Get Details From Anybody Off Facebook With The Facebook Torrent
A hacker created the Facebook torrent that is accessible to anyone who wants files from Facebook data. Ron Bowes wrote a web crawling code that scraped the Facebook directory for information about 171 million Facebook users. The file, about 2.8 GB, has been posted online as a torrent. Facebook says this is the very same info found with any kind of Facebook search making it unimportant. Facebook skeptics argue the torrent just shows how bad privacy is when using Facebook.
Details taken from 171 million Facebook users
171 million Facebook users have now posted online within the torrent their user IDs, names, and profile URLs. Daily Tech reports that Bowes, who heads a company called Skull Security, posted the Facebook torrent on Pirate Bay. 13,000 downloads were active July 28, early in the morning. Information Facebook users didn’t hide with privacy setting is shown here. Facebook users who have locked their privacy settings to friends only aren’t listed within the Facebook torrent.
Facebook and privacy
The Facebook torrent comes at a bad time when Facebook is already suffering the losses from their change on privacy settings to allow commercial use. The info that Facebook users “agreed to make public” are the things gathered up by researches to make this privacy change, reports BBC News quoting Facebook. However, Tech Crunch said with the advent of the Facebook torrent hack, now would be a good time for the default Facebook privacy settings to change to “Friends Only.” Letting “Everyone” see your Facebook details involves a hacker who can grab your personal data, package it and sell it to the highest bidder.
Can’t ever delete Facebook torrent
The Facebook torrent details is available to everyone who uses the search engines Google, Bing or Facebooksearch. Future reminds us that the Facebook torrent will last forever since it is just a quick shot of one time on Facebook. In case you are in it, you’ll never have that details deleted, even if you make an effort to delete you account completely or change your privacy settings to something else.
Friends of users hurt by Facebook torrent
Not only is there one fifth of Facebook users already exposed, but the torrent consists of the programs used to get that details. Tech Crunch explains that Bowes wants more than just searchable users and intends to get the rest. Until Facebook switches to friends only by default, which is unlikely, users opt out-
Go to Account and Privacy Settings and Applications, Games, and Sites (link near the bottom, in a box) and Public Search and (Uncheck box).
Find more info on this subject
Daily Tech
dailytech.com/Info+on+100M+Facebook+Users+Harvested+and+Posted+in+Torrent++Legally/article19198.htm
Tech Crunch
techcrunch.com/2010/07/28/hacker-proves-facebooks-public-data-is-public/
Future of the Internet
futureoftheinternet.org/facebooks-ocean-of-names-becomes-a-torrent
