Facebook Lets You Harvest Account Phone Numbers 185
A few weeks ago a friend of mine said she was getting harassing text messages from a particular phone number, which she didn't recognize and which didn't appear in any of her own records. On a whim, I suggested entering the number into the Facebook search box, whereupon we found the guy's profile (even though he had no friends in common with the account we were logged in under), realized who he was, and ratted the thirty-something out to his Mom.
Then I thought: Is it really a good idea, for this to be possible? I tried entering consecutive phone numbers (starting with a random valid number, and varying the last 2 digits from 00 to 99) into Facebook's search box, and 13 of them came up with valid matches. None of those matches had any friends in common with the account we were searching from; as far as I can tell, anybody could enter any phone number into Facebook's search box and find the account associated with it, if there is one.
I think this has non-trivial privacy implications. (I repeatedly contacted Facebook explaining why I think this is a problem, but they haven't responded.) I'm not talking about the ability to find the account associated with a particular phone number — I think relatively few people have a legitimate need to send text messages from a truly anonymous phone number, and if they do, it's their own fault if they're dumb enough to put that number on their Facebook profile. And it wouldn't be a practical way to unmask the phone number associated with a particular account, either — even if you knew the person's area code, and narrowed down the list of possible exchange numbers following the area code, you'd still have to try tens of thousands of possibilities.
Rather, the problem is that you could use this technique to build up a database of phone numbers and associated accounts without targeting any specific phone number or account. Not only would you know the names associated with each of the numbers, you could associate the phone number with anything else that was discoverable from the person's Facebook profile &mdash which usually includes their location, their interests, and the names of their other friends. (By default, all such information is visible on your Facebook profile — even to users who aren't your Facebook friends and have no friends in common with you — but your contact information is supposed to be hidden from other users unless you've confirmed them as friends.)
An attacker could do this with email addresses too, of course, if they had a long list of email addresses known to be valid, by searching to see which ones were associated with Facebook accounts. Or they could supplement it with a list of automatically generated email addresses like john001@hotmail.com, john002@hotmail.com, similar to what spammers use in a dictionary harvest attack, and hope that some of those would map to valid accounts as well. The difference is that because the space of possible email addresses is effectively infinite, and because many people use email addresses on Facebook that aren't on any publicly circulating databases, an email search would probably not hit more than a small portion of Facebook accounts that were searchable by email address. On the other hand, since the space of possible phone numbers is finite, with enough patience you could uncover every Facebook account that had an associated phone number. As my short experiment above showed (13 out of 100 random numbers mapping to accounts), you could start building up a list of valid hits pretty quickly.
Similarly, it's already trivially possible for an attacker to build up a long list of other users' Facebook accounts - start with one person's account, go through their friends list, then visit the profile of each of those users and index their friends list, etc., like a search engine recursively spidering the Web. However, you'd be left with a large list of Facebook accounts but no way to contact them — you wouldn't have their email addresses or phone numbers, and if you send a message to a non-friend on Facebook, it goes into a subfolder of their Inbox marked "Other", which most users never check. The phone number dictionary attack described above, is the only loophole I can think of that lets you harvest a large list of Facebook users and a means to contact them in a way that they will actually see.
What could somebody do with such a database? Well, even if you only had a small list of a few thousand people, you could try spamming or scamming the numbers via text message. SMS scams are nothing new, of course, but they would probably be more effective if supplemented with the details you could get from a person's Facebook profile. (For straight-up spam, you can target it based on the interests listed in a person's profile. For scams, remember that you can use names taken from a person's friends list: "Hi, this is Jessica Smith. I have to pay off a parking ticket online or my car will get towed; can I borrow your credit card number and then I'll pay you tomorrow?")
Or if you spidered so many accounts that you built up a database which included a significant portion of all Facebook users with phone numbers on their profile, you could even launch your own publicly searchable website, splattered with grey-market pop-up advertisements: "Look up any Facebook user's phone number! If they've got their number on their Facebook profile, we have it here!" (While this would certainly raise awareness of the problem, I think it's more likely that the data harvester would decide they could make more money trading the data on the black market.)
