Facebook and my address book

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Hi,
I have a facebook account with a gmail email account, and lately I started noticing on some of my hotmail accounts emails coming from invite-xxxxx@facebookmail.com of people I have on facebook, but this time is asking me to connect to people I have in my hotmail address list and letting me know that they have facebook accounts. Some of these people which still are in my address book, I have not exchange emails in a couple of years, so my assumption is that facebook somehow is accessing my hotmail address list without my consent. Does anyone else have had this.?

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Facebook is considered by many experts to be one of the most insecure sites around and we are hearing more and more of these type of problems. At some point in time something will be done with it, but for now my advice is to stay away.

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I have a facebook account with a gmail email account, and lately I started noticing on some of my hotmail accounts emails coming from invite-xxxxx@facebookmail.com of people I have on facebook, but this time is asking me to connect to people I have in my hotmail address list and letting me know that they have facebook accounts. Some of these people which still are in my address book, I have not exchange emails in a couple of years, so my assumption is that facebook somehow is accessing my hotmail address list without my consent. Does anyone else have had this.?

I don’t share my online or offline address books with online services, but I certainly have received many invitations when other people shared their address books, often unintentionally.

Two comments:

First, I would not assume that the invitations were drawn from your address book: they could have been generated based on an entry in the other person’s address book.

Second, I assume if you gave Facebook access to your Hotmail account at some point, you can break that access by changing your Hotmail password. Unless all those contacts were already imported into your Facebook contacts.

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There seems to be an “option” in the Facebook install routine that “asks” if you want to notify all your friends about your Facebook account and if you say yes, it harvests all your email contacts, from all your email accounts and invites them all to join Facebook.

Social Networking = Trouble…. too much information in the control of an insecure entity. IMHO, of course.

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Hotmail has been hacked recently too, with passwords stolen. I would stay 100 miles away from both of them. Hotmail is owned by Microsoft, BTW.

If Facebook is necessary to your life, open a gmail account that you use for nothing else, with a phony ID and no personal info. Use that one on Facebook, and if it gets spammy, toss it.

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Hotmail has been hacked recently too, with passwords stolen. I would stay 100 miles away from both of them.

In October 2009, someone displayed thousands of Hotmail/MSN/Live.com passwords they had collected. Reports at the time indicated they were captured not by hacking into Microsoft’s servers, but by tricking users into revealing them, i.e., a phishing scam. More info: Neowin.net – Thousands of Hotmail passwords leaked online.

That is a reason to be cautious about logging in on strange sites. It is not a reason to avoid using Hotmail. If you have additional information supporting your recommendation, please post about it.

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And MySpace has just contracted with a company to sell all their users’ data files.

Here’s the one on MS. Read also the link contained within.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/an_in-depth_look_at_microsofts_spy_guide.php

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MySpace has just contracted with a company to sell all their users’ data files.

Not exactly. According to online sources, all information made publicly available on MySpace can be grabbed directly from MySpace in real time by signing up for a data feed. But some people want that data packaged up as an archive, so a company name InfoChimps will sell it in that format. MySpace users who don’t want their posted information used by third parties need to use MySpace’s privacy features — or get wise and don’t post it in the first place.

Here’s the one on MS. Read also the link contained within. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/an_in-depth_look_at_microsofts_spy_guide.php

I think we all have the right to be concerned that law enforcement agencies often obtain private information without going through proper approval procedures. Based on your link, it sounds as though Microsoft is trying to do the right thing, that is, limit its disclosure of user information to appropriate requests. I certainly don’t see any smoking gun here. If I’m misreading the article, please point out my error.

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The Facebook, Hotmail and related security/privacy issues did not so much involve account hacking, as phishing from address books. Addresses were harvested, and then used to phish others through fake invites and e-mails. Those responding got their own address books phished, and so on. This is unfortunately a widespread and so far unsolved issue with Facebook.

