Personal details of 100m Facebook users have been collected and published on the net by a security consultant. Ron Bowes used a piece of code to scan Facebook profiles, collecting data not hidden by the user's privacy settings. The list, which has been shared as a downloadable file, contains the URL of every searchable Facebook user's profile, their name and unique ID. Mr Bowes said he published the data to highlight privacy issues, but Facebook said it was already public information. The file has spread rapidly across the net. Earlier this year there was a storm of protest from users of the site over the complexity of Facebook's privacy settings. As a result, the site rolled out simplified privacy controls. Facebook has a default setting for privacy that makes some user information publicly available. People have to make a conscious choice to opt-out of the defaults.
http://www.ejc.net/media_news/details_of_100m_facebook_users_collected_and_published/
