Tech: How Fakebook follows you around

Subject: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Oct 20 - 07:43 AM

Yea, Yea, cookies, we all (most) realise that one.

But prompted by a failure of a URL posted on Fakebook that went re-entrant. Where the process calls the same process (think subroutine ish) and either ends in a reciprocating loop or runs till memory runs out. I do something moderately clever with multiple subdomains pointing at the same loction & JavaScript reload() on lcms.mister.red

My interpretation of this is that links on FB posts are in truth still on their website and the target link is held in some kind of a <FRAME> (like a window without apparent borders). So everything you do from thereon in is accessible by Fakebook for trawling data.

Double checking any posted URLs on FB is the rule now! My advice to you.
Same here if you forget to add the http:// protocol.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Oct 20 - 12:47 PM

When you copy a link from FB it often has a mass of gibberish starting with "fbclid=". Does that relate to what you're talking about? I always remove it when pasting.

I found a scary example of FB censoring URLs yesterday. Look at this:

https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/

It's an economics blog, mainly about what's wrong with the Johnson junta's policies. The author is a professor emeritus from Oxford. Try to post that URL on FB and it will fail because it "violates their community standards". it appears that they equate criticizing Rishi Sunak with kiddie porn.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Oct 20 - 01:42 PM

I always scrape off the tracking crap on any link I post, whether from FB or the New York Times, etc..

If I read the paper directly and copy a link from the page it looks like

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/us/politics/trump-erdogan-halkbank.html

but if I get the link from Twitter it looks like

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/us/politics/trump-erdogan-halkbank.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

The question mark and anything after it can safely be scraped off and the link posted (though test it, on occasions they try to prevent this removal of tracking data by not showing the page).

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 29 Oct 20 - 04:20 PM

To remove the "beacons" in newspaper articles is a kindness.
My most recent news article had over 20 beacons - a sports story.

They must be hand removed. I know of no macro.

1. Open page and select copy.
2. Open a notepad and paste.
3. Beginning at the bottom remove by backspacing
    A. beacons - yellow emoji type nasties
    B. hyper links - blue text - chew until color is gone - retype
4. Open a different mfg's notepad - paste clean copy to new pad.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

I dump cookies a dozen times a day.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: GUEST,DrWord
Date: 29 Oct 20 - 04:35 PM

Toss your cookies! That’s the spirit, Gargoyle
keep on pickin’
dennis

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: leeneia
Date: 29 Oct 20 - 05:08 PM

Some news source I read recently says that there is an outfit collecting all the photographs of ourselves that we post on the Internet, arranged by name. Seems incredible, doesn't it? Yet it was a respectable source, whatever it was.

These are my sources: Science News, BBC Science Focus, This Week (new but seems reasonable), local newspaper. It was one of those.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Oct 20 - 11:12 PM

"Facial recognition" - it needs photos to use for comparison.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 05:20 AM

When you copy a link from FB it often has a mass of gibberish starting with "fbclid=". - fb & id are obvious but cl (clone?)

Well, the gibberish is part of it but I am referring to how they can (?) with simple websites just place it in a FRAME so the top.document is theirs. Or even a modified clone of my page!

The fact that my document.location.replace(u); causes problems tells me that in a new window - ostensibly separate from Fakebook - for my simple JavaScript line to cause a problemo - there has to be another script lurking that I didn't put there! There may be a clue in that I put the script in the <HEAD> not the <BODY> (I stop digging when I reach a result).

the (u) above is computed text (from the subdomain) to decide which target page the URL implies. eg lcms.mister.red   >   lcms.mister.red/lcms.htm , it then jumps to the target page - Making for a shorter more memorable URL, ie Lancaster Canal MileStones

FWIW the external link on Wiki (LC page) has no snooping frippery.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: DaveRo
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 08:40 AM

https://www.google.com/search?q=fbclid

And that's an example of a link where, if you remove the 'query string', as it's called, you will get a different page. Another case is where the random-looking string of characters is a 'token' and will let you through a paywall for a short time. People sometimes post those on forums.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: leeneia
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 01:35 PM

This NBC article says that the photo database doesn't store the names of the people in the photograph. To verify, do a search on "name." It's the 4th occurrence.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/facial-recognition-s-dirty-little-secret-millions-online-photos-scraped-n981921

