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How Facebook Figures Out Everyone You've Ever Met (gizmodo.com)
"I deleted Facebook after it recommended as People You May Know a man who was defense counsel on one of my cases. We had only communicated through my work email, which is not connected to my Facebook, which convinced me Facebook was scanning my work email," an attorney told Gizmodo. Kashmir Hill, a reporter at the news outlet, who recently documented how Facebook figured out a connection between her and a family member she did not know existed, shares several more instances others have reported and explains how Facebook gathers information. She reports: Behind the Facebook profile you've built for yourself is another one, a shadow profile, built from the inboxes and smartphones of other Facebook users. Contact information you've never given the network gets associated with your account, making it easier for Facebook to more completely map your social connections. Because shadow-profile connections happen inside Facebook's algorithmic black box, people can't see how deep the data-mining of their lives truly is, until an uncanny recommendation pops up. Facebook isn't scanning the work email of the attorney above. But it likely has her work email address on file, even if she never gave it to Facebook herself. If anyone who has the lawyer's address in their contacts has chosen to share it with Facebook, the company can link her to anyone else who has it, such as the defense counsel in one of her cases. Facebook will not confirm how it makes specific People You May Know connections, and a Facebook spokesperson suggested that there could be other plausible explanations for most of those examples -- "mutual friendships," or people being "in the same city/network." The spokesperson did say that of the stories on the list, the lawyer was the likeliest case for a shadow-profile connection. Handing over address books is one of the first steps Facebook asks people to take when they initially sign up, so that they can "Find Friends." The problem with all this, Hill writes, is that Facebook doesn't explicitly say the scale at which it would be using the contact information it gleans from a user's address book. Furthermore, most people are not aware that Facebook is using contact information taken from their phones for these purposes.
LinkedIn Also does this.
It's just more in your face about it.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
I disable the FB app that the cell provider baked into the Android rom so even though it spouts dire warnings about the system not working properly if that's done. I assume that's enough to prevent it from sucking out my info but who knows for certain anymore and what about people who don't disable it?
Time for new privacy laws, I guess.
Private companies should not be permitted to collect data on people not in a business relationship with them just because someone else shares it with them.
Let my sister mention my email address on her Facebook wall - Facebook shouldn't be able to do anything with it unless I am already a Facebook user and have provided that same email address.
Legislate them into purging any such mapped relationships from their databases, legislate them to ban rebuilding those relationship maps.
Just because privacy isn't important to someone else doesn't mean I should have to surrender mine.
I thought it was cool when I got my Star Trek communicator (flip phone) and trichorder (smart phone).
Not so much when I find that Hari Seldon's psychohistory and MAC III's predictive modeling (Sea of Glass, Barry B. Longyear) is in the hands of Facebook et. al.
And we still don't have flying cars!
Check your premises.
Only winning move is not to play.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Film at 11.
The real question is:
When are people going to put to a stop to a company
a) collecting copious amounts of info about you,
b) not informing you _what_ exactly they DO know about you, and
c) profiting off of it
What's that? I can't hear you over the Capitalism propoganda ...
It must just use cellphone navigation devices (cell tower mapping or GPS) to find out who facebook users has been nearby each other at some point. This works only between those users who has also facebook account entered to cellphone.
When are people going to learn? Your privacy is worth something, and if you use so-called 'social media' and smartphones, you're giving that away for FREE to people and organizations that don't give two shits about what's good for you, only what makes them the most money. Nothing Facebook is 'giving' you is worth what you're giving up. Your 'smartphone' is just a mobile surveillance and data-collection platform, and you're paying through the nose to have one. Seriously, when are people going to wise up?
The info that you (and other Facebook users) provide voluntarily is certainly the primary source, but I think it's reasonable to speculate that it is by no means the sole source of Facebook's "connections" capabilities. Just like anyone else who wants to know something about someone, Facebook almost certainly Google's you. In this particular situation, it's worth mentioning that court cases are typically public record, and many of those records have been made available online. Therefore, a comprehensive search of the web would likely eventually turn up a record which includes the names of the two counsels on each side of any given case, as well as other people who were involved in that case. Cross-reference those names against the Facebook user list, and there you have it: several new potential connections.
reminds of that story where a father found out his teenage daughter was pregnant because Target sent her a coupon for baby powder or some such based on her purchase history. I understand it's a big problem in the closeted LBGTQ community and among sex workers because they'll have two FB profiles for their double lives and FB will constantly link the two.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I'm expect that using the system tools to block access to the address book is probably sufficient on Android and iOS - so long as it's done before the app is ever launched.