I haven't seen this issue raised anywhere else, but lest you accuse me of "giving the bad guys ideas", I do think it's sufficiently obvious that some people on the dark side have probably discovered it, or would have, even if I hadn't brought it up. And even if any of these outcomes is unlikely, it would only have to be done once, to put the users' data permanently in the hands of the attackers, with Facebook unable to put the cat back into the bag. (Although they could at least rectify the problem for new users going forward.)
Balanced against this, what is the upside of being able to search for someone's profile on Facebook using their phone number? In my Facebook-using days, I never did it, since it was always easier to find someone using their email address, or by searching for their name, or by finding them in the friends list of one of our mutual friends. But even in a case where all you had was the person's phone number, is it too much to text them and ask for their first and last name, or their email address, so you can add them on Facebook?
Although Facebook did not respond to my inquiries, it's true that the existing behavior doesn't technically look like a violation of their Privacy Policy ("To make it easier for your friends to find you, we allow anyone with your contact information (such as email address or telephone number) to find you through the Facebook search bar..."). And I verified with a new test account that by default, in your privacy settings, under "How You Connect", the setting "Who can look you up using the email address or phone number you provided?" is set to "Everyone." The problem is that this setting casually lumps the two together, and users — as well as Facebook itself — might not realize that the implications of being findable by your phone number, are different from being findable by your email address.
Facebook should probably just go ahead and block searches by phone number — or, at least, make you fill out a CAPTCHA every time you do a phone number search, to make it harder to harvest them in bulk. There's no way to know if scammers are trying this already, but at least we can prevent it going forward. That would require a small edit to Facebook's privacy policy, but luckily for them, they can now do that without even calling a vote.
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SMS Spam (Score:2, Funny)
Amazingly I got spam, I'm assuming because of this, just 5 minutes ago. Saying my profile picture is cute and they want to chat on yahoo messenger. Except for that fact that my picture is the retarded kid from the Stargate movie.
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Except for that fact that my picture is the retarded kid from the Stargate movie.
Listen, you insensitive clod, "retarded" kids need sex, too.
funny how everyone 'wants' your phone # (Score:5, Interesting)
last time I went for a haircut, the first thing they asked me was my name. fine, they can call me when the next haircutter is open.
then they wanted my phone #. really? for a date, maybe? ;) (some of they are definitely cute).
no, they want to collect data and sell it. how absurd.
of course I declined. if you don't need it, you don't get it. and they most certainly don't need it.
reminds me of a rental app I was once asked to fill in. it had the usual ss#, date of birth, full name - but they also asked mothers maiden name. now, I realize that with some work, you can get that from public records, but you have to work for it and its still partially a password of sorts that banks use to verify your ID when you call on the phone (or lost your password for online). a housing rental that wanted pretty much all the info that the bank would ask me to verify my id. yeah, sure, I'll just give you that (not!). when I called the realtor on this, he simply said 'good luck in your search'. basically, he knew he was asking more than he had a right to and simply avoided admitting it.
watch what you give out, people. think about every bit of info and if they don't need it, don't give it to them.
Re:funny how everyone 'wants' your phone # (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd think actually the number collection is so that the next time you go in, they can put your phone number in and ID you... "Do you have a discount card? Do you have it with you?? No, can I get your phone number? There you are!"
Most small shops don't (yet) have the smarts/connections to sell customer data. But the potential IS there, yes.
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Re:funny how everyone 'wants' your phone # (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook took my number from a friend's mobile phone's contact list and added it to my profile two weeks later. I never gave it to them. They can die in a fire.
Re:funny how everyone 'wants' your phone # (Score:5, Interesting)
The better way to deal with such data-harvesting schemes is to fill it with plausible but junk data.
That serves two purposes:
So in the case of Facebook asking for your phone number, use the correct (or neighboring) area code and make up the other digits. Don't use 555-xxxx or Jenny's number as those are too easy to spot.
