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Data Firm Leaks 48 Million User Profiles it Scraped From Facebook, LinkedIn, Others (zdnet.com)
Zack Whittaker, reporting for ZDNet: A little-known data firm was able to build 48 million personal profiles, combining data from sites and social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Zillow, among others -- without the users' knowledge or consent. Localblox, a Bellevue, Wash.-based firm, says it "automatically crawls, discovers, extracts, indexes, maps and augments data in a variety of formats from the web and from exchange networks." Since its founding in 2010, the company has focused its collection on publicly accessible data sources, like social networks Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and real estate site Zillow to name a few, to produce profiles.
But earlier this year, the company left a massive store of profile data on a public but unlisted Amazon S3 storage bucket without a password, allowing anyone to download its contents. The bucket, labeled "lbdumps," contained a file that unpacked to a single file over 1.2 terabytes in size. The file listed 48 million individual records, scraped from public profiles, consolidated, then stitched together.
But earlier this year, the company left a massive store of profile data on a public but unlisted Amazon S3 storage bucket without a password, allowing anyone to download its contents. The bucket, labeled "lbdumps," contained a file that unpacked to a single file over 1.2 terabytes in size. The file listed 48 million individual records, scraped from public profiles, consolidated, then stitched together.
I'm not sure that word means what you think it means.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Where's the benefit of locking down this user data? It seems like, if we want to harm scammy companies like this, removing their profit motive by publishing all the (non-copyrighted) data makes sense.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I mean, personally, what would you as a typical slashdotter do with this data if you weren't too busy cleaning the I.T. closets?
See who can build the most efficient script to "find Waldo"?
Someone had to do it.
If they sold it to Republicans they need to be dragged before Congress and publicly humiliated, otherwise this is a non-issue.
Are you one of those Russian troll things? I always wondered what one of those looked like, and you sure do have all the earmarks.
Did you learn English in high school? Do they make you sit in a cubicle and write stuff in boldface, using as much English swearwords as you can think up?
Gosh. You must be one of the happiest people in the world. Have a nice day. I wonder if Slashdot got your IP address. I doubt they do anything about such rubbish. Oh well.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Here is their publicly available personal info.
http://www.localblox.com/
George Fink - CEO/Marketer/Scumbag: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ge...
Sabira Arefin - Founder/Entrepreneur(lol)/Scumbag: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sa...
Colby Atwood - President/Marketer/Scumbag: https://www.linkedin.com/in/co...
Ashfaq Rahman - Chief Data Scientist/Scumbag: https://www.linkedin.com/in/as...
A little-known data firm was able to build 48 million personal profiles, combining data from sites and social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Zillow,
That is data people posted publicly.
Now if they did that with FB's "shadow profiles" of non-users, then maybe I can see a cause for being upset. But if people spew their private data to every advert company on the internet, inc the biggest data aggregators out there like FB, G and Linkedin, they do not have a "reasonable expectation of privacy". That's like publishing your drunken fratboy antics in the New York Times, and then being upset when someone reads about them.
People have to start thinking about what they are doing with their data. Anything else is a tapdance around the problem, and won't solve it.
So, Zuckerberg.... repeat again that you don't sell data..
The court found that information alone without a minimum of original creativity cannot be protected by copyright. In the case appealed, Feist had copied information from Rural's telephone listings to include in its own, after Rural had refused to license the information. Rural sued for copyright infringement. The Court ruled that information contained in Rural's phone directory was not copyrightable and that therefore no infringement existed.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
hmmmm, wait a second... *sniffs the smoke* *listens to the chanting mob* *Looks down at the pitchfork in his hands*. Yep. This is a witch-hunt.
Now, don't get me wrong. I honestly despise this paticular brand of witch. These guys suck and their actions have a very anti-social bent to it. Their buisness model is abuse and intrusive. Fuck marketers. I know plenty well enough to protect myself, but "the masses" are just kinda generally dumb and enough are swayable into doing dumb things. Like using emacs or voting along party lines. Or worse. There are large scale sociological problems when corporations know too much about every individual.
BUT. I mean, come on guys. We'v got to be allowed to build our own phone books. A name and an address isn't.... Nobody expects that to be private. If you own a house it's literally public knowledge. You WANT people to know you own that land. This is all publicly accessible data. That's fine. In fact I'd expect companies to collect this stuff. It's not a problem. The problem is if they harvest PRIVATE data.
