
Anyone could download Cambridge researchers’ 4M user Facebook data set for years - dsr12
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/14/anyone-could-download-cambridge-researchers-4-million-user-facebook-dataset-for-years/
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yeukhon
So is it available on the Internet like stolen password archive? Very curious
what my data looks like in their hands.

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getsugablitz2
Wasn't this already known though? There was an undiscovered bug that allowed
organizations access greater than they were supposed to have, I feel like it's
beating a dead horse by this point.

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roywiggins
1\. It wasn't a bug, it was a feature. The API explicitly allowed apps access
to friends' information. They weren't exploiting the API.

2\. The article describes the Cambridge Analytica database in particular being
available "to verified researchers" but someone threw credentials onto GitHub
where anyone could have borrowed them

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anonetal
Regarding 2: note that this is not the Cambridge Analytica data, rather
similar data collected by researchers at Cambridge.

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roywiggins
You're right. It's confusing, because the data that was supplied to CA was
supplied by another Cambridge researcher.

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thisisit
Original link:

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2168713-huge-new-
facebo...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2168713-huge-new-facebook-
data-leak-exposed-intimate-details-of-3m-users/)

The actual problem here is not that Cambridge Analytica got the data. But that
they created a site where this data was made readily available:

> Academics at the University of Cambridge distributed the data from the
> personality quiz app myPersonality _to hundreds of researchers via a website
> with insufficient security provisions, which led to it being left vulnerable
> to access for four years. Gaining access illicitly was relatively easy._

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juliangoldsmith
This is not related to Cambridge Analytica. It's the University of Cambridge,
in the UK.

>Though “Cambridge” is in the name, there’s no real connection to Cambridge
Analytica, just a very tenuous one through Aleksandr Kogan, which is explained
below.