Me, I would have put that fact in the first paragraph.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: GUEST, Billy O'Shea of Tel Aviv
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 01:56 PM

I've found it essential to use FB despite it being anathema to me. I ASK FOLK WHEN & WHERE THE NEXT SESSION IS & THEY SAY 'IT'S ALL ON FB'.

sO i HAVE A TOTALLY FICTIONAL PROGRAMME WITH NO PHOTOS & NO ENTRIES- I can get the info without letting these digital fascists to analyse my life- sod 'em, I say

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Senoufou
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 02:16 PM

Hee hee this thread might as well be written in Serbo-Croat as it's completely unintelligible to me! I'm on Facebook, but don't own a phobile moan so I never post pictures. I just look at our village Facebook to see what's happening locally.
I have a small Chrome laptop thingy, and I believe it wipes off viruses and cookies when you turn it off, because I don't need a Macafee or one of those protection doodahs (husband has a different computer and does pay Macafee)
I feel as old as Methuselah now!!

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: DaveRo
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 02:18 PM

As I understand it, not being a member of Facebook, a club or whatever can make their facebook pages public. I can certainly see some folk clubs' or festivals' facebook pages. I can't post, of course, and I have to put up with the 'log in or join up' banners, but I can see announcements.

I assume the reason that many clubs don't is digital incompetance or lack of imagination - they can't imagine that anybody can not be a member. Or are there problems with making a site public?

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: leeneia
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 07:52 PM

I'm like you, Billy. I just go on to see when events are. I don't post anything.

I can certainly see why a small club would turn to Facebook rather than try to find a volunteer to run a webpage and then pay a company to host that webpage. A webpage which is out-of-date or incomplete may lose more interest than it gains.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 09:08 PM

People who have Facebook accounts with absolutely no information about their interests are less likely to be allowed into the Mudcat Cafe Facebook page because the administrators can't see why they ask to join. It's best to have a few public wall posts that are on the topic of music to give some clues.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 09:27 PM

I also not on facebook, but look at public sites to see about folk events, & other things of interest.

as an almost life-long collector of cartoons, I also look at a wonderful political cartoons site that has lots of problems with facebook. They don't pay for ads etc & get closed for breaches quite a lot, one cartoon showed a cartoonist at his desk talking to zuckerberg saying "So confederate flags, guns and swastikas are free speech but a political cartoon isn't."

Every now & then facebook suggests I join, so I close the window I'm looking at & come back the next day.

sandra

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Jack Campin
Date: 31 Oct 20 - 11:03 AM

People who have Facebook accounts with absolutely no information about their interests are less likely to be allowed into the Mudcat Cafe Facebook page because the administrators can't see why they ask to join.

...says someone posting under a pseudonym about a group of admins whose membership is unknowable and only one of whom (Joe Offer) has ever made his identity public.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Oct 20 - 11:52 AM

If I used my real name you wouldn't know who it was from. I've been SRS so long on Mudcat it's as good as my "real" name.

The Facebook administrators are many and varied, and were put in place to mainly keep out the troll accounts (at one time that site was unusable because he must have had two dozen "avatars" and fake accounts for real Mudcat members, and he preyed on lots of people.) Now the garden variety trolls, pervs, and sunglass sales folks are filtered out of the requests.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Oct 20 - 12:31 PM

face book is about advertising.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: leeneia
Date: 31 Oct 20 - 01:16 PM

I'll try to make this brief. Heard a talk by the FBI.
========
Treasurer for a mid-size business (Treas) with a $250,000 payroll but not much security goes on a canoe trip with buddies. There's a new guy, George. This is all on Facebook. A crook has selected Treas's company to steal from, and he's reading all about the canoe trip.

After the trip, Treas gets an e-mail from George (But not really. George is innocent.) Fake george says "here's a video I made of our canoe trip." Treas clicks the link. It doesn't bring up the video, but Treas shrugs it off. Actually it's software which sticks in Treas's computer, and when it's time to pay the employees, the software transfers the $250,000 to the crook's account instead.

