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Researchers Reportedly Exposed Facebook Quiz Data On 3 Million Users (newscientist.com)
According to a report from New Scientist, researchers exposed quiz data on over three million Facebook users via an insecure website. The data includes answers to intimate questionnaires, and was held by academics from the University of Cambridge's Psychometrics Centre. While the breach isn't as severe as the Cambridge Analytica leak, it is distantly connected as the project previously involved Alexandr Kogan, the researcher at the center of the scandal. From the report: Facebook suspended myPersonality from its platform on April 7 saying the app may have violated its policies due to the language used in the app and on its website to describe how data is shared. More than 6 million people completed the tests on the myPersonality app and nearly half agreed to share data from their Facebook profiles with the project. All of this data was then scooped up and the names removed before it was put on a website to share with other researchers. The terms allow the myPersonality team to use and distribute the data "in an anonymous manner such that the information cannot be traced back to the individual user."
However, for those who were not entitled to access the data set because they didn't have a permanent academic contract, for example, there was an easy workaround. For the last four years, a working username and password has been available online that could be found from a single web search. Anyone who wanted access to the data set could have found the key to download it in less than a minute.
However, for those who were not entitled to access the data set because they didn't have a permanent academic contract, for example, there was an easy workaround. For the last four years, a working username and password has been available online that could be found from a single web search. Anyone who wanted access to the data set could have found the key to download it in less than a minute.
IN ALCATRAZ
Facebook is a very good example of the tragedy of the commons. For any individual user, the convenience of using Facebook outweighs any possible drawbacks. For society in general, the very fact that so many people use Facebook, and their data is up for grabs, is a big problem.
Melania Trump has been hospitalized for a benign kidney condition. Speculation at this point is that her kidney was frightened so badly by proximity to Donald Trump's penis that it temporarily shut down.
In the era of corporate cancerism, of course the cancers grow toward their 'blood' supplies. Soulless inhuman machines programmed to seek profit will always try to increase profits by doing more of whatever is generating profit.
In religious terms: "There is no gawd but Profit and Apple is Profit's #1 prophet."
However Facebook has a dream. It wants to become a much larger cancer so that it can swallow Apple, too. Same sick dream as each and every other corporate cancer. They are not programmed to worry about death of the host society.
Facebook's economic model is to capture your time by exploiting your social instincts to like other people. Family members? Friends? Partisan political sympathizers? Whatever. As long as you trust them enough to spend more time on Facebook, the profit seems to increase. Damn the torpedoes, and full speed ahead on the creative accounting.
Solution? Change the economic model, but I've already written my thoughts on how. Let's hear your better idea! Just kidding. On today's Slashdot I have to expect a flood of snark with perhaps a delayed flow of actual thought.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Facebook is where all the AOL idiots went after AOL faded. It's a centralization of idiocy.
Maybe we should not be trying to convince people that Facebook is bad, because they'll just move on to infect something else.
I say, let the idiots have their AOL, whatever they wish to call it. It helps keep them all nicely contained in one place, so they do less damage. No - we should be encouraging Facebook use. Anyone dumb enough to actually do it, deserves it.
Hard for me to see what is going on. Apparently this topic has provoked a lot of ACs, but I don't see them... However you [marcle] have brushed on another interesting threat Facebook poses to the people who, like you, don't use Facebook.
If someone wants to steal your personal information, they can actually use Facebook to sneak up on you from behind. I actually think I've seen evidence of fake identities created on SMS systems to seek links to people who are NOT using those SMS systems. I think it's more on LinkedIn than Facebook (but my evidence is limited), but the scam is pretty obvious and clever--and near as I can tell none of the SMS systems have a strong economic reason to fight it as hard as it should be fought.
In case it isn't clear already, imagine that someone knows you are not on Facebook. Then they collect as much personal information as they can from other places where you are visible in public (so it works better with actual celebrities) and use that data to create a fake Facebook account in your name. The data will already give them some people who know you, but if they are smart they won't directly approach your close friends on Facebook, but rather look for less close friends who will "friend" you on Facebook without much risk of telling you. Or they can wait for other people to notice and "friend" you. In all the cases the goal is to fish for more information to build a more complete dossier of the target.
I can't tell if I'm paranoid or have a criminal mindset.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I am not a huge fan of Facebook's stewardship of data, but let's all keep in mind that any psychological study data could suffer a breach. This particular breach shows some poor tradecraft from the Cambridge researchers regardless of Facebook's involvement.
When demographers desire the answer to some sensitive question, such as "Have you ever cheated on your spouse?", they are supposed to keep the data anonymized, with a separate vault of some kind identifying participants enjoying extra secure protocols (or even never saved at all).
Many studies do not even need the correct answer from any one individual. A clever though under-used trick goes something like this (not a real example):
Count the change in your pocket. If the number is even then answer the question "Do you enjoy 80s music?". If the number is odd, answer the question "Have you ever cheated on your spouse?" Please give me your answer as Yes or No.
From the supplied data, researchers can work out the statistics of answers to sensitive questions such as how many people enjoy 80s music, but without knowing the answer for any individual responder.
(Source: my spouse trained as a demographer)
Now EVERYBODY knows I'm a Miranda! (Exactly how useful is this quiz data?)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.