And I should have added that the stronger the common connections, the more likely it is to be true. If it finds something within a few links to me, and it turns out that that person and I have say 90 people that we both know, what’s the chance we know each other.
And if you start working the probabilities, the matrix spreads quite rapidly, quite fast. They are far from alone though. LinkedIn makes valid suggestions to me all the time still. It keeps surprising me about ones that I hadn’t realised that I wasn’t connected to. WhatsApp also wants to read your contacts, to add/suggest people who are also already on WhatsApp. And keep in mind that FB owns them now too. WeiXin (WeChat) does the same, mostly in my case for various Asian friends. And so on, and so on. Regards, Greg Dr Greg Low 1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax SQL Down Under | Web: <https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sqldownunder.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7Csspahelp%40microsoft.com%7C1f0ea4d6b97e4d897f3708d666d1e890%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C636809449091516274&sdata=SLHeEGAMmWUY5YIwcC4oAPYr%2F9RIZdi4MNASsdzwX2I%3D&reserved=0> www.sqldownunder.com | <https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fgreglow.me%2F&data=02%7C01%7Csspahelp%40microsoft.com%7C1f0ea4d6b97e4d897f3708d666d1e890%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C636809449091526278&sdata=IU8tnAITCjBxWafi3A9XpO9lF3PIwZJ8ad3t36lnxvs%3D&reserved=0> http://greglow.me From: Greg Low <g...@greglow.com> Sent: Thursday, 23 January 2020 2:41 PM To: 'ozDotNet' <ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com> Subject: Re: [OT] What Facebook knows Hi Greg, They seem to apply pretty basic algorithms though. If they have access to your contacts on your phone, they can quickly work out who else is on FB. And then it gets easy. If you know two people, and they both know another 10, chances are high you’ll know some of that 10, and so on, and so on. And it’s sure not just FB. I’ve lost count of the number of OAuth-based apps, that want to read your contacts, without giving you any valid reason for doing so. You either say yes, or you can’t use the OAuth option to connect. Regards, Greg On Thu, 23 Jan 2020 at 14:33, Greg Keogh <gfke...@gmail.com <mailto:gfke...@gmail.com> > wrote: Folks, most of us probably know what I'm about to say, but when you see it live, it's really frightening. My wife had to join Facebook for the first time ever to follow her nephew who is a firefighter in the ongoing disaster. She joined okay without being asked for a phone number. The next day she tried to get in via the Apple App and it demanded a mobile number. It was an absolute block until a number was entered, so she was compelled to. Now it gets scary... She immediately was offered hundreds of friends that included my friends, musicians I have played with, her old work mates in jobs going back 40 years, extended family adult and children friends of both sides of our family, old workmates of mine going back to the 1980s, etc, and the list goes on to find obscure and tenuous links of every imaginable kind. So … given that she has never been on FB before … where did all those associations come from? We know they have good algorithms of course, but it means that FB could be used to perform a comprehensive and reliable analysis of the complete life of someone who isn't even a member. Imagine if the police, or criminals, or an oppressive government simply asked FB "what do you know about person X?" Even if X isn't a member, they could compile a fantastically detailed dossier. How much information does FB hold? Who are they sharing it with? It's worse than we think. Greg K