While the money is being transferred, Treas' bank's software puts up boxes saying "Contact your bank," but Treas mutters "Goddam Microsoft" and exits instead. In a few minutes it's too late.
================
And that is an example of why it's not good to put too much stuff on Facebook.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 31 Oct 20 - 03:32 PM

On FB, when I remember, I try to put the URL at the top or within the text.
That way folks can see the link and do a 'copy link text'.

https://www.glowmetrics.com/blog/what-is-fbclid-how-to-remove-fbclid-parameter-from-google-analytics/#gref

^^
btw, incase you didn't follow DaveRo's link

‘FBCLID’ is a Facebook Click Identifier.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: GUEST,JHW
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 06:42 AM

I left Fb several years ago and was surprised that I could.   (I was bogged down by emails originating in Fb). Never heard a thing since.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Nick
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 07:38 AM

Here's a good lark to entertain yourself on a quiet lockdown day...

Go to https://takeout.google.com/ and download your google data

Mine was about 16gb. I have watched c10800 Youtube videos since 2010 and have a complete list of them. I have a list of every google search I have made in the last three years. I can also tell you where I was on every day since September 2017 and, with a degree of certainty, whether I was at home, in a car or something else. I can retrace my Californian trip from Sept 2017 on a map and when and for how long I was at each place.

So for example this was my visit to San Luis Obispo (thanks Joe Offer for the suggestion) San Luis Obispo and I can tell you that I was there at 16/9/2017 at 04:25

Quite entertaining

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Nick
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 08:24 AM

All these memories coming back - we parked the car at the Monte Carlo Valet in Las Vegas at 21:14 at night and then wandered about a bit

It depends whether I have my ipad with me or not. If I always had it with me I'd have a recording of my life

God I hated Las Vegas...

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Jos
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 09:57 AM

The Google data seems to be available only if you have a Google account.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Nick
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 10:16 AM

Indeed - I have one because of having a Youtube channel. I have several google accounts thinking about it. I have a gmail account from years ago and that creates a google account. And to upload videos to youtube you need a google account.

I don't huge terrors about the HUGE amounts of data that people hold on me. But I find it interesting. The thing that made me look at things again was this book - How to Survive the Internet. A friend of a friend wrote it and my friend lent it to me last week and I found it interesting enough to get my own copy.

It was a good time to do an audit of 20+ years of internet usage and make some changes. It's a very good book and is available as a Kindle book too.

I download my facebook data various times in the past. But it is only a tiny subset of what they have access to. For example, they have the information of where you go to Facebook from. That information is not contained in the downloadable information form Facebook.

From websites I have I know exactly where people come from. It is just standard stuff.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 12:31 PM

Real dangers: person mentions on Facebook that family is going on vacation. Cousin who never really liked her tells boyfriend with thuggish friends. They know the house is empty, break in and clean them out.

Young woman says the is working late at the office. Rapist is waiting for her in the corporate parking building. (Rapist might be some maladjusted co-worker that she turned down for a date.)

Read my post from Oct. 20, the one related to the FBI.

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 04 Nov 20 - 06:13 AM

Surveillance is not a new thing confined to FB & its ilk!

I went to the island of Sark with my pal Ken Lees in about 1977/78 to play for a dance to raise money for the 'Flying Christine' hospital launch which sat in the harbour -   its purpose to transport sick islanders to Guernsey.

The island was still on the old button A & B system - in fact they were just changing to the automatic STD system, but in the meantime, all calls went via the operator.

Anyway, we played in the pub a lot & got to know the island folks- we tried to gather a group for another session & decided to ask Rosie to the pub, a nice girl we knew, so called her on Sark 5 or whatever it was.

No answer & when the operator intervened, she said- 'no good ringing Rosie, she's just passed my window, I expect she's going to the pub'

Indeed she was there when we arrived- don't tell ME about surveillance!

Subject: RE: Tech: How Fakebook follows you around
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Nov 20 - 07:26 AM

Origins of the mechanical telephone exchange:

Strowger, an undertaker, was motivated to invent an automatic telephone exchange after having difficulties with the local telephone operators, one of whom was the wife of a competitor. He was said to be convinced that she, as one of the manual telephone exchange operators, was sending calls "to the undertaker" to her husband.

(Wikipedia, but a familiar story from way back).