faceboo7k

[epix]

Update:
A trivial experiment has revealed that Facebook can read your emails. I sent one short email to myself mentioning three names of people who have account with Facebook. After two days, these names appeared as suggested friends in my Facebook home page.
You need to try this to reach a definite conclusion for yourself.

It started with a dude who had set up an account with Facebook and told me that it appeared Facebook could read the names in his email contact folder. I didn't believe it, and so I set up a Facebook account for myself to see if that dude was right . . . WOW! And there is possibly much more going on than it meets the eye.

 

[ZirconBlue]

Update:
A trivial experiment has revealed that Facebook can read your emails. I sent one short email to myself mentioning three names of people who have account with Facebook. After two days, these names appeared as suggested friends in my Facebook home page.
You need to try this to reach a definite conclusion for yourself.

Are those 3 people also people that are among your email contacts? Are they already friends with people you are friends with in Facebook?

 

[epix]

Are those 3 people also people that are among your email contacts? Are they already friends with people you are friends with in Facebook?

Obviously not to both questions. If they were, then the test would make no sense at all.

 

[ZirconBlue]

Obviously not to both questions. If they were, then the test would make no sense at all.

How did you know these people had Facebook accounts?

 

[Almo]

I find interesting and genuinely funny stuff on my Facebook feed. But when I don't feel like reading it, I don't read it. I'm happy with Facebook; it does what I want. I have a vague idea what my friends are up to, I have a central location to invite people to parties from, and I get a good laugh once in a while from something posted by one of my friends.

 

[stilicho]

I never signed up to Facebook, mainly because of the people that kept trying to get me to sign up. It seems that the number of 'friends' that link to your account (is that the right terminology?) determines your value as a person. Just like high school, except these people are now 30-Somethings, apparently re-living the glory days of trying to see who could become the most popular....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Have_0_Friends

I agree with most posters here: Facebook is more of a chore than a hobby, a pastime, or anything else of value. At least with the dawn of the WWW and HTML you could learn something constructive (HTML, JavaScript) and do something.

I have to confess that I not only don't have Facebook or Twitter but I don't even own a cell phone or an iPod. I like to be "unplugged" when I'm out and about.

 

[epix]

How did you know these people had Facebook accounts?

Well, suppose that you want to mention the names of three folks who signed up with Facebook. Just come up with a fictitious but fairly frequent name, such as John Smith, and google up John Smith Facebook and then click the first entry found by the engine to see some of John Smith's Facebook friends.
http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Smith/1095780008

Then you select three of them, mention them in your email to Santa Klaus or whoever, and voila: these three names would be later added as your suggested friends to your Facebook account page. This wouldn't be possible without Facebook boys reading your email. Actually they don't read it, just scan it for names to find a match in their Facebook client database. But if they wanted, they could easily read the whole content of your email.

 

[Hellbound]

I believe you're making unwarranted assumptions. I can think of several ways that facebook may have added those peopel to your list, none of them involving email.

For a test, follow the exact same procedure you just related, in the same way as you did before, but do NOT type or send the email.

See if they show up.

Note: Use the same computer (s) you used for the first test you did.

 

[ZirconBlue]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Have_0_Friends

I happened to catch that episode by chance (I don't usually watch the show). Very funny, although I thought the Tron aspects more entertaining than the Facebook-related ones.

I agree with most posters here: Facebook is more of a chore than a hobby, a pastime, or anything else of value. At least with the dawn of the WWW and HTML you could learn something constructive (HTML, JavaScript) and do something.

It's only as big a "chore" as you let it be.

 

[epix]

For a test, follow the exact same procedure you just related, in the same way as you did before, but do NOT type or send the email.

See if they show up.

In other words, you want me to test the hypothesis that telepathy is a real deal, right?

Look, I said that folks should conduct their own test, which I described, to draw a conclusion regarding a possible breach of their privacy. The last thing that's on my mind is to engage in some i'm-right-and-you're-not BS indigenous to the local landscape.

 

[ZirconBlue]

In other words, you want me to test the hypothesis that telepathy is a real deal, right?

If Hellbound is going where I think he is with this, it is completely rational and has nothing to do with telepathy.

 

[Hellbound]

In other words, you want me to test the hypothesis that telepathy is a real deal, right?

Look, I said that folks should conduct their own test, which I described, to draw a conclusion regarding a possible breach of their privacy. The last thing that's on my mind is to engage in some i'm-right-and-you're-not BS indigenous to the local landscape.

