Facebook Stole Every Number in Your Phone

Jim_S

Resident Curmudgeon
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Facebook Stole Every Number in Your Phone; Here’s How to Undo the Damage

By Zach Epstein
Published August 12, 2011
| BGR

This may come as a shock considering how seriously Facebook takes your privacy, but if you’re a Facebook user with one of Facebook’s mobile applications installed on your iPhone or one of several other smartphones, you’ve been robbed. Each and every contact stored on your phone is probably now also stored on Facebook’s servers, as was re-re-rediscovered by Facebook users this past week.
Removal instructions and to read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2011/08/12/facebook-stole-every-number-in-your-phone-heres-how-to-undo-damage/
 

Doc

Administrator
Staff member
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:eek: I shouldn't be surprised ... but I am. Dang if I didn't sucker in and download the stupid facebook app for my iphone. Never used it much but I installed it. That means my contacts are all there. :pat: :bonk: Another reason I should simply close my account.
 

VeraBlue

Head Mistress
Gold Site Supporter
Couldn't log onto FB earlier today...perhaps they were fixing the problem. I looked now and there are no numbers next to my friends.
 

Jim_S

Resident Curmudgeon
Gold Site Supporter
Another reason I should simply close my account.

From what I hear, you should delete your info first. If you just close the account your info still resides on their servers.

Jim
 

Jim_S

Resident Curmudgeon
Gold Site Supporter
Couldn't log onto FB earlier today...perhaps they were fixing the problem. I looked now and there are no numbers next to my friends.

Did you have the facebook app installed on your cell phone?

That's how they get the phone numbers.

Jim
 

Mama

Queen of Cornbread
Site Supporter
Yep...they had mine. I just removed the stupid app from my smartphone that I never used anyway and then hit the "Remove Imported Contacts" from my PC. They're gone now. Thanks Jim!
 

Mama

Queen of Cornbread
Site Supporter
Did you go to your account click on "edit friends" and then on your friends page look to the left and click on "contacts"?
 

homecook

New member
Fortunately, I never installed the app for FB. The numbers never showed up for me.....Thanks for the info jim. I'll pass it along.....
 

lifesaver91958

Queen of the Jungle
Gold Site Supporter
I don't do facebook on any phones but I have noticed that they are storing conversations that we have with family and friends in the chat box and I don't like that. Does anyone know how to un-store these conversations?
 

VeraBlue

Head Mistress
Gold Site Supporter
and upon further searching, there were the numbers. But, if I'm the only one who can see that page, what does it matter?
 

GotGarlic

New member
On the Facebook page, it says that if these friends shared their contact info with you, it will appear there, so it's not just coming from your phone. Also, I noticed that, for the most part, the Facebook page only lists one of my friends' numbers, usually their mobile number. For many of my friends, I have their home and work numbers on my phone as well. So the FB page isn't storing all the contact info I have for my friends.
 

AllenOK

New member
One of the many reasons why I don't have a smart phone. PeppA got a Blackberry a couple of weeks ago, and sure enough, all her contact info was moved over to FB.
 

Keltin

New member
Gold Site Supporter
and upon further searching, there were the numbers. But, if I'm the only one who can see that page, what does it matter?


That’s the point, you are not the only one that can see that page. The FB Admins can as well. And if they so choose, they can sell that info to telemarketers and who knows who else meaning all of YOUR contacts are now THEIR contacts.

Just like Doc and the Mods here can tell the IP address of all NCT users and even do a whois to see where they are located, the FB guys can do much more…….if they choose. And that choice is about money.

Phone companies (and now VOIP & Cell Providers) have had this power for aeons, but they are governed by the feds, FB is not. At least not yet.
 

Sass Muffin

Coffee Queen ☕
Gold Site Supporter
f4.jpg

and so is everyone else who can on the internet.
 

Keltin

New member
Gold Site Supporter
The product I develop and work on provides phone service (one aspect of triple play service) and we are bound by law to support CALEA which allows for phone tapping. Technically, VOIP can’t be tapped like conventional phone lines, so we have to put in special code so that it complies with CALEA and allows it.

Yeah, THEY are watching you! :lol:
 

Sass Muffin

Coffee Queen ☕
Gold Site Supporter
Unrelated perhaps to the thread, but a member of a forum threatened to turn me in at work for violating HIPAA privacy, amongst other things.
That member was banned off the forum she initially made the threat on and several others.
If you think this internet activity is funny when it comes to privacy and idiots who make such threats, OR try to tap into your security.. well.. it's not funny.
 

Keltin

New member
Gold Site Supporter
Cripe. HIPAA is some heavy hitting ****! There was a guy that worked with us at my day job years ago. Besides being a Component Engineer for manufacturing, he was also a First Responder.

