This is pretty screwed up!!!
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Article Shared : NEWS.com.au
MORE than 1000 users of a popular file-sharing website are downloading and distributing the personal details of 100 million Facebook users after they were published online by a security consultant.
Ron Bowes, of Skull Security, put the information on the internet after using a piece of code to scan Facebook profiles, collecting data not hidden by the user's privacy settings, the BBC reported.
He said he took the action to highlight privacy issues.
Facebook responded by saying the details were already public information.
"People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want," a statement read.
"In this case, information that people have agreed to make public was collected by a single researcher and already exists in Google, Bing, other search engines, as well as on Facebook."
On the Pirate Bay, the world's biggest file-sharing website, the list was reportedly being distributed and downloaded by more than 1000 users.
One user, going by the name of lusifer69, described the list as "awesome and a little terrifying."
Simon Davies, from the watchdog Privacy International, told the BBC that Facebook had been given ample warning that something like this would happen.
"Facebook should have anticipated this attack and put measures in place to prevent it," he said
The social networking site has more than 500 million users and earlier this year there was a storm of protest over the complexity of its privacy settings.
As a result, the site simplified the system.
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