Of course, if you use two-factor authentication (which is a good idea to thwart the majority of crooks who happen to be unskilled/stupid), you'll have to provide your real number, or a working proxy.
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I like (650) 543-4800 [answers.com]. That is of course Facebook's customer service number.
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FAIL:
Finding and correcting said junk data becomes an impossible task if enough people do it.
What percentage of social media users enter junk data?
75%? 85%?
Re:funny how everyone 'wants' your phone # (Score:5, Interesting)
I told Facebook to FO when they asked for my number too.
Facebook took my number from a friend's mobile phone's contact list and added it to my profile two weeks later. I never gave it to them. They can die in a fire.
Exactly.
Even those of us who have NO Facebook account at all can still be found on Facebook because so many people sync their phone contacts with Facebook, and unlike Google's address book, Facebook leaks theirs.
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Facebook took my number from a friend's mobile phone's contact list and added it to my profile two weeks later. I never gave it to them. They can die in a fire.
Yeah, see, that's why I don't Facebook. Right there.
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GameStop does this.
That's totally different because you are asking for a service in the distant future, and maybe renting games from them.
But sitting in a barber shop? Ridiculous. What next? Burger King? The soda machine at the end of the hall, The barista babe at the Latte shop? Well, ok, maybe her.
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Beauty shops might work that way, but barbers (at least since the 60 were over) can just look at you and take it back to what it was, unless you let it go so long they can't even guess.
Re:funny how everyone 'wants' your phone # (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd think actually the number collection is so that the next time you go in, they can put your phone number in and ID you... "Do you have a discount card? Do you have it with you?? No, can I get your phone number? There you are!"
Most small shops don't (yet) have the smarts/connections to sell customer data. But the potential IS there, yes.
If they are big enough to have a customer card, then they have the smarts/connections to sell customer data. Indeed, the customer card service is probably run for them by a data collection company.
.
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I have not bothered to look but I would hazard there are some COTS possibly even open source loyalty card solutions out there.
There are a number of small single locations restaurants around here I have loyalty cards with. These things are printed on perforated card sheets available at any office store, their name, logo, address and YOUR name on the front a simple bar code on the back; they read with a standard Symbol hand scanner on a usually self made looking stand at the register (which is actually a PC
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Phone number is how SuperCuts (the hair cutting chain in my part of the woods) identifies people. They ask for my number and first name (I guess to differentiate me from my son). With that, they know my preference in cut and stuff like that.
Not a particularly bad idea, since you need some sort of semi-unique identification if you want to have persistent records.
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I'd think actually the number collection is so that the next time you go in, they can put your phone number in and ID you... "Do you have a discount card? Do you have it with you?? No, can I get your phone number? There you are!"
Most small shops don't (yet) have the smarts/connections to sell customer data. But the potential IS there, yes.
That may be one reason, but it isn't the only reason. the fact is, an extensive phone list linked to a specific demographic (e.g. hair care, female, city district) is worth money to the right person.
if they are giving you a 10% discount or raffling for a car in the mall, remember the information they're asking for is worth more to them than the discount out the till or the new car. Ask someone who works as a dataminer if they have any frequent flyer cards [monash.edu.au], supermarket loyalty cards [washingtonpost.com], or petrol cards [bbc.co.uk] i
Re:funny how everyone 'wants' your phone # (Score:5, Interesting)
They don't want only your phone number, they want everything personal about you. And step by step, they're getting it.
Facebook offered like 2 euros or something in facebook credits if you entered your phone number. Youtube is forcing a channel name change to your real name or something like that, and when you decline they ask you why.. and in "reasons" offered, you can't choose "because of privacy" or whatever. They are pretending that giving your phone number/real name is a normal thing to do. And eventually they gonna brainwash people into thinking it is a normal thing to do, so everybody will do it without thinking twice.
When you see the current trend, you can extrapolate what the future will look like. Don't need to be bloody Einstein for it.
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Not only that, since it will be the new normal, you will be strange for not wanting to give up that data.
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Not only that, since it will be the new normal, you will be strange for not wanting to give up that data.
We nerds have been strange before. We can hack* it.
