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Prober Posts 100M Facebook Profiles Online

Downloadable file includes names, URLs

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 29, 2010 1:22 AM CDT

(Newser) – A security researcher has collected and posted the details of 100 million Facebook users to highlight privacy issues. Ron Bowes of Skull Security used a piece of code to trawl the Internet for the names and unique URLs of users who didn't change their privacy levels from Facebook's default settings, and placed them in a downloadable file, the BBC reports. The list has already been downloaded by more than 1,000 users on the Pirate Bay.

The information was already available online via search engines, and Facebook issued a statement clarifying that no personal data has been "compromised." But security experts say Facebook should have anticipated a trawl of this size and taken steps to prevent it. "Now would be a good time for Facebook to set their default search to 'Friends Only,'" TechCrunch suggests. "Why? Because most people aren’t quite aware that the check mark next to 'Everyone' includes a hacker who can grab your personal info, package it up and sell it to the highest bidder."

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Facebook now has roughly 500 million users, 100 million of whom apparently didn't update their privacy settings. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Sean Kilpatrick)

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This is a scary privacy issue. I can find the name of pretty much every person on Facebook. Once I have the name and URL of a user, I can view, by default, their picture, friends, information about them, and some other details. - Ron Bowes of Skull Security

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Prober Posts 100M Facebook Profiles Online