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100 million Facebook pages leaked on torrent site

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  • 29-07-2010 9:52am
    #1
    Galen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 664 ✭✭✭


    A directory containing personal details about more than 100 million Facebook users has surfaced on an Internet file-sharing site.
    The 2.8GB torrent was compiled by hacker Ron Bowes of Skull Security, who created a web crawler program that harvested data on users contained in Facebook's open access directory, which lists all users who haven't bothered to change their privacy settings to make their pages unavailable to [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]search [COLOR=blue ! important]engines[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR].
    Bowes' directory contains 171 million entries, relating to more than 100 million individual users - more than one in five of Facebook's recently trumpeted half billion user base.
    The file contains user account names and a URL for each user's profile page, from which details such as addresses, dates of birth or phone numbers can be accessed. Accessing a user's page from the list will also enable you to click through to friends' profiles - even if those friends have made themselves non-searchable.
    There's absolutely nothing illegal about what Bowes has done - the information is, after all, publicly available - but perhaps the existence of a stalker's online black book might finally persuade less security-minded Facebook users to get their arses in gear.
    http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/7/28/100-million-facebook-pages-leaked-torrent-site/
    Tagged:


Comments

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    #2
    RoadKillTs
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,710 ✭✭✭RoadKillTs


    Don't really see the big deal with this. The information is freely available on the Facebook website.

    He just used a crawler and put it altogether.


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    #3
    Galen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 664 ✭✭✭Galen


    it's just that people leave so much of their crap open to the public


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    #4
    CaraFawn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 314 ✭✭CaraFawn


    I was expecting something more exciting, but no, there is absolutely nothing in it.
    The guy who did it seems to be so proud of him, seriously? It is not like he broke though firewalls, had to do some reverse ing. and all...

    Just ID and names

    Actual data extracted, sample:

    977014 michael
    963693 john
    924816 david
    819879 chris
    640957 mike
    602088 james
    584438 mark
    515686 jason
    503658 robert
    484403 jessica
    476643 sarah
    476289 jennifer
    466306 paul
    456588 brian
    456230 kevin
    452934 daniel
    447980 ryan
    426514 matt
    424516 andrew
    417260 michelle
    404862 steve
    397099 lisa
    382997 alex
    380690 joe
    374766 amanda
    370635 ashley
    369566 scott
    363668 richard
    359387 eric
    348577 jeff
    327887 justin
    326001 karen
    324507 linda
    315744 mary
    308800 adam
    305032 melissa
    304740 matthew
    303300 nick
    300003 stephanie
    299304 anthony
    297320 tom

    I did not review all the data yet, but so far, this is what they contain, no email addresses etc.
    Maybe in some of the bigger files, they are pretty big, one txt file is 2.8GB, I will try a SQL import.


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    #5
    lazyQuestions
    Closed Accounts Posts: 77 ✭✭lazyQuestions


    downloading this, hope there is loads of personal data in it, might make a website with it... oh wait thats already there its called face... face... beb... facebook


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    #6
    CaraFawn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 314 ✭✭CaraFawn


    bedlam wrote: »
    The README tells you exactly what is in all of the files. There was never a claim that there was personal data included, it has been blow out of proportion by media outlets getting the wrong end of the stick.
    facebook.rb                     The script used to generate these files (v1)
facebook.nse                    The script that will be used for the second pass (v2)
facebook-urls                   The full URLs to every profile
facebook-names-original         All names, including duplicates
facebook-names-unique           All names, no duplicates
facebook-names-withcount        All names, no duplicates but with a count
facebook-firstnames-withcount   All first names (with count)
facebook-lastnames-withcount    All last names (with count)
facebook-f.last-withcount       All first initial last name (with count)
facebook-first.l-withcount      All first name last initial (with count)

    Yeah the journalists exagerated the thing once again and I bought it initially...
    Anyway, it was a pretty useless exercise in my opinion. The guy managed to create a parser to scan and dump the /directory, that's fair enough, but I do not see the point. Not like he invented a parser that was never done before. I made lots of noise because it was done on FB, that's all.

    My most useless torrent download ever lol...and I did get some crap in the past :D


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