*tough it out
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Re:funny how everyone 'wants' your phone # (Score:4, Interesting)
Not always. My identity was stolen once. The thieves opened a credit card in my name using my address, SSN, and DOB. They got my mother's maiden name wrong. (Wasn't even close.) It didn't raise a single red flag to stop the transaction. Neither did them changing the address immediately and asking for rush delivery of the card or trying to get a $5,000 cash advance before the card even was activated.
So banks might *say* they're using Mother's Maiden Name to verify identity, but not all banks (*cough*Capital One*cough*) do.
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for rentals they need it for a credit check
and i have rented a summer house one time for a week where they performed a complete background check on you including a criminal record search
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They want a number. There's nothing that says it has to be yours. 867-5309. Jenny, is that you?
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last time I went for a haircut, the first thing they asked me was my name. fine, they can call me when the next haircutter is open.
then they wanted my phone #. really? for a date, maybe? ;) (some of they are definitely cute).
reminds me of a rental app I was once asked to fill in. it had the usual ss#, date of birth, full name - but they also asked mothers maiden name. now, I realize that with some work, you can get that from public records, but you have to work for it and its still partially a password of sorts that banks use to verify your ID when you call on the phone (or lost your password for online). a housing rental that wanted pretty much all the info that the bank would ask me to verify my id. yeah, sure, I'll just give you that (not!). when I called the realtor on this, he simply said 'good luck in your search'. basically, he knew he was asking more than he had a right to and simply avoided admitting it.
watch what you give out, people. think about every bit of info and if they don't need it, don't give it to them.
Why do people assume you have to give everyone real info? They have no way of knowing what your mother's maidan name and simply picking something you can remember such as some random street name you like. Unless you pick something truly bizzare, like West 52nd or Avenue of the Americas, Lindy or Ruby should be fine. Oddly enough, the only person I know who has had an issue is because her maiden name only has a few consonants (thanks to the immigration guy at Ellis Island when her grandfather emigrated) and
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We dont assume they have to. We assume they're dumb enough to.
My bank is eliminating the "secret question" method of authentication because its exploited far too much by fraudsters. Things "Mothers maiden name", "Town you were born in" and "name of first pet" is acquired using a half arsed phishing expedition. They are going with One Time Passcodes sent by SMS but there a re a small minority of users complaining to high hell about "having" to us
Re:funny how everyone 'wants' your phone # (Score:5, Interesting)
I refuse any request they make for data. Radioshack, for example, wont stop until you say No. I saw a guy in front of me give them his name, address, phone number, zipcode, I was astonished. Then I get up there and they ask for my name, I say no... they looked confused... then asked for my phone number... I said no... then he started to tell me he couldn't even check me out without a phone number! I told him "I guess I'm not shopping here then" at which point the manager of the store practically jumped the counter and told the checkout clerk to just use the stores number. Common sense prevails for once.
What's really funny about this whole thing is that they looked at me like I were crazy. As if I were doing something strange by not wanting to give complete strangers all of my personal info just to buy a 35 cent bulb for my flashlight. The scary part isn't that they ask for this info, or that people give it. The scary part is that they look at you like you're crazy when you refuse to give it. Society this this level of intrusion into your personal life is not only normal, but expected, and you're out of whack if you don't want to supply it.
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RadioShack for years asked for that information to add you to their mailing list for circulars. Just saying no thanks always quickly moved the transaction on. I haven't been asked that at a RadioShack for years though. The only time I hear someone giving that information is if they are activating a phone or some other type of contract-based purchase.
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Re:funny how everyone 'wants' your phone # (Score:5, Insightful)
The sending address? The spoofed sending address which is either (A) one of the other spam victims, or (B) a joe-job designed to slander and inconvenience someone the spammer has conceived a grudge against?
I guess hilarity will ensue when you receive a spam you sent yourself, according to the sending address you naively trust.
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You do realise that most spam is sent from legitimate email addresses, right? Ie they use an address from the list they are sending spam to as the sender.
Schemes like this just fuel spam, not reduce it.
