Facebook oopsie: 1.5mil people's contacts uploaded without consent

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Another day, another Facebook privacy issue. 

 

Earlier this month there was a topic about how people signing up for a Facebook account were asked to enter their email passwords.

 

It turns out that when people actually gave Facebook access to their mailbox, Facebook "unintentionally" uploaded their contact lists to their servers without even asking for their consent.

This info was then used to let Facebook find out your social connections and recommend more friends to add.  It is unclear if the data was also used for advertising purposes.

 

Quote

Facebook said that before May 2016, it offered an option to verify a user's account and voluntarily upload their contacts at the same time.

However, Facebook said, it changed the feature, and the text informing users that their contacts would be uploaded was deleted — but the underlying functionality was not.

 

 

Source : Business Insider

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-uploaded-1-5-million-users-email-contacts-without-permission-2019-4?r=US&IR=T

 

 

 

 

I'm honestly not even surprised anymore.  I also have some serious doubts about this being unintentional. 

At least now that they got caught they will be deleting the info ... or so they say.  Good luck finding out if they actually did. 

[Derkoli]

2 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

Another day, another Facebook privacy issue. 

 

Earlier this month there  was a topic about how people signing up for a Facebook account were asked to enter their email passwords.

 

It turns out that when people actually gave Facebook access to their mailbox, Facebook "unintentionally" uploaded their contact lists to their servers without even asking for their consent.

This info was then used to let Facebook find out your social connections and recommend more friends to add.  It is unclear if the data was also used for advertising purposes.

 

 

Source : Business Insider

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-uploaded-1-5-million-users-email-contacts-without-permission-2019-4?r=US&IR=T

 

 

 

 

I'm honestly not even surprised anymore.  I also have some serious doubts about this being unintentional. 

At least now that they got caught they will be deleting the info ... but good luck finding out if they actually did. 

What can facebook do right anymore... *facepalm*

[WereCatf]

4 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

I also have some serious doubts about this being unintentional.

Well, you don't just accidentally write all the code for scouring through an email-account's contacts and adding them to a database. I mean, it's not like all the code for that just appears out of thin air, so.....

[Guest]

Easy to believe. I always see people who are “in my contacts” to add on Instagram. They are most certainly not, or haven’t been for some time.

[Slurs Gang]

First, they use your photos without your permission for ads promote. Now this shit. What is next?

[Curious Pineapple]

2 hours ago, WereCatf said:

Well, you don't just accidentally write all the code for scouring through an email-account's contacts and adding them to a database. I mean, it's not like all the code for that just appears out of thin air, so.....

Maybe they didn't use EEC memory and a load of solar flares cause data corruption that had no effect other than writing the exact code needed to copy contacts. It caused the back-end servers which also don't have ECC memory to accidentally update the database schema to include this information they never intended to collect!

[Tristerin]

What is next you say?  People not ACTUALLY caring and still using the service.  Just like all the other times.

I know very very few people who do not use FB.  I quit using it almost 2 years ago when I had my second child because of the time I was spending being a narcissist.  Decided to separate myself from the sheep and goats.   

[RejZoR]

4 hours ago, WereCatf said:

Well, you don't just accidentally write all the code for scouring through an email-account's contacts and adding them to a database. I mean, it's not like all the code for that just appears out of thin air, so.....

What bothers me is how this wasn't classified as a phishing attack and Facebook being slammed hard by law enforcement and fined billions? If ANYONE else did anything like this they'd be thrown in a jail because it's a god damn crime. But Facebook, nah, it was an "ooopsie". WHAT THE F**K ?! This shit didn't just randomly come up, someone at Facebook had an idea, someone vetted it, it went live and someone did things with harvested data. Don't tell me all of a sudden NO ONE is responsibel for this fuckup. It's absurd what corporations are doing with private user data and no one does a fucking thing when they violate this. Not users, not law enforcement, no one. This is discusting and this is the reason why Facebook just needs to f**king die already.

[Chett_Manly]

I think a lot of people just don't care, and in fact probably benefited from it, even if they did not understand what was going on. 

