100 Million Facebook Profiles Hit the Torrents

And corporations are interested in all your public Facebook data.

Earlier this week, roughly 100 million Facebook accounts were bundled together in a 2.8GB package and put on the torrents for anyone to download. Mind you, the information contained in the package was just a result of a programmed spider crawling on open Facebook profiles mining anything that was public information.

Clint, a Gizmodo reader, used Peer Block to checked out who else was downloading the torrent file and matched the IP addresses to corporations. Turns out that businesses (or at least those who are working for those business and using BitTorrent at work) are quite interested in the information of 100 million Facebook users.

The list includes:

A.C. Nielsen
Agilent Technologies
Apple
AT&T - Possible Macrovision
Baker & McKenzie
BBC
Bertelsmann Media
Boeing
Church of Scientology
Cisco Systems
Cox Enterprises
Davis Polk & Wardwell
Deutsche Telekom
Disney
Duracell
Ernst & Young
Fujitsu
Goldman Sachs
Halliburton
HBO & Company
Hilton Hospitality
Hitachi
HP
IBM
Intel
Intuit
Levi Strauss & Co.
Lockheed-Martin Corp
Lucasfilm
Lucent
Lucent Technologies
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co
Mcafee
MetLife
Mitsubishi
Motorola
Northrop Grumman
Novell
Nvidia
O'Melveny & Myers
Oracle Corp
Pepsi Cola
Procter and Gamble
Random House
Raytheon
Road Runner RRWE
Seagate
Sega
Siemens AG
SONY CORPORATION
Sprint
Sun Microsystems
Symantec
The Hague
Time Warner Telecom
Turner Broadcasting system
Ubisoft Entertainment
Unisys
United Nations
Univision
USPS
Viacom
Vodafone
Wells Fargo
Xerox PARC

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There are 54 Comments. B

Top Comments

27

otacon72 , August 2, 2010 2:08 AM

If your profile is public you deserve to get your information mined.
23

leonlee , August 2, 2010 1:44 AM

Now the only thing on the news for the next 2 weeks will be fools moaning to reporters about Facebook privacy and how they were too dumb to change privacy settings.
15

jdog2pt0 , August 2, 2010 1:50 AM

Glad my privacy is cranked up then.

Other Comments

23

leonlee , August 2, 2010 1:44 AM

Now the only thing on the news for the next 2 weeks will be fools moaning to reporters about Facebook privacy and how they were too dumb to change privacy settings.
7

dylansaliba , August 2, 2010 1:45 AM

The big eye, always watching.....WATCHING!!!!!!
1

beans4you , August 2, 2010 1:49 AM

creepers
15

jdog2pt0 , August 2, 2010 1:50 AM

Glad my privacy is cranked up then.
2

blacksins , August 2, 2010 1:50 AM

WOW!
0

shovenose , August 2, 2010 1:56 AM

lol
27

otacon72 , August 2, 2010 2:08 AM

If your profile is public you deserve to get your information mined.
2

JasonAkkerman , August 2, 2010 2:26 AM

I got the list and compared it to a .csv export of my friends list. I'm proud to say that not one of my friends showed up on the list.

/scripted it in vb.net
1

JasonAkkerman , August 2, 2010 2:28 AM

kkoraythis is bullshit news. liars learn and make news. 2.8gb packages has only first name and last name nothing else. it is just name database. 100 million bundles together bullshit. who cares about just a name file.

It wasn't just a name list. There was also a 10 GB file with all the URL's to their accounts. Sense you know their privacy settings are set low, you can use to URL's to mine their data.
11

jsc , August 2, 2010 2:29 AM

Another reason that I am not on Facebook.
6

anamaniac , August 2, 2010 3:31 AM

No Microsoft and ATi?
Wait, does that mean that, unlike Apple and Nvidia, they actually make good products instead of spending all their time on marketing?

The lack of privacy anywhere scares me. Whether it be online or in the streets, and some times in my very own home.
Privacy is a RIGHT, damned marketing groups (and a few select abusive local police) should learn that already.
11

JOSHSKORN , August 2, 2010 3:40 AM

I see Apple, but no Microsoft.
1

lashton , August 2, 2010 3:53 AM

"used Peer Block to checked out who"
5

wallpaper , August 2, 2010 4:05 AM

JOSHSKORNI see Apple, but no Microsoft.

Microsoft uses windows =D
1

shloader , August 2, 2010 4:06 AM

I downloaded it, too, just to see if I was in it but the sheer size of those text files is huge. And that's all it really is. Text Files. I haven't looked at all of them but I think one text file is full of URLs to non-private profiles. So this isn't anything really major, just something the media can have fun with spinning it into a story.
2

mavanhel , August 2, 2010 4:45 AM

anamaniacPrivacy is a RIGHT, damned marketing groups (and a few select abusive local police) should learn that already.

Yes, privacy is a right, but you forfeit that right when you allow anyone with an internet connection to view your profile.

It's not illegal since they didn't obtain the information illegally. Like others have said, if you have a public profile, you deserve this.
3

beruli , August 2, 2010 5:32 AM

I'm glad I stopped using Facecrack then.
1

Caffeinecarl , August 2, 2010 5:38 AM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20100729/tc_pcworld/thefacebookdatatorrentdebacleqa

Accord to the Yahoo story about this, it was actually 171 Million users.
0

siuol11 , August 2, 2010 6:15 AM

Raytheon? That's not a good thing, they are a major DOD contractor and do work for the NSA.
9

siuol11 , August 2, 2010 6:21 AM

soldier37Good luck with my private info I could care less. My credit score is below 600, I have a paid off 2004 model truck, rent a house, everything else I own was paid for with cash. I have no credit cards,a good paying job,my taxes are paid up, two kids, a registered Republican and I have a married girlfriend. What else you want to know. Who gives a shi*. Dumb A** media will run with anything.

So you are a 100% douchebag? Good to know. I hope her husband trolls your account and finds your dumb ass.

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