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yes, that's one of the 101 things that are wrong with it, as I pointed out.
In other words, you are part of the problem, but you still endorse this as "but anything that converts a feeling of mild impotent rage into a feeling of vengeful satisfaction is a good thing in my book"?
Or maybe you'd like to rescind your endorsement?
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Since Christmas, the number of SPAMs I receive that appear to have come from one of my own addresses has out of no where skyrocketed. And because it comes form one of my valid addresses, it slips through the spam filter and gets auto filed in my 'sent from me' folder.
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No actually they are using it as a key (along with your name) in their database. They make notes on how you like your hair cut, so the next time you show up any of they stylists can have an idea of how you like it.
They need a better key.
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Like what, your SSN?
Yet another card to keep?
Or something that you and your kids already have memorized?
Facebook being a bit lax with privacy.... (Score:3)
The headline just writes itself sometimes.
The interesting mix, is that just a few stories down on the home page is the story about the Facebook VOIP app that only can call Facebook users that have phone numbers on their profiles. Sometimes it's obvious that Facebook is moving too fast to realize how their different systems interact.
Facebook isn't interested in your privacy ... (Score:5, Insightful)
They want your information so they can sell it. They want as much as they can possibly get.
Do you think Facebook even try to protect your privacy? They write a feature which you might want, but which mostly benefits them.
And they've shown time and time again, they're not very good at even trying.
That fact that Zukerfucks sister got burned with privacy settings says they're deliberately obtuse.
Sure, Facebook could do all sorts of things to protect your privacy, but that's now how they get paid.
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Google regularly asks me to attach a mobile number in case I lose access to my account. Facebook occasionally tells me the same lie.
They ask for this kind of stuff all the time. I also routinely see the same stupid canned "security questions" with no option of filling in your own meaningful (and secure) questions -- and those standard questions are too easily gotten
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Apparently you can search for lots of things (Score:3)
Apparently you can search for lots of things on Facebook. For example:
http://media.gizmodo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/facebookgraphlols1.png [gizmodo.co.uk]
http://media.gizmodo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/facebooklols4.png [gizmodo.co.uk]
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Apparently you can search for lots of things on Facebook. For example:
Fearing the worst, I went to Facebook and tried searching for phone numbers. The first phone number I entered was from my own area code, made up prefix. It returned not one result, but a large number of results. People from Mexico, Indonesia, Greece, all over the world. Amazing, these people all have the same US phone number?
So I tried it with my own phone number. Again, a large number of hits, people from Mexico, Indonesia, Greece. Foreign countries like New Mexico, too. But I was not in the list. This i
The phone books of the past.... (Score:3)
... screwed us over more than they helped genuine people find us... Oh wait. Nope. They were optional, like facebook, and mostly the people that called were worth answering for.
Don't use that on face book, or toss out the tin hat.
Re:The phone books of the past.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Forgot to mention.
You're not as important as you think you are. Chances are good that your phone number is useless to people that don't already have it.
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Oh really? That must explain the 5-10 robocalls I get every day.
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www.donotcall.gov It actually works. Enjoy.
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You know how I know it doesn't? I'm on it.
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www.donotcall.gov It actually works. Enjoy.
Why would an outfit that is calling to steal your credit card data bother respecting a trivial law like the DNC list?
I had the guy on one of the ceaseless "credit service" calls actually tell me that I could trust him with my credit card info because it was illegal for him to abuse that data and he'd go to jail. I almost had a stroke I was laughing so hard.
Re:The phone books of the past.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The phone books of the past gave a name, address, and phone #. FB will give name, address, phone, blood type, school, job, gross pay, and your vacation plans.
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For facebook to share that, you had to share that. And they told you they would. Is there something you're missing here other than wanting free cake and to eat it however you like?
This sounds more like a personal issue than anything you could blame others for.
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You have to approve it or it isn't added to your account.
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the difference between the phone companies' directories and facebook is that when you tell the phone company you want an unpublished listing... they oblige, as required by law.. facebook, on the other hand, will just fuck around with default privacy settings until your data is public.
