100 million Facebook pages leaked to a torrent site, creating the world's least exciting torrent

Hacker Ron Bowes from Skull Security has created a 2.8GB torrent file which contains the Facebook account details of roughly 100 million users. That's about 1 in 5 of the half billion accounts the social networking site has, and the torrent contains URLs for each account, with other personal details contained in the profiles such as phone numbers and email addresses. Bowes created a crawler to troll Facebook's open access directory, where all the information is kept. There's nothing illegal about any of this, of course -- we put our information out there into the public forum that Facebook is, after all -- but there's still something creepy about the idea of someone torrenting our profile. Then again, we have some pretty amazing shots from the Bronx Zoo in there, so we can't really blame them.

[Eminemdrdre00 Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:41PM]

Creepy...

[ZLiberator Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:48PM]

@Eminemdrdre00 Its no more Creepier then the average person surfing through 100 million fbook pages... Bore!!!!

[Plazmic Flame Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:48PM]

@Eminemdrdre00

Ya... real creepy... but with the privacy settings, shouldn't ones profile NOT be accessible in the "open directory" ???

[ZLiberator Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:52PM]

@Plazmic Flame there not..

[armus360 Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:54PM]

@Eminemdrdre00 whoever opens a facebook account and posts their full info (phone#, Current City, DOB, hometown, education...etc..etc) DESERVES to get their identity stolen and to be shot for being a dumbass.

[nicholas1987ucsb Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:59PM]

@Eminemdrdre00
I sat through a presentation by a Computer Science grad student at UCSB who said he was doing this and analyzing it for research and let Facebook know how easy this was to do. Apparently Facebook didn't care.

[DefPoet Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:18PM]

@Eminemdrdre00
even worse is the fact that he showed it off today during defcon

[leoleo Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:45PM]

@Eminemdrdre00
theres 1/5 chances it could me me & you :O

[EagleyeSmith Posted Jul 28th 2010 3:16PM]

@armus360

I completely agree. Why would you ever put private information on a public domain? I've never understood that and I've been using Facebook for 4 or 5 years now.

[whormongr Posted Jul 28th 2010 3:22PM]

@EagleyeSmith actually the big issue lately is that when you install any of the facebook mobile apps or sign up for SMS updates it puts your phone # on your account publicly unless you actively remove it. Most of the ppl that have their phone #s up on facebook don't even know it is there

[Steveorevo Posted Jul 28th 2010 8:58PM]

In other news... White Pages directory distributed to doorsteps everywhere ends up in trash next to Yellow Pages phone book.

[gatewayboyg1 Posted Jul 29th 2010 12:15AM]

@Steveorevo
change password check.
block everyone else check.
delete facebook if all fails check.

[gatewayboyg1 Posted Jul 29th 2010 12:16AM]

@Eminemdrdre00
change password check.
block everyone else check.
delete facebook if all fails check.

[ChazClout Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:42PM]

Feels good NOT to use that shithole site.

[skyblaze Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:48PM]

@ChazClout

i thought i was the only one! yay for not feeling like a total outcast anymore!

[ZLiberator Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:52PM]

@ChazClout There is also a Torrent file that has your name address and phone number its called US Yellow pages Torrent... America+Privacy=Oxymoron. If its not an Pervert old man looking at your families pictures at the beach then its a dirty government Agent Jerking of to your daughters Prom pictures...

[BIGGEN Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:52PM]

@ChazClout

that's easy to accomplish when you have no friends. ZING!

[CapsLockKey Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:57PM]

@ZLiberator I think you meant the white pages.

[One Love Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:13PM]

@ChazClout : Everytime I sell stuff on Craigslist and meet with the buyer, I always surprise them with how much information I found about them online using their name, email address, linked in and Facebook pages. :) ...Stop putting your private information online kids. :)

[loocas Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:13PM]

@ChazClout Apparently, you have no idea what it is like being in a shithole... ;)

[Exodite Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:21PM]

@BIGGEN

I don't know about you but the people I call friends I actually interact with in a more tangible fashion than people do on Facebook. Like, you know, visit them. Or talk face to face. Or call them.