 

Think of some old person just joining, and getting all their contacts from years of e-mails in the system, ready for them to add. Do they want to have to get a privacy pop up, be warned about potential leakage, or do they just want it to work and be easy?

[Arika]

Bullshit it was unintentional

[ScratchCat]

[Rune]

Don't use facebook.

Problem solved.

[vanished]

Why isn't there a "75 strikes and you're out" policy where the company can just be dissolved by force of law for too many breaches and problems like this

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

27 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Why isn't there a "75 strikes and you're out" policy where the company can just be dissolved by force of law for too many breaches and problems like this

I have a theory about that.  Grab some tin foil.

 

Darpa was working on the "Lifelog" project, a database which allowed them to track anyone's entire life.  The Pentagon killed that project on February 4th 2004 due to privacy concerns.

3 guesses at what date Facebook was officially founded ...

The Wired article about the cancellation of the Lifelog project: https://www.wired.com/2004/02/pentagon-kills-lifelog-project/
The Wikipedia page on Facebook.  You can see the founding date in the column on the right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

Joking aside, FB's data trove is far too valuable for the government to just shut it down.  Oh, and then there's the issue of how it would disrupt things if FB were to disappear overnight.

[Slurs Gang]

Twitter > Facebook

 

 

[suicidalfranco]

45 minutes ago, Slurs Gang said:

 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Twitter >= Facebook

 

 

fify

[XR6]

Why can't Facebook store data securely like any other company rather than constantly fucking leaking and uploading it all the time?

They're a multi-billion dollar company, the fact they keep doing this type of shit is concerning.

Anyway, I'm deleting Facebook. I've had enough of their BS..

[Slurs Gang]

25 minutes ago, XR6 said:

Why can't Facebook store data securely like any other company rather than constantly fucking leaking and uploading it all the time?

They're a multi-billion dollar company, the fact they keep doing this type of shit is concerning.

Anyway, I'm deleting Facebook. I've had enough of their BS..

Other company don't store your data securely at all. They don't put a lot of funds onto security department instead they put a lot of funds onto new products to sell to consumers. This is why data breach is common these days. 

 

Facebook perhaps stored all users account info on a plain text. If there is a data breach, Facebook will going to blame the bad guys to hide their bad security practices. 

[Trik'Stari]

I'll just quote the "insane" John McAfee,

 

"If everyone, knew everything, about everyone else, society would collapse".

 

That's what social media is.

[Unclescar]

9 hours ago, Slurs Gang said:

First, they use your photos without your permission for ads promote. Now this shit. What is next?

Next they will start posting things on your behalf!

*we noticed you didn't update everyone on your visit to grandma in the hospital, nor let anyone know that she was in the hospital, let alone why.. so we went ahead and announced all the traumatic health struggles in your family and posted all the pictures from  your phone that you weren't going to publicize.*

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, Unclescar said:

Next they will start posting things on your behalf!

*we noticed you didn't update everyone on your visit to grandma in the hospital, nor let anyone know that she was in the hospital, let alone why.. so we went ahead and announced all the traumatic health struggles in your family and posted all the pictures from  your phone that you weren't going to publicize.*

God no, don't give them ideas...

[Andreas Lilja]

2 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

I'll just quote the "insane" John McAfee,

 

"If everyone, knew everything, about everyone else, society would collapse".

 

That's what social media is.

You can pretty make most of everything private on FB. 

[Sauron]

14 hours ago, WereCatf said:

Well, you don't just accidentally write all the code for scouring through an email-account's contacts and adding them to a database. I mean, it's not like all the code for that just appears out of thin air, so.....

Well, they're "supposed" to do that when you agree to it, so it makes sense for the code to be there - but it shouldn't happen when consent is not given.

[D13H4RD]

Facebook and privacy nightmares go as well as a fine red wine mixed in with delicately grilled wagyu. 

 

In short, they go really well together. 

[sof006]

Wtf this is every other day. How many times is this going to be an accident?