EDIT: To be fair, G-Mail and MySpace also have suffered from similar problems. G-Mail even has had the troubling practice of offering password hints for the ALTERNATIVE e-mail address (the one that they said was only for their use!). I don’t know whether these practices have been remedied, but G-Mail is a very likely source of hijacked info.

Full disclosure: I do have a G-Mail account of my own, because I had to get one in order to use Google BlogSpot for my own blog.

-- rc primak

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I came across this the other day.
———————————–
What does Facebook publish about you and your friends?

Any information you see below is visible to anyone on the Internet through normal use of the Facebook Graph API. Facebook apps used by you or your friends might see more.

http://zesty.ca/facebook/

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Any information you see below is visible to anyone on the Internet through normal use of the Facebook Graph API. Facebook apps used by you or your friends might see more.

http://zesty.ca/facebook/

Hmmm, no big surprises except my time zone, which is wrong.

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I set up a phony profile with a disposable email address to check this out. You must comb through every setting on all pages to set the new privacy options.

http://www.facebook.com/editprofile.php?sk=basic

I’m sure many people won’t be aware of the new policies and the need to reset. FB is counting on that to spread everyone around the internet, and the s— is going to hit the fan, although slowly, so many folks won’t be aware until their info shows up in absolutely the wrong place.

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From today’s Times: the issue gets worse daily.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/technology/internet/06facebook.html?nl=technology&emc=techupdateema1

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When are people going to realize that Facebook IS NOT YOUR FRIEND? They are in business to make money and YOUR information is what they use to make that money with.

Also interesting re: Facebook:

Facebook traps Italian fugitive mafia suspect
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8570796.stm

Feds consider going undercover on social networks
The next friend request you receive might come from the FBI.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20000550-38.html

Too much info on social media aids ID thieves
January 25, 2010
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/25/BU581BMB2F.DTL

The government and recruiters absolutely LOVE all the info they can find out about you on social networks. And don’t put any stock in privacy settings where the government is concerned. They just get a rubber-stamp subpoena and all your info is theirs.

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Like I said in my original post, facebook is not safe and not secure. My wife and I have deleted Facebook and are recommending all our family and friends do so for all the reasons shown here.

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Lest we forget: the whole point of social networking sites is openness and sharing. Not everyone wants to play. Certainly not everyone cares if their friend’s virtual farm has a good harvest, or that their other friend had a great pizza last night. Fortunately, it’s completely optional.

People who choose to participate should go in with their eyes open, and not forget that what they do on those sites is mostly visible to others by default. And there is almost always an “information price” for every added feature.

We have entered a new age where we can see more clearly than ever that our personal information is in the hands of others. Some people argue that this is really only pulling back the covers on the fact that many, such as credit card companies, credit rating bureaus, discount card issuers, and the government, knew these things all along. I think that’s not the complete story, but as long as people have (demand) tools to manage the flow of information, we can keep a sense of balance between our desire for free services and our need for control of our identities.

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People who choose to participate should go in with their eyes open, and not forget that what they do on those sites is mostly visible to others by default. And there is almost always an “information price” for every added feature.

AND people also SHOULD exercise more, eat less fatty food, stop smoking, etc. Unfortunately, many don’t pay attention.

I think it is important to continually remind people that they need to pay attention to everything they do and every choice they make.

Facebook, linkedin, twitter, etc. would like to obscure the fact that the dossiers of information that they have complied (with your explicit help), can and will be dangerous to you at some point in the future. That information might make you be eliminated from consideration for a job or promotion, it might also get you fired at a job you currently hold. If you run for political office in the future, the information you have put online can and will be mined and used against you. Once you’ve put your resume and info on a site like Linkedin, don’t even think about telling any “little white lies” regarding past history. Going though a divorce? The lawyers could have a field day with your profile. And so on….

Once you’ve put your info out on social networks, there is no turning back. Nothing is private. Government agencies can ALWAYS get access to your info. Private eyes and others often know people who can make private info available for a few dollars.

These networks just have too much exposure for me….

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