Then again I don't have thousands of 'friends', I've settled for a dozen or so.

And no, I don't use Facebook either.

[RanOnYou Posted Jul 28th 2010 3:18PM]

@ChazClout
Me too quitting it was glorious!! Start the revolution!

[The Madman Posted Jul 28th 2010 4:34PM]

@ChazClout I joined out of peer pressure. Didn't use it much anyway. First deactivated, then found a way to delete my account. Then, add facebook to /etc/hosts.

[Arayta Posted Jul 28th 2010 5:20PM]

@One Love

No offense man but you're kind of creepy. I don't think I'd buy anything from you, haha.

[BIGGEN Posted Jul 28th 2010 11:13PM]

@Exodite
lighten up mr. crabbypants

[AlienSix Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:42PM]

Those girls will be pretty happy about the fact that creepy old guy will be giving them some facetime

[Special Agent Steve Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:43PM]

Internet security at its best

[Da Bears Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:43PM]

Who ever downloads this because they want to look through all the profiles really need to re-evaluate the worth of their life.

[ChazClout Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:54PM]

@Da Bears
/Cancels torrent and cries inside. :(

[DefPoet Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:06PM]

@Da Bears
I am downloading purely to see if any of my family's info is on there so i can alert them

[AndroidFanBoy Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:38PM]

@Da Bears they DO have a life. THEY are trying to make it even better by making millions off thousands of homer Simpson out there who expose their identities.

[arash Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:49PM]

@Da Bears So you meen most of engadget readers should re-evaluate their lives, yeah

[Robdertd63 Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:44PM]

Go facebook!

[AndroidFanBoy Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:40PM]

@Robdertd63 it's not Facebook. It's "The Face Book"

[Devin Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:45PM]

Great.

[JeanLuc Picard Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:45PM]

The original post, with a link to the torrent, can be found here.

http://www.skullsecurity.org/blog/?p=887

[grundy923 Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:46PM]

your phone number and email address is only included if you put them in your facebook profile and made it public. if you made it available for everyone to see then this has nothing to do with security at all. you're the one who chose to make it available for everyone.

[Alan Strangis Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:53PM]

@grundy923: agreed.

In other breaking news...

"Man compiles 100 million wikipedia articles into .torrent file for sharing... ON THE INTERNET!"

[Squalor Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:47PM]

If you're like me and don't have a Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, et al page, reply, please, for roll call.

[skyblaze Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:54PM]

@Squalor

reporting for duty!

[ZLiberator Posted Jul 28th 2010 1:55PM]

@Squalor You got a Engadget account............

[Nn4458 Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:01PM]

@Squalor Here

[Squalor Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:02PM]

@ZLiberator : Yes, I have an Engadget account. The last time I checked, however, I haven't posted pictures of myself and my dog and my friend who is a girl, but I hint at the fact that she's my girlfriend though she's really not, on Engadget. Nor do I post status updates about the minutia of my life.

[skyblaze Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:02PM]

@ZLiberator

i don't recall hearing about engadget being a social network site... i heard they were a tech blog though! but that's strictly rumor...

[DrScope Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:29PM]

@Squalor In the house!

[33Thirty Posted Jul 28th 2010 2:46PM]

@Squalor

Right here. I hate all that cr@p, Email + phone #s is sufficient.

But this is just a collection of publicly available information, right? I'm guessing that many of the address and phone numbers on public profiles are for business networking purposes. People don't really post their home address on a public profile, let alone a "fiends-only" private profile, do they? Or am I just being naive in that thinking?

[arash Posted Jul 28th 2010 3:00PM]

@Squalor Oh you do have a girlfriend

[Abe Posted Jul 28th 2010 7:15PM]

@Squalor

I like tech news. "Social networking?" Not so much. I would say that Facebook, etc. are for people who aren't satisfied with their real social life, but my wife uses FB all the time. Hmmm....maybe she isn't satisfied?!?

http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/

[stockpile Posted Jul 28th 2010 9:24PM]

@Squalor YO!

[SOOPERGOOMAN Posted Jul 29th 2010 1:33AM]

@Squalor didn't you just do the facecrack thing on here right now? the girl you're interested in, mentioned your dog and so on.