July 29, 2010 3:37 AM

Facebook Personal Info of 100M Users Published

By
Tucker Reals
Topics
In The News ,
Tech Talk
An internet security consultant has collected and published limited personal data on about 100 million Facebook users in a move he says was meant to highlight concerns over the company's much-maligned privacy settings, reports the BBC.

The report says Ron Bowles wrote code that trawled through all Facebook accounts looking for profile information which users had not manually opted to hide in their profile settings. He did not gather (or at least, did not publish) available phone numbers, street or email addresses.

He then posted all the gathered data as a downloadable "torrent" (click here for a Wiki explanation) to the file-sharing website PirateBay.com

Facebook, as well as many tech-savvy users of Pirate Bay and BBC readers who posted messages on the those sites, were quick to point out that his actions do not represent a hack of the social networking site.

Nor did Bowles acquire or distribute any personal information that wasn't freely and legally available online already -- nothing that Facebook's 500 million users sought to keep private. That was his point.

Attack or not, Simon Davies of London-based watchdog group Privacy International told the BBC that Facebook should have seen this coming.

"It is inconceivable that a firm with hundreds of engineers couldn't have imagined a trawl of this magnitude and there's an argument to be heard that Facebook have acted with negligence," he said.

Earlier this year, Facebook was forced to streamline its privacy controls after a small wave of user ire about the site's default settings. Those settings are designed to make most of the information users post freely available to other users -- if you want to "hide" information, photos or videos, you have to go into the settings and chose to do so.

With Bowles' data torrent making the news, it's likely that another wave of irate Facebook users will think twice about who's able to find their personal information online -- and some may seek out the privacy settings page on their profiles for the first time.

  • Tucker Reals

    Tucker Reals is a senior news editor and overnight site editor for CBSNews.com, based at CBS News' London bureau.

Add a Comment See all 14 Comments
by chu54 July 29, 2010 11:19 PM EDT
There is a new site, ThreadThat.com, that let's you socialize online, but everything is encrypted end-to-end (in-transit and at-rest). Your information cannot be accessed by search engine crawlers and therefore will never appear in search results. The site is free, but has many privacy and security features you only find on sites that charge fees. They have a picture viewer that plays encrypted images. I like the fact that I can be sure who gets to see what I share. There are no "friends" or "friends of friends", just individuals. I get to decide when someone can share my content with others. Anyway, check it out.
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by Idgarad July 29, 2010 1:54 PM EDT
Sadly media bias and sensationalism strikes again:

Real title: Facebook Public Info of 100M Users Published

Nothing, I repeat nothing in what was posted was private. It wasn't marked as private, friends only, etc. The sheer magnatude of misreporting at CBS is giving CNN a run for their money.

Step 1: Fire the editor that came up with such a slanted title.

Next up: Phone book publishes millions of personal phone number in the white pages... +1 for the Idiocracy.
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by nomorelibs July 29, 2010 1:15 PM EDT
Not sure why anyone would not use the pricacy settings on these sites anyway. Why on earth would you want everyone knowing all of your personal data? If you put it out there, someone will exploit it. This guy was kind enough not to post addresses and ph numbers. Be thankful and fix your privacy settings before someone really does some damage to you.
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by jeannettelj July 29, 2010 12:28 PM EDT
Only goes to reinforce what I have always believed. Most people are stupid. Why don't you just post all your financial information, too. That way, these folks would have everything they need. I don't do facebook, twitter, bling or any other social net working site. While my life is not totally private due to government interference, I don't want every Tom, Dick, and Harry to know about me.
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by jnostromo July 29, 2010 3:32 PM EDT
In the past people relished their privacy..today there is a large group of people who think the world cares about them...the only people paying attention to their posts are other sad pathetic people and criminals/predators looking for an easy mark/prey....The old saying holds true..."there is a sucker born every minute"
by jnostromo July 29, 2010 12:14 PM EDT
The stupidity and naievete of people today amaze me. They delude themselves into believing that the internet and websites are safe. In reality, the internet is the greatest tool available to the criminal, pyschopath etc...It has opened up a wide and varied hunting ground for the predators to locate prey. Stupidity and Naievete can get you killed.
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by bobisjim July 29, 2010 11:50 AM EDT
This type of gutter press claptrap only succeeds in causing more confusion on an issue that most people are already confused about. Start with the title of the article; it is a false statement intended to be eye-catching. However to a person who has no prior knowledge of this topic, they will most likely form their opinions according to the nature of that title, "100 million peoples personal information published" something that would outrage most of us, a terrible breach of security that could harm many.... thats probably what most people will think, before they have even read the article. An article which continues along the same lines controversial, eye-catching, misinformed. Just the use of "much-maligned" in reference to facebook's privacy settings, a statement that is entirely the author's opinion and misleading.

I don't really see this story as news worthy. But the person who published the info will probably be chastised.
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by RDavid1020 July 29, 2010 11:50 AM EDT
Whoever this consultant is, please let me know who YOU are because if you've released any information about me then we have some serious things to talk about. In private.
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by clfitz15 July 29, 2010 12:38 PM EDT
Uhhhh...HE didn't release any information about you at all. He merely made a list of information that others released about themselves. If one of those others happens to be you, YOU released the information. He just made a copy of it.

Note, also, that he did not release anything sensitive, like phone numbers or street addresses. If YOU posted that to FB, he was more discreet than YOU were.
by pake3 July 29, 2010 10:19 AM EDT
What many are saying is "It's alright to take advantage of the stupid"! That kind of thinking justifies their stealing and bullying.
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by imthaid July 29, 2010 9:44 AM EDT
Anyone who puts their REAL info on social sites is an imbecile. Let them be taken advantage of.
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by get_down July 29, 2010 7:42 AM EDT
Other than relaxing and babysitting my First GD and doing chores around the house, I found no time to get on any social Websites - none whatsoever.
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