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Err if anything Facebook is Opt-In. The phonebook was Opt-Out.
Thanks but I'll take facebook's approach.
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You couldn't automate calling every number in the phone book. I agree with you that this is vastly overhyped, but digital storage can't be directly compared to paper storage.
You could also buy databases of all listed US numbers - I've used them in the past to help company's analyze business opportunities by identifying the number and types of businesses in various locations. When I did, it was trivially easy to dump the entire database into Excel or Access and build queries to return the needed information.
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When I registered for a phone number back in the 90s, you had to pay like $2 to be in the phone book. I paid, of course, because that was how people would find me.
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Funny. In our country it was the opposite. You had to pay a fee to get an unlisted number.
2013: Still using Facebook (Score:4, Insightful)
o Facebook does NOT have your best interests at heart. You're just a "product" that it sells to advertisers.
o "I have nothing to hide" is a bullshit reason to post your whole life on the Internet. You really think the government and corporations aren't mining that data to predict -- and ultimately control -- your life? Wise up.
o "I want to stay connected to people". Here's a radical idea: How about you actually see people in person and interact and "connect" with them that way? This is what you people don't seem to get: The Internet does NOT "connect" anything except computers; your "friends" on Facebook are not your "friends" unless you actually SEE them and TALK TO THEM in person on at least a semi-regular basis. Failbook "friends" may as well be machine intelligence pretending to be people for all you know. Words on a page do not constitute a relationship!
You and everyone you know who says it is wrong: Your privacy is worth something, and it is real. Don't give it away to some fucking corporation, don't give it away to ANY government for ANY reason. The Internet is not your "friends"; it is just HARDWARE. Meet with real, live people; spend time with them, TALK to them, KNOW them, not just words on a page.
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Why are you people still even on Failbook in the first place?
Okay, I'll bite. It's just another medium for me to publicize who I am and what I'm all about. My profile has been public (as much as it can be; you may still have to log in) for years now, by choice. Now, I am a developer so I could easily roll out any of my own website solutions for a public online presence (and have in the past), but really the existing platforms like Facebook are simply (a) easier and (b) more connected. I don't have private discussions on Facebook. I want people to be able to find as m
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Most dogs will be happy (Score:2)
Possibly, many dogs will be happy as will their Slashdot counterparts.
However, this does not equate the general public as a whole, who will be pissed off.
Profanities aren't for sissies.
I see stupid people... (Score:2)
EVERY SINGLE TIME I see a privacy breach issue, I see howls of "oh my god, how DARE they". It's easy, YOU LET THEM. You gave them a real phone number to snarf, you told them your real name, you gave them your freaking address and allowed them to turn on location tracking. You don't want people getting your information, DON'T GIVE IT OUT. Or if you do, LIE. Here's a great address to use as code for "none of your damn business": 1060 West Addison Street Chicago, IL 60613 (it's Wrigley Field, made famous
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Well, I was going to wait for your karma to catch up with you, your reply really should be -1; flamebait, but clearly that isn't happening, so you'll get the response you deserve. Congratulations on selling your privacy cheap, I'm sure that the rest of the world appreciates you for it. What's the old saying, "if you didn't pay for it, YOU are the product", and you have clearly given them a lot of product to work with, and for that I thank you, as it makes the system work. People like me, who sell their p
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So tell me, why do you hold your privacy so dear? I strongly believe that 'do as I say, not as I do' is what is seriously wrong with our world. I hold myself to the same standards as I hold everybody else. Actions speak louder than words and the only way to really lead is by example. I believe in openess in all things,
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I spend more time checking my GMail spam folder for false positives than I do reading legitimate mail (300-400 spams a day, maybe 15-20 false positives). Even mails I have explicit filters for the great Google machine decides are spam.
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(Pause while some guy jumps up to tell his tale of woe when he lost house, job, car, girl, and hamster to an Internet fraudster... yeah, yeah it happens...)