Then how about engaging in computer training? Someting you shoudl look into if you think your test proves email scanning.

Because I can come up with several alternative explanations that do not involve facebook scanning your email contacts.

And if other folks conduct the same test, as you described it, they'll prove nothing, because there's another possible source for facebook to have obtained the data besides the email you sent.

Which is why I suggested conducting the test without the email, so you can make sure you're sugegstion is accurate, rather than simply jumping on the bandwagon because FB's privacy problems are in the news lately.

See, I can be rude as well.

 

[ZirconBlue]

See, I can be rude as well.

If you think your post qualifies as "rude", you must not spend much time in the Politics forum.

 

[Uncayimmy]

Epix:

Define sending an e-mail to yourself.

* Do you use GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail or some other web based mail program?
* Do you use an e-mail client like Thunderbird or Outlook?
* Did you send the e-mail via Facebook's mail system?

Also, were any of these people friends of anybody in your friends list? All FB has to do to suggest friends is look at friends of your friends or look at the groups to which you belong.

 

[Hellbound]

If you think your post qualifies as "rude", you must not spend much time in the Politics forum.

Eh, I moderated my level of rudeness to slightly less than what I recieved.

But no, I stay FAR away from politics.

One thing I've determined in my years: the less amenable a subject is to logical and/or rational analysis, the more...shall we say passionate...people become over the issue. And I've found this true on the level of the issue (some issues are as much or more opinion or subjectively based than factual) and the individual (an individual with a lack of knowledge will argue more voraciously and emotionally than an expert, who will tend to give factual rebuttals).

I'm thinking of calling this "Hellbound's Law of Argument Temperature"

 

[DreadNiK]

Well, suppose that you want to mention the names of three folks who signed up with Facebook. Just come up with a fictitious but fairly frequent name, such as John Smith, and google up John Smith Facebook and then click the first entry found by the engine to see some of John Smith's Facebook friends.
http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Smith/1095780008

Then you select three of them, mention them in your email to Santa Klaus or whoever, and voila: these three names would be later added as your suggested friends to your Facebook account page. This wouldn't be possible without Facebook boys reading your email. Actually they don't read it, just scan it for names to find a match in their Facebook client database. But if they wanted, they could easily read the whole content of your email.

Few questions:

Were you logged into facebook while viewing John Smith's profile?

Did you 'select' some friends from his friend list just from the list or did you actually click through to their profiles?

I'm curious about their methods but mainly because I seem to get completely random suggestions.

I've just deleted all my information and cut my friends list down to about 60/70 people, so all I really use it for is event co-ordination and interacting with people I already interact with socially

 

[Hellbound]

If Hellbound is going where I think he is with this, it is completely rational and has nothing to do with telepathy.

Epix:

Define sending an e-mail to yourself.

* Do you use GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail or some other web based mail program?
* Do you use an e-mail client like Thunderbird or Outlook?
* Did you send the e-mail via Facebook's mail system?

Also, were any of these people friends of anybody in your friends list? All FB has to do to suggest friends is look at friends of your friends or look at the groups to which you belong.

Few questions:

Were you logged into facebook while viewing John Smith's profile?

Did you 'select' some friends from his friend list just from the list or did you actually click through to their profiles?

I'm curious about their methods but mainly because I seem to get completely random suggestions.

I've just deleted all my information and cut my friends list down to about 60/70 people, so all I really use it for is event co-ordination and interacting with people I already interact with socially

Well, there are at least three other people in this thread who understand more about computers than how to add a facebook friend and how many acres they need in Farmville

 

[portlandatheist]

They can only do this IF you give them permission and IF you provide them with your username and password to your email account. This isn't rocket science and they have no magical way to access your computers address book or your internet email account.

 

[epix]

They can only do this IF you give them permission and IF you provide them with your username and password to your email account. This isn't rocket science and they have no magical way to access your computers address book or your internet email account.

Point 1: No, I didn't give anyone my permission to scan my emails, nor did I give my email password to anyone disposal (DUH!!!!), and I don't expect that anyone would; moreover, I don't expect that Facebook would even ask. Point me (link) please to the explicit source, which asks for the permission to scan client's email via disclosed email password.

Point 2: I never said that accessing someone else's email account is a rocket science, so your reference to this particular issue is quite redundant and comes at the expense of the citation not included in your opener.

 

[epix]

Epix:

Define sending an e-mail to yourself.

Sorry, I can only describe the procedure, but not define it, coz the word definition doesn't apply to the circumstance.