What surprises me more is that people don't consider geolocation. Many many facebook users share their location with Facebook. It's then trivial for facebook to see that you are repeatedly in the same location at the same time as another person.
That lawyer might have met defense counsel at a couple of mediation hearings in a lawyer's office, then they went to the same court house at the same time every day for a week. It's easy to suppose they know each other.
Similarly for the sex worker who meets the same client at a handful of different hotels. Both their phones arrived at the hotel at the same time on the same days. Then they left together. Again, the connection is trivial.
At least with Google, you are paid for this data with better traffic reports and better directions. You can decide if that is worth it or not. With Facebook it seems you get nothing in return while they amass a huge amount of information you thought was private.
Orwell never thought that the noose that would go around peoples' necks would come from the private sector.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Based on Android, 100% open source, hardened for security and privacy.
https://copperhead.co/
Nah, you're screwed if your friends or family or coworkers play.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Years before Facebook even existed, I regularly used Lexis Nexis for work (journalism, although anyone can have an account), tracking down people, seeing who was "attached" to an address (connections determined through a secret algorithm), their phone numbers, their mortgage information, and lots of other public records data.
My point, I guess, is that this is nothing new, and that there are for-pay databases (like LN, but many others too) where ANYONE can get your info, see your connections, and find out about your life. FB certainly does it well (and more personally), but I'm sure these other companies have new and better technology than when I was using them.
I don't use Facebook at all.
The problem is that a friend might take a photo of a group of people, with me in it, and upload it to FazeBook. I have ZERO ways of informing FecesBook to NOT collect _any_ data on me. I also don't _know_ what information they have ALREADY collected about me. If this was the government we could file a FOIA request (Freedom of Information Act request) and find out.
As a corporation they have the legal motivation to do fuck all with my request.
See the problem now?
This happened to me with facebook when I had just started dating someone. We had been going out about a week, and she said that facebook kept recommending my profile to her, even though we had no friends in common, etc. The only connection I could see was that she was using the same phone to text me and access facebook. I thought maybe facebook accessed her contacts on her phone, saw a new contact that matched the phone number I have stored with facebook, and suggested me to her.
Of course she turned out to be rather stalker-ish, so maybe this didn't happen and she simply used her stalking abilities to find me on facebook.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
"We had only communicated through my work email, which is not connected to my Facebook, which convinced me Facebook was scanning my work email."
Well, but the other person may have had this work email in his address book that Facebook pilfers completely. When I still had a Facebook account it often suggested people from which I knew they had my email address I used for my Facebook account.
It's hopeless, you may stay as far away from FB as you want: If you interact in any way with people who ARE Facebook users FB will learn a lot of you. Just as with WhatsApp: You may not use it and not upload all your contacts to WhatsApp, but other WhatsApp users do this (WhatsApp uploads all contacts) and so WhatsApp knows who has your address in his contacts, so they know who's connected to you even if you don't interact with WhatsApp in any way yourself.
They all may not see you, but they see a you-shaped hole in the network.
Stalking, spying and harrassing people are illegal things if they are done for "creepy" reasons, where creepy is defined as.. uh, I don't know.
But "creepy" does not include trying to sell something to someone.
I can put a hidden camera inside your toilet bowl, if the purpose of that is to tell you the exact moment that you should consider buying Cajun Bowl (TM), the only toilet bowl cleaner that 7/10 focus group members said smells a bit like Jambalaya.
I can put a microphone in your bed, if the purpose is to gather your sex frequency so that I can sell you Cajun Lube (TM), the lube that tastes like hot sauce.
These aren't creepy intriusions; I just want your money. Next time you think you feel my cold hand on your ass, remember: that asscheek is where you hold your wallet. I'm just money-grubbing. Now let me give you a little squeeze. Mmmmmm, yes, I feel some 100s in there. You rich! Might I interest you in a Cajun Cask (TM), the only coffin proven to not float away in a flood?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Here are some of the cited links:
http://mashable.com/2013/06/26/facebook-shadow-profiles/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/anger-mounts-after-facebooks-shadow-profiles-leak-in-bug/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/firm-facebooks-shadow-profiles-are-frightening-dossiers-on-everyone/
https://splinternews.com/facebook-recommended-that-this-psychiatrists-patients-f-1793861472
Well, when I got on Facebook, some years ago, I didn't do so to connect with people. Well, technically, I did. I was trying to track down the person whose tax forms I'd received. To make a long story short, you couldn't search for someone on FB without being on it, so I joined, didn't find them, and tried to find the person through other methods.