Just today CBC Radio was in a dither warning people about the dangers of Internet dating sites because some twit handed over
Jenny? (Score:5, Funny)
Search FB in all area codes for 867-5309 and ask to speak to Jenny. Lolz
putting on my tin foil hat for a moment... (Score:5, Informative)
There's more to it than meets the eye. I don't have a FB account, so I can't fathom why they would ask for you to include your phone number on it for any reason. I do know that Google now REQUIRES it just to open a Gmail account.
Some part of me simply doesn't trust this. We all know about correlation engines and how they work, and we know that the NSA collects and reads your emails (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/15/data-whistleblower-constitutional-rights). Now we add into the mix your phone number, which, as we already know is subject to warrant-less tapping (http://www.businessinsider.com/senate-renews-controversial-law-which-allows-warrantless-wiretapping-of-us-citizens-2012-12) and if the number you provides happens to belong to your cellphone, we know that it can act as a covert "roving bug" (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/06/12/02/0415209/fbi-taps-cell-phone-microphones-in-mafia-case). All of this provides more data to track you, what you do, who you interact with, who you're near at any given moment and those individuals interactions... All in the name of "keeping you/this country safe".
This simply doesn't sit well with me.
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I do know that Google now REQUIRES it just to open a Gmail account.
I just created one, without a phone number. It seemed to work just fine...
maybe its only true if you select USA as country?
interesting (Score:2)
Can anyone else outside of the US report back on this? Does Google require a phone number in your country?
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I did my test from Canada btw.
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I do know that Google now REQUIRES it just to open a Gmail account.
Nonsense. It requires name, birthdate (without any verification), gender (including "other"), and solving a CAPTCHA. There is a mobile phone number field, but it doesn't complain if you leave it blank.
This must have been changed quite recently (Score:2)
I tried to sign up for a gmail account for use with various *nix message boards maybe a month or two ago and it tried to force me to provide a phone number. There was no Captcha option when I did it. I entered my information and went to the next screen where it demanded a phone number.
I ended up opening a hotmail account instead.
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Do you have something like NoScript that inhibits the action of reCaptcha? Gmail requires a phone confirmation if you don't fill out the reCaptcha.
I've had to create throwaway Gmail accounts for a variety of things and have never seen the forced-phone-number thing.
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I work on a major website that allows free trials, since an account includes an e-mail address, sometimes spammers will try to sign up large numbers of accounts.
So sometimes; but not usually (I don't know the trigger) you get prompted for a phone number to have an SMS/voice call sent to, to validate your sign up.
Just like Google sometimes requires a CAPTCHA to do a search, if your queries look like they might be automated.
Just don't give FB your phone number (Score:3)
I gave FB 555-1212 as my phone number. If someone wants to contact me, FB provides lots of ways for people I know to get in touch or request I "friend" them so they can.
Cheers,
Dave
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I gave FB 555-1212 as my phone number. If someone wants to contact me, FB provides lots of ways for people I know to get in touch or request I "friend" them so they can.
Cheers,
Dave
I didn't give them any phone number and the email address is only used for facebook.
Still, this is a pretty serious permissions flaw. Users that are not privileged to see information should not be able to search for it either.
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Still, this is a pretty serious permissions flaw. Users that are not privileged to see information should not be able to search for it either.
As far as I can tell, if they have your phone number but it's set to not be visible to anyone else, it can't be searched for.
The only tests the author seems to have performed would not give any indication of what privacy setting was assigned to the phone number. So, all of his results could have been from people who had public phone numbers on Facebook.
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Still, this is a pretty serious permissions flaw. Users that are not privileged to see information should not be able to search for it either.
As far as I can tell, if they have your phone number but it's set to not be visible to anyone else, it can't be searched for.
The only tests the author seems to have performed would not give any indication of what privacy setting was assigned to the phone number. So, all of his results could have been from people who had public phone numbers on Facebook.
I tested it with a friend's email address. Her "real" email address is not visible but by searching for it, I can find her page.
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I tested it with a friend's email address. Her "real" email address is not visible but by searching for it, I can find her page.
Are e-mail addresses the same as phone numbers now?
