IT Security Expert Publishes Details of 100m Facebook Users on Net
It has been reported that a security consultant has collated and published the personal details of 100m Facebook users on the internet.
The Canada based expert Ron Bowes utilized code to collect information not hidden by privacy settings.
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- Bowes used this technology to scan the profiles of Facebook users.
- He is based in Canada.
- The security consultant compiled a list that could be downloaded and shared in a file.
- It held the URL address of each profile belonging to a user which could be searched.
- The list contained their individual ID and name.
- The security consultant claims he carried out this act to draw attention to matters of privacy.
- However the popular social network say the information procured was already public.
- The downloadable file has been shared all over the internet.
- The list appears on Pirate Bay.
- It is the largest file sharing website on Earth.
- The list has been sent out to in excess of 1,000 users, over the net.
- However Facebook counter by saying the data is readily on offer on the internet.
“People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want,” they said.
“In this case, information that people have agreed to make public was collected by a single researcher and already exists in Google, Bing, other search engines, as well as on Facebook.
“No private data is available or has been compromised,”
“Facebook should have anticipated this attack and put measures in place to prevent it,” says a representative from Privacy International. It is a body that monitors such issues.
“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 negligenceâ€.
“People did not understand the privacy settings and this is the result,”
