I’ve bailed on Facebook in terms of my family and friends. Just too much of a pain.

But Facebook is a useful aggregator of people and products. So I made a fake account. Finally, Facebook is adding some value.

Then...

I start getting “people you may know” links. And about a third of them are friends and relatives. WTF? I gave the app no access to location services.

Did some digging. It looks like Facebook is using an algorithm via Bluetooth to send packets to other devices running the app. In other words, I’m in the same room as my wife. Based on the amount of time we spend together, we must know each other pretty well. It suggests people she knows to me.

I can’t prove any of this. But I can’t think of any reason those people would have come up as suggestions.

Can you imagine what Alexa is listening for?

Turn off your phone's Bluetooth when not in use?

quote:

Can you imagine what Alexa is listening for?

I'll take "Everything" for $400 Alex.

I quit facebook awhile back.

I could turn off Bluetooth. Run a VPN would probably be a good idea. Mainly I’m surprised at the invasion of privacy. I know we don’t have a guarantee of privacy as part of Facebooks terms of service. It’s just so blatant. Time to bail.

It may not be as invasive as you think. if you are both accessing through the same router it may simply be "seeing" that both of you have traffic coming from the same IP address.

quote:

Originally posted by Spokane228:

I start getting “people you may know” links. And about a third of them are friends and relatives. WTF? I gave the app no access to location services.

Did some digging. It looks like Facebook is using an algorithm via Bluetooth to send packets to other devices running the app. In other words, I’m in the same room as my wife. Based on the amount of time we spend together, we must know each other pretty well. It suggests people she knows to me.

It's probably something even simpler.

Do any of those people have your phone number?

Facebook probably found you based on your device's phone number.

If Abe, Bill, and Charlie all have your phone number, Facebook might suggest that each of them might be someone you know.

If Abe, Bill, and Charlie all also have Dave's number, then Facebook might also suggest that Dave be someone you know.

Facebook should have access to your device's phone number, by default, to confirm the device's identity.

You might have also given Facebook access to an email address that is associated with you, or even worse, access to your phone's phone book which gives it phone numbers, names, and emails of everyone in your phone.

did you use a fake email for your fake account?

quote:

Originally posted by ScorpionBoy:
did you use a fake email for your fake account?

Yup.

Also remember that Facebook learns your viewing habits.

If you visit Evan and Frank's Facebook page frequently, and Evan and Frank both are friends with Greg, then it'll suggest that you and Greg might know each other as well.

Facebook doesn't even have to be invasive to figure out who you are connected with.

maybe it is IP based. Perhaps you could retry using TOR to really hide your identity.

I haven’t visited these pages. I made the fake account to get away from them.

I never added a mobile number. If they pulled it off my phone somehow.... creepy.

A really important book was just published, World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer. I can't think of how to summarize it adequately, except to say that Facebook, Amazon and Google represent a threat to individuality and personal freedom far beyond what most people realize. The title is a bit off-putting, I know. But it is very readable, very down-to-earth in its analysis of big tech.

I wish everyone could read it, because there is no doubt that big tech is immensely powerful and immensely dangerous.

You are here.
It is a closed system.

Everything you do that is recorded, written imaged etc. is somewhere on this ball.

You are not anonymous.

It is a fiction.

That is all.

I was thinking that FB sees traffic coming from your IP for your fake account and the wifes account and then links them.

I suppose that’s the simplest explanation. I’ll use a VPN.

What is a VPN?

Love the Ron Swanson video!