Facebook Is Spamming Users Via Their 2FA Phone Numbers (mashable.com)

According to Mashable, Facebook account holder Gabriel Lewis tweeted that Facebook texted "spam" to the phone number he submitted for the purposes of 2-factor authentication. Lewis insists that he did not have mobile notifications turned on, and when he replied "stop" and "DO NOT TEXT ME," he says those messages showed up on his Facebook wall. From the report: Lewis explained his version of the story to Mashable via Twitter direct message. "[Recently] I decided to sign up for 2FA on all of my accounts including FaceBook, shortly afterwards they started sending me notifications from the same phone number. I never signed up for it and I don't even have the FB app on my phone." Lewis further explained that he can go "for months" without signing into Facebook, which suggests the possibility that Mark Zuckerberg's creation was feeling a little neglected and trying to get him back. According to Lewis, he signed up for 2FA on Dec. 17 and the alleged spamming began on Jan. 5. Importantly, Lewis isn't the only person who claims this happened to him. One Facebook user says he accidentally told "friends and family to go [to] hell" when he "replied to the spam."

Comments

If this is a shock to you.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a moron and just the sort facebook loves.

Duh

[DogDude]

What kind of idiot would give their phone number to Facebook? Seriously... who would do this? Facebook is a company that makes money from selling your personal information to anybody who'll pay them. What kind of person thinks that giving a company like this a phone number is a good idea?

Re:Duh

[lokedhs]

It's highly likely that they already have your phone number. Most Facebook users happily share their address book with them, and as long as any of them has your phone number, they will trivially link it to you.

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

It's highly likely that they already have your phone number.

Exactly. You can have no direct involvement with FB but people who do will give data about you to FB. The chance they don't have your phone number is roughly zero.

Not only that but for most people they also have your facial biometrics, because you will at some point be in a photo that someone uploads to FB (unless you haven't left your basement in the last 10 years). You don't even have to be tagged for them to work out who you are.

In fact, recently, your face doesn't even have to be visible for them to figure it out. They are developing ways to recognize people in photographs from other cues, like posture, body shape and size, and so on.

Facebook Can Now Identify You in Pictures Even Without Your Face Showing "...even when you hide your face, you can be successfully linked to your identity..."

Re:Duh

[MobyDisk]

Back in 2000, when the "i love you" trojan was harvesting people's address books, everyone was up in arms. Microsoft's reputation for security was damaged for a decade, IT managers had to start educating people about trojans and spear-phishing. Today, everyone expects that software harvests their personal information without asking and doesn't seem to care. How far we have fallen.

This is why [Re:If this is a shock to you.]

[XXongo]

Yes, this is EXACTLY why I never gave FB my phone number for TFA despite how many times they tell me how secure it will make me.

They already know it, of course-- they hoover up information from everywhere. But they can't officially admit that they know it.

Quit

[Moof123]

Seriously, if you barely sign on anyway, just quit.

Re:Quit

[Bender Unit 22]

You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.

More likely reasons for 2FA:

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Let's try to come up with more likely explanations as to why Facebook, Google, et al. want our phone numbers so badly:

• + If they have your phone number they can identify your phone and track you more accurately (They also buy this data from the telcos)
• + They can also tie your account to your bank account (that you use to pay your phone bill) and tie that to your data that they bought from credit card companies.
• + Erm... what more can we come up with?

You're probably getting tired of hearing it but..

[Narcocide]

I told you so.