prevent device from sleeping
    - toggle sync on and off

    Needless to say, I backed out.

  4. Re: The real problem is by rickb928 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Kind of.

    As a self-identified right-winger, my first concern with prostitution is the inherent risk of abuse, first due to the social stigma, which puts the sex worker at risk of abuse by law enforcement, pimps and other rent-seekers, and clients. Removing the stigma is, or should be, out of scope for government intervention. Government can reflect society and culture, but when it is used to dictate or shape society or culture, it is no longer freedom, and our nation has become something it was not intended to be.

    This is why, as described in a recent incident, police officers defending engaging in sex with anyone other than their spouses (or partner) while on duty as innocuous are flat-out lying. Being a police officer, on duty, they have an inescapable position of authority, and there can be no consensual interaction with any citizen without the obvious risk of becoming an enforced interaction. The gun on their person forces that. Even taking the gun and badge off solves nothing, however, because they can defer that forced interaction until 'later'. A police officer on duty, and probably even off duty, can use their position of authority to force others to comply with virtually any demand, and their only risk is not exposure, for we see too many reports of this happening, but the unfortunately rare imposition of undesirable consequences. these happen too rarely to be a deterrent on many forces...

    And this is only the law enforcement risk to sex workers. their clients can take advantage of a real imbalance of power. Until society removes the various stigma associated with the work, this is a risk where the work is held in such low esteem.

    Now, the question of whether prostitution is a moral or ethical profession is one to be left to the culture and society. resolving that could make the work safer.

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    deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
  5. Re:Their app reads your contacts... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They might be using canvas fingerprinting. There are add-ons to block it. I use CanvasFingerprintBlock.

    Canvas fingerprinting works in incognito mode, works with ad-blockers, works if you block cookies, works if you use a VPN... And if you install a blocker you will quickly find that a large proportion of sites are trying to use it.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  6. Re:Simple fix by networkBoy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My ex did a paper as part of her masters about sex workers. A surprising percentage of private room bookings did not involve a sex act so much as a counseling session. These girls were discreet and honestly cheaper than a shrink.

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    whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump