Facebook’s 29 Million Hack Got Personal Data

The trust-apocalypse is hitting Facebook in 2018. While Google prefers to deceptively hide its lapses in security (G+), Facebook seems particularly vulnerable not just to bad actors but data harvesting in general.

Facebook disclosed this in a corporate blog post

Facebook Hacked & The Era of the Human Product — Digital Advertising

How does it feel to be products to pad the tech tycoons and their elite access to wealth?

Finding if you are among the 29 million hacked accounts is easy according to TechCrunch, simply do the following:

1. Scroll down to the section “Is my Facebook account impacted by this security issue?”
2. Here you’ll see a Yes or No answer to whether your account was one of the 30 million users impacted. Those affected will also receive a warning atop their News Feed.
3. If Yes, you’ll be in one of three categories:A. You’re in the 15 million users’ whose name plus email and/or phone number was accessed.B. You’re in the 14 million users’ who had that data plus account bio data accessed including “username, gender, locale/language, relationship status, religion, hometown, self-reported current city, birthdate, device types used to access Facebook, education, work, the last 10 places they checked into or were tagged in, website, people or Pages they follow, and the 15 most recent searches.”C. You’re in the 1 million users whose access token was stolen but your account was never actually accessed with it. Lucky you.

The Facebook Dystopia of the Internet

In a world of Google and Facebook that are being hacked, even the FBI has told Facebook not to disclose possible bad actors. That’s in my mind, highly suspicious. It’s nearly as bad as the US Government, Amazon and Apple denying they were the victims of Chinese security breaches, an important story recently by Bloomberg.

Not only can’t you tell what is real or not real on the internet, even Tech companies and the Government aren’t coming clean. That’s a lot of misinformation, apologies and general confusion for a web that was supposed to be good for the planet. What do you expect though when Ad-dollars and legacy advertising controls how the American internet works? It appears to be the worst hack in Facebook’s 14-year history.

In the case of 14 million victims, the attackers gained access to a variety of data including locations, contact details, relationship status, and recent searches — highly sensitive data that could be used to facilitate identify theft. That’s pretty hardcore in terms of a security breach, and why we trust Facebook or its apps: Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram — is beyond me. Google is the next rung of trust, and Amazon is the best (if there could be a best option among monopolies?).