Many years ago, there was a bad accident in town involving some teens. Messy business, and two died. He was one of the first on the scene. The next day at an ECO meeting, he was going on and on and on about it in graphic detail. Grossed out a few people and really angered a young mom that was part of the ECO team. Someone in that meeting turned him into HIPAA. I don’t know who, but HIPAA came down on him like a ton of bricks and he was booted from EMS in a flash. He left my company (day job) not long after that.
 

Sass Muffin

Coffee Queen ☕
Gold Site Supporter
I said nothing, nor have I ever said anything that would actually violate HIPAA.
This was a member with a burr up her ass jonesin' for anything to cause trouble with me.
That could have cost me my job if she'd played it right.
She's history.
Thank God.
End of that story.
Period.
 

Keltin

New member
Gold Site Supporter
Glad you dodged that bullet! HIPAA interviewed all of us in that meeting that day, it was a real nasty affair. They don't play.
 

Sass Muffin

Coffee Queen ☕
Gold Site Supporter
As I said, if she'd played it right.
There was no bullet in the first place.
She was full of shit.

People need to pay mind of what they post on the internet, and who may have a bone to pick with you.
Some people have nothing better to do with their time- than to for some reason have something against people they don't even know.

This is where the silliness of Facebook can often come into play.
If someone at least knows your first name, area.. your kin.. anything.. they can search you.
As for the apps and whatever the current problem is, I'd suggest those who are so addicted to Facebook to the point that they can't live without it.. get rid of it.
Never understood the fascination anyway.
 

Shermie

Well-known member
Site Supporter
Facebook has recently changed its format, and it is stirring up scorn and rejection from a lot of its members. I don't like the changes either, It says that there are even more changes to come!
 

Sass Muffin

Coffee Queen ☕
Gold Site Supporter
Facebook has recently changed its format, and it is stirring up scorn and rejection from a lot of its members. I don't like the changes either, It says that there are even more changes to come!
While I am not a FB fan Shermie, I did hear something about this tonight on the evening news.
Something about a news ticker being added?
Just found a link here.

http://consumerist.com/2011/09/face...g-new-buttons-read-listened-watched-want.html



Facebook rolled out some new tweaks this week, like adding a real-time "ticker" of all your friends' updates in the right sidebar, and making pictures bigger in the news feed, along with a few other tweaks. Some people woke up to them and promptly starting making Facebook status updates on how much they hate the new Facebook. Well, there's a few ways to roll them back and get the "old" Facebook.

The other changes include subscribe to people's news feeds you're not even friends with, and, in a Google+ inspired move, organizing friends by what kind of friend they are. And it's a bit easier to change who can see each individual item you post. For instance, you might not want your ex-boyfriend to know about the awesome kiss you just had with the guy you met at the party.

Sound like too much? If you simply want to get rid of the news ticker and use the Chrome web browser, you can give installing the Facebook News Ticker Remover a whirl. For even deeper controls over your Facebook user interface, there's Better Facebook and F.B. Purity, among others.

Every time Facebook makes an overhaul, users complain that they want the "old" Facebook back. Then when Facebook makes more changes, users complain that they want the "old" Facebook back, the same one they were complaining about being changed before. Hardcore people will figure out how to undo the changes, but most people will just accept them, because if you want to be connected online, you pretty much have to be on Facebook.

But these changes are just the beginning. It's been widely rumored that Facebook is adding several new buttons in addition to the "Like" button. A source tells Techcrunch that the new buttons will be "Read," "Listened," "Watched," and "Want." It's supposed to give users a more granular control over how their recommendations show up to others and make it easier for people to discover new media based on what their friends are checking out. It will also be another data mining bonanza for advertisers and marketers. The news is supposed to come out tomorrow at Facebook's big developer conference tomorrow. Expect another big privacy discussion to follow thereafter.
 

Shermie

Well-known member
Site Supporter
In this case, some things, at times, are better off left as is.

In other words, if it isn't broken, don't fix it.
 

Shermie

Well-known member
Site Supporter
Yeah, but some for the better and others for the worst. This change is for the worst.
 

Sass Muffin

Coffee Queen ☕
Gold Site Supporter
Yeah, but some for the better and others for the worst. This change is for the worst.
I think I can understand how you must be feeling Shermie- but you'll just have to figure out how you can live with it, if you want to.
 

Shermie

Well-known member
Site Supporter
I think I can understand how you must be feeling Shermie- but you'll just have to figure out how you can live with it, if you want to.




Facebook is supposed to be allowing its members to switch their account pages back to the old way, if desired, but when I tried to do it, it friggen wouldn't let me.
 
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