How to convert email addresses into name, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation
maxklein.posterous.com
maxklein.posterous.com
http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2009/12/what-can...
The scary thing is that if they can get your full name and rough location, it's then often possible to get a full address (see whitepages.com for a consumer-facing example). That then ties into other datasets that have information on income, occupation, marital status, etc for every household in the US.
http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/01/how-to-f...
http://web.mailana.com/labs/findbyemail/index.php?email=j%40...
Doubt that's you though, probably just an MD5 clash, since it's a long way from the Netherlands?
I only see one other check in my access log from the same IP that checked for your address about an hour ago; mishu<snip>.com. That did find a flickr account, though it appears to be private, so not much info there.
Sorry, I remain not scared.
(bonus points if someone does it and gets all 3 :))
But I know that data exists - and for now I am happy for people to discover it about me.
Speaking for non-techy types, though, it is something to be concerned about. Less so for marketers as things like stalkers and fraudsters etc. It's worth raising these issues gently to try and encourage people to understand what data is accessible about them - and ensure their comfortable with that.
Small and agile business like mine will capitalise quickly on this info, but sooner or later, big companies like coca-cola will also see nothing wrong with storing public information that a user has 'chosen' to make public.
I didn't pay much attention to the whole privacy controls thing. I assume that I am just like millions of other people who just clicked the "Close" button quickly so I could check my wall posts. With that said, I basically operate under the assumption that whatever information I put on that site, its going to be broadcast out to the world. Just like I know that whatever comments I post here on HN can be searched on Google and read by whomever. I think most people in my generation know this.
I don't this tactic makes spamming any more or less ethical.
Simple rule: if you don't want it made public, don't put it on the internet.
As for ethics, I don't find anything wrong with using information gained using this method unethical if it's used in an aggregate. If, as the article suggests, you use it to find out that the majority of your users are gay, you might be able to fine tune your site to better serve their needs. Or it could reveal to you that your site is too niche and make you generalize it better. If you use it to cold contact random people using their personal information gained surreptitiously, then your ethics could certainly be questioned.
No, that was a CHANGE in Facebook's policies after at least 200 million people had signed up. Some of those things can no longer be changed to be private.
Which things?
After edit: "The Ugly: Information That You Used to Control Is Now Treated as 'Publicly Available,' and You Can't Opt Out of The 'Sharing' of Your Information with Facebook Apps"
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-c...
I know some of the defaults changed, but that's not what I asked.
'Everybody' in your sentence actually means 'computer programmers/tech savvy people/criminals'.
And this is why Facebook's move is so distressing. My Mum and Dad don't know this. My 'normal' friends don't. It is a disaster waiting to happen.
Considering the overwhelming, and increasing, importance of information technology in basically every aspect of our lives, I feel less sympathy every year for people who are not "tech savvy". Now sure, cue calls of arrogant elitism from the privileged classes, etc. But tell me, where does it end? At what point do we say that people should learn the basics about the things they use every day, and that might harm them?
We teach kids that electricity is something to be careful about. We require drivers to pass tests. And yet the internet is, or soon will be, the single most important thing on earth and yet I know people who could not tell you what HTTP or DNS stands for or where "internet" even comes from. We need to start teaching this shit in schools. It is becoming basic required knowledge to function in modern society and should form part of standardised education. Ignorance is not a defence in law, why should it be here?
Agreed; but none of these sites tell you, in a clear, concise and understandable way what information is available and at what level. Facebook is fairly good - but you still have to go digging.
I didn't need to read Facebook's privacy agreements to know that there was no way in hell I was going to hand them my entire social graph on a platter just in exchange for a free blog and image hosting. Just the certain knowledge that law enforcement will have easy, reliable access to a list of all my friends, with contact information no less, is a total showstopper. Maybe I'm paranoid but I don't understand why more people aren't considering these things.
By today's standard, you are paranoid. By reasonable standards however, you are just informed. The internet is mainstream for 10, maybe 15 years. This is not enough for normal people to learn about it. This is not enough for parents to teach kids.
People are learning, however. See my aunt, while refusing to even use a computer, likes to "spy" on some of her acquaintances by asking her daughter to check the relevant Facebook profile.
I am confident that people will learn. They will make the distinction between private and public. They will see how massive centralization of data (Facebook, Gmail) could be used. I think, however that this will be long. Maybe another 10 or 15 years.
And if you think giving this list our to MTurkers is unethical, then I have to ask why as well? I think you have to ask yourself that by giving away this information, does it open up your users to vulnerability? Would you be enabling unethical behavior on the part of someone else, thereby making you guilty by association?
For the record, I downvoted you because with a subject this sensitive, you should explain your position...not just make a quick, semi-accusatory statement. We need more comments with substance on HN.
As an example, consider the "relationship status" feature. I don't know about you, but for most of my friends it was a running joke that you weren't "official" until you listed your status on your profile. So I think most people understand that their information is public.