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This does appear to be the case for e-mail addresses. At least, I replicated what I suspect was your test -- I searched for someone who has both a Facebook and real e-mail address on file with Facebook but with only the Facebook e-mail address visible. I searched using their real e-mail address and found their page, despite the searched-for e-mail address not being visible.
Is it possible on Facebook to have no e-mail address visible and, if so, does it still work then?
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It wasn't clear FTFA whether the phone numbers were marked as private or public on the FB accounts. If the information is marked to be shared only with "friends" then I don't believe it's searchable. I can't test it on mine...everything on my account is generally shared globally or simply not in facebook.
I do think it's funny that the dummy account I set up on FB for use with websites which want to use FB as their login criteria (and in which profile I put NSA as my employer) asks me from time to time if I
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So, pick a valid number that's not yours (I really am using 555-1212 but FB could have instituted a filter since I started using it). Something like the local Scientology branch, Jehova's Witnesses, somebody's FAX line, etc. Use your imagination.
Cheers,
Dave
Disconcerting (Score:2)
I was a little creeped-out, but did appreciate my android phone downloading all my Facebook friends as contacts with their phone numbers when I first set it up. Admittedly, 95% of these are people I would never ever call, it's still nice to not have to hunt down phone numbers for the remaining 5% I *might* need to call when traveling in other cities or states.
This threat seems very credible to me as I've written harvesters for other websites and phone numbers are very easy to iterate through. I've gone to m
Facebook allows users to set who sees the phone (Score:2)
Simply change from "Everyone" to either "Friends" or "Friends of Friends".
Alternatively, do not give Facebook your phone number.
ha (Score:3)
> And it wouldn't be a practical way to unmask the phone number
> associated with a particular account, either -- even if you knew
> the person's area code, and narrowed down the list of possible
> exchange numbers following the area code, you'd still have to
> try tens of thousands of possibilities.
That's why God made computers. Even if FB blocks cURL and the like, there are many ways to automate a browser.
A service for mankind (Score:3)
Best possible solution (Score:2)
Don't give facebook your number.
Don't give facebook your real name.
Don't give facebook your real address.
For optimum protection, don't use facebook since you can be identified through your social links.
White Pages (Score:2)
Rather, the problem is that you could use this technique to build up a database of phone numbers and associated accounts without targeting any specific phone number or account. Not only would you know the names associated with each of the numbers, you could associate the phone number with anything else that was discoverable from the person's Facebook profile - which usually includes their location, their interests, and the names of their other friends.
Wow, you could spend all that effort to recompile the white pages. Um, woohoo? I think people forget that most of this information (name, phone number, location) is already available in a publicly-accessible directory. Sure, you can't get their friends-list from the WP, but if you have their name and location, you can probably find their FB account without too much trouble anyway.
This seems to be the reverse side of the "...but on the internet!" effect Slashdot complains about en masse in patent stories. Th
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1. It's hard work to extract phone numbers from the white pages in order to do reverse lookups, in some countries it's even prohibited.
It's actually pretty dang easy. All the data's there, it just needs to be indexed - and there have been such indexes floating around online for years.
2. The white pages includes, at most, name, address and phone number, frequently the name is just initials and surname.
If you care about privacy, your Facebook profile can contain, at minimum, name. In fact, if you care at all about privacy, you can make your phone number non-public, and the whole issue becomes moot, as it's non-searchable. Complaining that the default settings are too open is ridiculous - if you want to give a site your personal details, and yet can't be both
Dear 20th century: what's a 'phone number'? (Score:2)
Thisis why I kept my landline # (Score:2)
The landline number is the only number I give out. The calls are screened and blocked or unknown calls are not answered by me; they get to leave a message. On;y people I want to call me on a regular basis are given my cell number.
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Except with bathroom stall numbers, the odds are greater that the call will be for a good time instead of how I can refinance my left nut for fast ca$$$$h
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Where I live phone books only list landlines and the name and address tied to that land line.
A lot of people are going cell phone only. One of the benefits being you have a private number without having to pay the phone company extortion money to keep your name, number and address out of their phone book.