Within a half-hour of creating my FB account, I decided, "I'm not really going to use this, am I?" and went to delete it.
I already had over a dozen friend requests from people who knew me, including a couple relatives.
Yes, I had to put in some personal information about where I lived. But it's damn spooky how quickly it can make associations and provide that information to their userbase.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Adds no value and creates more work for me to have to manage my reputation.
....FB has suggested I may know people I've met in a swinger club!
That's my solution. I don't use it and I won't use it. I had linkedin for awhile, ditched it as well.
I'm not a socialist so I don't put any importance in their networks.
Corporatism != Free Market
Another excellent reason to be off Facebook. The three year anniversary is to happen soon. : )
Dude there is no right to privacy if you are in a public place, people could always see you or take photos etc, it is not new, if you don't want that then stay indoors.
Tinfoil hatters, nobody is coming to get you, you are not that important.
You can be in your own private house and someone comes over, takes a photo and later uploads it to Facebook. Bang... privacy gone just as easy, and you were just in your own home... now Facebook has your face, your home's location, and connections to other people and you don't have a facebook account.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
We had only communicated through my work email, which is not connected to my Facebook, which convinced me Facebook was scanning my work email,"
Or they were scanning the other guys email account that he had allowed Facebook into? With email, it takes two to tango.
People always want to run off to the government to supposedly solve things; it does not work. If you have a problem with Facebook, stop using it. Delete your account. Block their trackers. If everyone who complains all the time about Facebook privacy, who still is USING Facebook, took these steps then it would force the company to change or go under.
Translation: I have no idea what Facebook is or how it works
It's about what others share about YOU.
With how people carelessly sign-up for services that politely ask you if they can scour your contacts to see if they can find someone who also uses said service so they can link you both; why is it surprising to anyone that you eventually become known despite never actually having shared anything yourself?
We have the ability to compute a LOT of information in this day and age. Think of what Facebook, et al, are doing as detective work on super-steroids.
My 2 cents. I'm probably full of shit, surely?
I tend to rant.
Maybe we can create a new slap face organization. A monument to what they've done to your privacy.
The world is small. And Facebook knows many of its connections. It probably mostly suggests friends based on your connections, favoring people that are connected to you through multiple paths, not just through friends of friends but also through communities and events. Often, such connections are not that easy to find due to blocked friend lists and you not wanting to scan through 200x200 peoples lists of friends, but Facebook can easily find such paths. I don't believe it does anything more spooky than that. They could do super spooky stuff, but they don't because it would probably scare people away.
What it might do, though, is suggest you friends based on what those people looked at, your profile for example.
0x or or snor perron?!
Years ago I deleted the Facebook app due to excessive battery drain. Judging by how hard they have been trying to get me to install it since, I made the right decision. Besides the access to Contacts touched on in TFS, it is also tracking your location constantly, so it is just as likely that the match to the defense attorney came from them being in the same courthouse at the same time on a number of occasions, perhaps combined with other factors such as social class, and perhaps some shared friends of friends.
If the government did this we'd be screaming loud and clear to our lords and masters in our Legislature to put an end to it. We've already done this, repeatedly.
Why in hell should I trust Facebook more than the government? Why in double plus hell should I trust Facebook to never ever under any circumstance share the data with the government?
I always figured there was a good reason to avoid Facebook, twitter, and such while I fudge, a lot, with linkedin. It's not paranoia when you know "they" are out to get low lying fruit and you happen to be low lying fruit for their picking.
{^_^}
I had a problem with LinkedIn suddenly wanting to invite hundreds of email address I never gave them.I have only ever used LinkedIn via a desktop web browser and always refused to give them access to my email accounts despite the weekly requests they send. Then suddenly they had all sorts of obscure email address they wanted it invite. Doing some research I found the email address in question were present in my imap inbox on my private mail server. This all happened around the time I brought an AT&T phone while in the USA and gave it access to my email account, so that has to be the prime suspect.
The real problem came when I challenged LinkedIn to tell me where they got the email addresses from. They simply refused. So what can I do? Who can you actually lay a complaint against them with? I want them to explain where the information came from and to delete it but there seems to be no way to do that with a USA based company.