A larger and larger number of my non-techy friends are locking up their Facebook accounts.
Whether this is just because the default settings have changed to be more restrictive I don't know (when they did the updates mine tried to get me to swap from "fully open" to "friends only" so I am not sure their algorithm for suggested settings is very good)
Worrying about identity theft is as rational as worrying about getting your eyes gouged out by crow - yes, it can happen - but fact of the matter is that it's not very likely to happen.
Sure you are unlikely to be targeted specifically, but once someone has decided to commit identity theft, you don't want to be the easy target.
And 10 FB users or 300 million is kinda irrelevant with all the automated tools/scripts that are available these days - searching for the 1 vulnerable person out of 300 million is a relatively trivial task. They will 'stumble' upon your profile not because they randomly picked you from 300 million, but because they ran a script that identified you as an easy target.
But it's just my opinion, I don't actually know. Maybe one day when I'm being carted away for ordering a million grandma porn videos without paying, I will realise the error of my ways...
There's a reason companies are trying to scare you about identity theft. They're in this market because they see it as a growth market. They believe identity theft will increase and they're targeting it with their services and products. I agree that some will use scare tactics to get us even more wound up over it and make some extra $, maybe because they've already over saturated the market, however I definitely think it's going to become a sizable problem.
Businesses that care about their customers / users / clients are the ones that will win in 2010 and beyond. I want to be apart of this future and it's the basis for why @danmartell and I founded Flowtown.
I don't suppose you're going to publish a list of your clients? Maybe for a fee?
I mean, I don't know him outside of a few email transactions but in any case, he either truly cares or is really good at faking his authenticity, I will go with the former. This would be the reason I recommended his service and the reason I am trying to utilize it at my current place of employment. (head office is not very quick on approvals)
http://www.rapleaf.com/downloads/sample_free_screening_repor...
I'm not very trusting of them after that scam email thing they did a while back (basically linked all your social accounts together with your email, and then emailed you and told you someone was checking up on you, and of course you were alarmed that the account for Friendster was linked to Flickr and all your other services).
I'd be loath to give rapleaf a bulk upload of data, as I wouldn't trust them not to resell the email addresses. Still, I could see how the information could be useful (e.g. for advertising buys) even if only presented in aggregate.
If you had to scrounge around to find my name and other details, or otherwise do something besides ask me, I'm not interested, just so you know.
If I ever get an email with my name from a company I've never given information to, I look to see any indication of how they got it - and then delete that email.
I'm sure the people whose eyes are lighting up at this idea don't care that some of their targets won't like this bit of cyber-stalking. I can only hope those who use it get more resistance out of it than responses.
> Such information can help you correct course before you are too invested in a particular idea you have.
It's snooping, and it's reprehensible.
Also, how can you have a 'favorable reaction' to spam given that...
> If I ever get an email with my name from a company I've never given information to, I... delete that email.
I also agree that this is snooping. However, this is just a tool, and should be used responsibly. Abuse would make it reprehensible.
"how can you have a 'favorable reaction' to spam"
The intent is for people to lower their guard when they read email that's directly addressed to their name and seems to display knowledge of them.
"Abuse would make it reprehensible."
I think its abuse is being promoted, here. I mean, really, reread the blog post.
IANAL, so take this comment as a simple "be careful with the law" that applies to where you operate.
Anyway, as everyone here knows, its pretty hard to enforce this kind of law.
Excerpt from privacy policy: Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available, and therefore do not have privacy settings. You can limit the ability of others to find this information on third party search engines through your search privacy settings.
The current iteration of Flowtown is nowhere close to our final vision: helping businesses scale caring.
We launched with an MVP that had even less features than today's iteration (product is just 9 weeks old).
Is that fair? Or are you doing something other than, say, scraping http://www.facebook.com/search/?ref=ffs&q=farmerje@uchic... when I type in my email address? (At least WRT Facebook; other networks would naturally have different tactics.)
You don't need to be defensive. Every network is bootstrapped off another network. If you can get away with it, get away with it for as long as possible, but make sure you have an escape plan.
I assume that's what you're doing. Am I wrong?
That's not meant as a challenge, BTW. If I misunderstand your current product then the record should be corrected.
I knew, e.g., Facebook lets you search by email address to find a friend if you know their email. Since the data on Flowtown more-or-less matched that data I had assumed that was the source of the data.
You'd do the same for the other social networks, plus perhaps get data from Rapleaf and other social profile companies.
If you're saying that's not the case, I can't argue with that and apologize for implying otherwise.
As to whether it's a trick or not, what difference does it make? You can call it a tactic if you'd like.
On an totally unrelated note Cassie says "Hi" - I was at her place for one of her roommates bday's and I was on his computer responding to this thread and she's like OMG jfarmer is that who you're talking with... such a small world.