Find Others On Facebook By Guessing Phone Numbers

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Calling this an oversight is a bit of an understatement. :eek:

Software engineer Reza Moaiandin has learned that it's possible to scoop up the public details of legions of Facebook users simply by guessing phone numbers with a random number generator. You see, the social network defaults to letting anyone search for you using your phone number, even if it's unlisted -- as there's no search limit, all it takes is a script to harvest the user IDs for thousands of people.
 
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So does this not work? Because my account definitely doesn't come up if I put in my number.
 
Seems like this was how facebook came to be... harvesting data off of other's insecure sites.... oh how the tables have turned. next we get phonebook? ohhhh... wait.
 
Hence the reason Facebook isn't linked to my phone number, and only to an ancient email address of mine that I now consider "throwaway," but that some old friends from college might still have. Password is different from everything else (except Twitter, which also uses the same "throwaway" email account.)

I do have Facebook linked to the "comment systems" on some websites, but that's it. It isn't connected to anything truly "important".

If my Facebook account were to be compromised, people could post embarrassing things, that's about it. And I'd just nuke it from orbit. (I've been a Facebook user since it was a closed system where you needed an "in-network" email address - my college alumni email address worked fine.)
 
nilepez said:
Nope that's how it works. Maybe that's not the default.
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To clarify, what Megalith said is correct. Only friends can find you based on your phone number, unless you have it set up to allow friends of friends or everyone search by your number.
 
I use this all the time to look up potential roommate's lifestyle choices. It also helps you lookup a friend that you want to add when they've changed their last name to hide from employers. You can also do the same with email addresses. I have my additional school email addresses hidden to everyone, but enabled for searching.
 
I did not put my phone number or address on Facebook, problem solved for me.
 
B00nie said:
I don't put any of my information on Facebook, problem solved for me.
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That's nice but, do you have a relevant point? :p Facebook has its uses even though you do not use it guessing from what you said.
 
Facebook really has a lot of privacy flaws, even on the search it produces people I don't even know which I find is rather freaky, and its rather stupid that on default most of your profile information will be visible to the public is rather inappropriate.
 
ManofGod said:
That's nice but, do you have a relevant point? :p Facebook has its uses even though you do not use it guessing from what you said.
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Like what, stalking young girls you'd like to introduce to your faith?
 
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