
Data on 1.2M Facebook users from 2005 (2011) [use archive.org url in thread] - feelin_googley
http://www.michaelzimmer.org/2011/02/15/facebook-data-of-1-2-million-users-from-2005-released/
======
richdougherty
> to my surprise, the dataset included each user’s unique Facebook ID number.

Come on Facebook, you should be hiding your internal identifiers from third
parties. Ideally each consumer of Facebook data should have its own mapping of
identifiers to make it more difficult to combine datasets later on.

~~~
compsciphd
considering that for a long time facebook didn't have "usernames" and everyone
was identified by a number this doesn't seem strange (especially as my faulty
memory might mean that they created usernames post 2005)

~~~
2aa07e2
One can still find the id, even when a person has chosen a username that masks
it. Right click the block option of a user you are not friends with, copy the
link and voila, you've got the user id now.

I mostly use that to see public but normally inaccessible pictures of people I
am not friends with (i.e. pictures they've been tagged in).

Try it yourself (for some reason this only works on desktop mode):
[https://www.facebook.com/search/{$PUT_THAT_ID_HERE}/photos-o...](https://www.facebook.com/search/{$PUT_THAT_ID_HERE}/photos-
of)

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feelin_googley
Archived versions:

2011

[http://web.archive.org/web/20110217082656/http://michaelzimm...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110217082656/http://michaelzimmer.org/2011/02/15/facebook-
data-of-1-2-million-users-from-2005-released/)

2018

[http://web.archive.org/web/20180322184527/http://www.michael...](http://web.archive.org/web/20180322184527/http://www.michaelzimmer.org/2011/02/15/facebook-
data-of-1-2-million-users-from-2005-released/)

Dataset:

[https://archive.org/details/oxford-2005-facebook-
matrix](https://archive.org/details/oxford-2005-facebook-matrix)

------
jcfrei
cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bxG_r4W...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bxG_r4Wuq4UJ:www.michaelzimmer.org/2011/02/15/facebook-
data-of-1-2-million-users-from-2005-released/)

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feelin_googley
Further reading:

"Anonymised" data on internet users obtained for "research"

Relationships between industry and academia

[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/22/facebook-
gave-d...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/22/facebook-gave-data-
about-57bn-friendships-to-academic-aleksandr-kogan)

Self-regulation

Patents on protecting communications (see FN 18)

[https://gking.harvard.edu/files/LazPenAda09.pdf](https://gking.harvard.edu/files/LazPenAda09.pdf)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html)

Data from 12 million Facebook users

"There are legal obstacles to making the data available" (see Acknowledgments)

[https://www.misrc.umn.edu/wise/papers/1b-3.pdf](https://www.misrc.umn.edu/wise/papers/1b-3.pdf)

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jaequery
I'm trying to see which is a bigger problem at hand. The Equifax breach a
couple months back or the FB fiasco.

Equifax breached over 143 million users with social security #, credit card #,
and personal data.

For FB, can someone explain to me what was the actual damage, was it just
personal information about you?

~~~
ellisv
> For FB, can someone explain to me what was the actual damage, was it just
> personal information about you?

FB allowed apps to access data about the user (who authorized the app) and
their friends (who _did not_ need to authorize the app).

The kind the data FB has can be used to reveal a lot of information about you
(e.g. age, where you live, etc.) and this information can then also be used to
derive things you haven't told FB -- such as estimating your income or
predicting your SSN [1].

[1]
[http://www.pnas.org/content/106/27/10975](http://www.pnas.org/content/106/27/10975)

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weinzierl
Site is down, but the link that fits the title better is [1] anyway,because
that is where the dataset originated. This page also has the timeline of the
release. Very short timeline, that is, because you can imagine how quickly
they had to take it down.

[1] [http://masonporter.blogspot.de/2011/02/facebook100-data-
set....](http://masonporter.blogspot.de/2011/02/facebook100-data-set.html)

~~~
f2n
All of the linked files there 404. Anyone who has it wanna make a torrent and
post the magnet link?

~~~
feelin_googley
[https://archive.org/download/oxford-2005-facebook-
matrix/oxf...](https://archive.org/download/oxford-2005-facebook-
matrix/oxford-2005-facebook-matrix_archive.torrent)

Download individual files directly:

[https://escience.rpi.edu/data/DA/fb100/](https://escience.rpi.edu/data/DA/fb100/)

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george_perez
Needs a [2011] in the title.

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aurelien
and you cannot remove easily facebook apps from your android phone ... same
for apple phone??

~~~
f2n
That is not true. Only Android phones from the absolutely shittiest
manufacturers have malware pre-installed.

~~~
bootloop
Samsung?

~~~
f2n
Yes, the shit they ship on their phone is horrible. I would never use or
recommend one of their horrible phones.

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artwr
HN hug of death?

~~~
smpetrey
Yup. Here's a Google Cache for those interested:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bxG_r4W...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bxG_r4Wuq4UJ:www.michaelzimmer.org/2011/02/15/facebook-
data-of-1-2-million-users-from-2005-released/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

