Hacker Proves Facebook’s Public Data Is Public [TechCrunch]
If Facebook users had any questions about the privacy of their public data on the social networking site, one computer security expert has aimed to eliminate all doubt that Facebook pages are searchable and downloadable. With over 500 million users, Facebook allows users to designate which parts of their profile pages are viewable and searchable by the Internet at large. According to TechCruch, Rob Bowes - a security specialist - has downloaded all 171 million of those profiles that are public, creating a massive (2.8 GB) file that has been posted for file traders around the Internet to download.
Bowes' file contains names, addresses and phone numbers for approximately 100 million Facebook users, the URL of every public profile, and the data mining tools he used to collect the information.
Facebook has privacy settings that allow users to make their profile page viewable only to their friends. Users can also set their profile pages to be left out of search engine indexing, so data miners can't find their page in the first place. Facebook has published a guide to these privacy settings, which is available by clicking here.
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