So... like... let's go burn down the castle of someone that's actually a monster.
A Canadian kid gets charged with "exploiting a vulnerability", (i.e. incrementing a number in a URL), and faces ten years in prison for archiving the FOI data he collected as a result. He had no idea he was doing anything wrong. (FOI? Hello!). These assclowns scraped data, and created 48 million personal profiles without consent. They knew full well what they were doing. Then they effectively published the data. Careless, much? Arguably they were criminally careless. They probably won't face any penalties at all. Go figure.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Typical conversation at a 2025 back-yard BBQ:
Joe: So I was thinking of maybe taking a trip to Paris ... ... ...no... ...
Bill: Yeah, I know, my google assistant briefed me on you profile on the car ride hear.
Joe: Oh.
Joe: So, have you started to carve any new chainsaw sculptures. I mean after the pengiun, Siri told me about that one already.
Bill: No, still finishing up the penguin.
Bill: Any thoughts on the-
Joe:
Bill: the town referendum?
Joe: Yeah I knew that's what you were asking. Not really.
Bill: Oh.
Joe: Well, you should be getting on now, right?
Bill: Oh right you are. Almost time.
Someone had to do it.
Wait, so a company that scraped data from public sources, left the data unsecured, and the public could access it?
personal profiles...from sites and social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Zillow, among others - -- without the users' knowledge or consent.
Are you telling me that users of social networks do not know that the public part of their profile is available publicly? What? Hey, there's plenty of privacy violations going around, but this isn't one of them. Save your outrage for any one of the many other examples.
Yeah, it kinda does sound like an old time BOFH posting on usenet.
Kids these days.
Check your premises.
Typical conversation at a 2025 back-yard BBQ:
Sounds about write. In 2025 we'll be so dumb we misspell words when talking.
Typical conversation at a 2025 back-yard BBQ:
Sounds about write. In 2025 we'll be so dumb we misspell words when talking.
If you haven't done so already, watch https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0...
Why UNIX?
Order your own LexisNexis "Full File" - you will be shocked at the data this private company has collected on you. No shoe size (yet.) https://personalreports.lexisn... Also order your own LexisNexis "C.L.U.E. Auto Report" and "C.L.U.E. Personal Property Report" https://personalreports.lexisn... By Federal law, they are required to provide you with free reports once per year.
Was there a time when Amazon shipped S3 buckets public by default, with permissions wide open to the world? What is it with these S3 buckets.
Last time I set up a public bucket (to share some of my photos to some friends), I had to explicitly set the checkbox, and it came up with "you can't just walk into Mordor" warning.
Same convo between friends that stalk each other and AREN'T douchbags just trying to shut down conversations:
Joe: So I was thinking of maybe taking a trip to Paris
Bill: Yeah, I saw that post. You've got to hit up the Louve.
(Conversation about Paris ensues)
Joe: So, Siri told me about that panguin, how's it going?
Bill: Still finishing up, want to see it?
Joe: Yes.
(They go to garage)
Bill: Any thoughts on the town referendum?
Joe: No Bill, even in a made up contrived example, nobody wants to talk about town referendums. Now let's have at those burgers.
(Bill casually poisons the apolitical sociopath's burger)
Just because they're both informed about the other's activities doesn't mean they have to be bored of each other's activities. If they DID become bored with it, they could tell Siri to shut the hell up. Even WITHOUT knowing any of this, they could still be douchbags trying to halt conversation. Reading people's tweets don't somehow destroy your social skills.
... they scraped public data, and the problem is that they carelessly left it ... public?
I learned inglish from beavis & butthead on MTV as well as from the stories in Playboy (does that exist still?). Modern pr0n is not so good for learning language however - sentences are too short or I do not watch long enough.
Anyone got a link?
The general public is barely aware of 1, 2 or 3 companies that have collected and used information from public and private sources because of the left wing faux outrage that Trump was involved with 1 of them.
What are they going to say when they find out its also LinkedIn and Twitter and every other 'free' service and more collecting/scraping/surveying/using/sharing/selling every shred of collected information to sell more advertising and or create relationships for their own purposes.
This was so easy to predict a long long time ago (hence many people have avoided these 'services' since day 1).