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*
