Eric Northman 16522 Report post Posted July 3, 2015 So wanna hear a strange story? I'm pretty careful to keep my hobby and 'real' personas separate. Separate emails, phones, always use incognito browsing mode, etc. Should be no real link between them. I have a Facebook profile as my 'real' self but because of privacy concerns, there is almost literally nothing on it. No friends other than my wife, no photo, data, anything. I use it for a few sports related groups and that's it. Every now and then Facebook sends messages saying, "Hey, do you know these people?" Mostly they're people that the wife knows, sometimes it's based on searches I did while logged in, sometimes it's just hilariously random. Well, the other day, I got one of these and thought to myself, "hey, she totally looks familiar". Well I clicked on her profile and what do you know? It's someone I've seen before from here. And there she is, real name, pics of her on vacation with family and kids, etc. So one of two things has happened. Either Facebook is using some form of shady data mining bullshit, reading cookies, bypassing incognito mode, whatever or it's just a wild coincidence. Considering her and I have nothing in common other than the one encounter, I'm inclined to distrust 'coincidence' as an explanation but man, I can't imagine what kind of connect the dots games are being played out behind the scenes. Keep your identities guarded my friends. Someone got outed to me and I wasn't even trying. Imagine if someone was actually stalking you? 5 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest S****r Report post Posted July 3, 2015 Yep. That's facebook for ya! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Midnite-Energies 110563 Report post Posted July 3, 2015 I posted on a sex worker rights board once as Midnite and it picked up all my real information somehow and I'm REALLY careful about FB. Not on my phone, all securities in place, everything blocked. The only thing I can think of is an IP related tracker somewhere. It's sneaky as snot and IMO not even worth the effort. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
edablackwoodmtl 435 Report post Posted July 3, 2015 I just switched my phone, so I figured this garbage would stop. But instead FB decided to start showing me people from 2yrs ago who still have my phone number in their phone (i think this is how they do it, cross reffing the phone numbers and fb) including the guy who assaulted me 3yrs ago who I have blocked on the full fb site but for some reason shows up in my cell app version. #infuriated Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
fortunateone 156618 Report post Posted July 3, 2015 i get fb emails in accounts where i do not have a fb account, so very random. I have never known any of the names, and much of the time their locations would not be in my vicinity. it is similar to the false positives, when you want to google search a name or number and all these links pop up as 'real', however if you click any of the links there is no info, no match, they are filling in a blank algorythm or some such thing with the name or number you enter in order to get your clicks Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Phaedrus 209521 Report post Posted July 3, 2015 Remember, Facebook makes money by selling you to advertizers. It does not give a shit about you or your well-being. FWIW, I use Tor for all my Phaedrus-related activities. This has the great benefit of being pretty good at preventing this sort of cross-contamination... at least, I haven't been bitten yet... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Boomer 33202 Report post Posted July 3, 2015 I'm not sure why you should be surprised, there is no such thing as privacy today. We have long since surrendered all sorts of our data in so many ways. FB you have to understand is an advertising business, and has access to many large data bases other than their own, which they mine continuously, and in so doing put these types links together quite inadvertently. Unlike Europe we have very little privacy protection and rights. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Luckyme 41401 Report post Posted July 4, 2015 Every now and then Facebook sends messages saying, "Hey, do you know these people?" Mostly they're people that the wife knows, sometimes it's based on searches I did while logged in, sometimes it's just hilariously random. Well, the other day, I got one of these and thought to myself, "hey, she totally looks familiar". Well I clicked on her profile and what do you know? It's someone I've seen before from here. And there she is, real name, pics of her on vacation with family and kids, etc. So one of two things has happened. Either Facebook is using some form of shady data mining bullshit, reading cookies, bypassing incognito mode, whatever or it's just a wild coincidence. Considering her and I have nothing in common other than the one encounter, I'm inclined to distrust 'coincidence' as an explanation but man, I can't imagine what kind of connect the dots games are being played out behind the scenes. Keep your identities guarded my friends. Someone got outed to me and I wasn't even trying. Imagine if someone was actually stalking you? Coincidentally, just yesterday, I saw someone's photo on the "People you may know" area in my FB page. When I saw her face pic, my jaw dropped! Not the slightest doubt in my mind, she is a lyla lady whom I have seen before. I find this very troublesome indeed. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
conquistador 18487 Report post Posted July 4, 2015 But it has to be quite coincidence for this to happen, but yes can happen... Something I'm not too worried about. If I see someone, I just go on my business. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Eric Northman 16522 Report post Posted July 6, 2015 I remember something (cartoon? TV Show?) where two CIA officers were talking. First officer: "It used to be so much work to gather all this information on people. Trailing them, stealing documents, hacking their computers. Who knew people would just give it all to us without asking?" Second officer: "Yep. Facebook is definitely the most successful program we've ever run." So to clarify for those who feel I shouldn't be surprised, the reason I'm surprised is this. I work in high-tech and I'm pretty familiar with how all this stuff works and I was being VERY careful to keep my identities separate. Not to the extent of using TOR but still, pretty careful. As far as I know, there is no 'legal' mechanism by which Facebook could have gotten that info. By legal I mean, "based on the rules of how browsers operate" as far as cookies and other information. So that means either they're doing something very sneaky under the covers or they have some VERY clever correlation/inference type data mining going on to link seemingly unrelated data together. Either way, it creeps me out. Fuck Zuckerberg. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Seaniew3 340 Report post Posted July 7, 2015 It could be as simple as location. Yes, location. You and the other person might be living in the same city, same area, or have been to similar places. If you ever used FB on your phone, it could have tracked the locations you visited and use that information to recommend friends to you who have frequented the same locations. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Eric Northman 16522 Report post Posted July 8, 2015 Yeah, it COULD be coincidence but I'm inclined to suspect much more sinister explanations. Funny thing happened again just yesterday. Wife had sent me some information from work on some very specific home renovation materials. Searched for it and mailed from her work computer. Later in the evening, she's looking at her Facebook and calls me over. "Hey, these are those things I was looking at when I was at work. How the heck are they showing up in my Facebook timeline?" I ask her if she uses Facebook at work and she says no. I ask, "Never?" and she says that she may have logged in at some point in the past. So yeah, it's using tracking cookies and doing sneaky shit that's breaking browser security. Count on it. http://lifehacker.com/5843969/facebook-is-tracking-your-every-move-on-the-web-heres-how-to-stop-it Consider that SO many websites have little 'like' buttons and what not for Facebook and friends. Every one of those can notice that you've arrived and report back to FB that you've been there. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Talia Ciarra 3360 Report post Posted July 8, 2015 Facebook was probably created by the government to keep tabs on us. This is creepy. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
johnybird 4391 Report post Posted July 8, 2015 Facebook usually tracks the sites you go to if you haven't logged out, even if you close the browser window and open a new one it's still tracking somehow. That being said I usually don't log out and still surf ladies's pages or Forums like these and I haven't come across anybody I've met in the business in my recommended friends list. It might just be coincidence, it is a very small world out there after all. I have friends & family that are friends with people I know and I didn't have the slightest clue they knew each other. The Friend recommendations usually go by mutual friends you have, at least that's what I see on my end . Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
