[Air-L] How does Facebook find friends?

Mon Oct 18 09:07:26 PDT 2010

Hello All, 

I recall few weeks ago somebody in AIR-L mailing list asking for details on how facebook aggregates personal and social network data in order to suggest friends to be added. 
Here goes an article that discloses through "reverse engineering" 10 aspects related to the news feed that facebook streams on each user page. 
Accordingly, there are also some valuable hints on how facebook find friends...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-18/the-facebook-news-feed-how-it-works-the-10-biggest-secrets/

Best,

David

On Sep 26, 2010, at 12:00 AM, air-l-request at listserv.aoir.org wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Re: How does Facebook find friends? (Marco Toledo Bastos)
>   2. Re: How does Facebook find friends? (Stacy Blasiola)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 01:42:21 -0300
> From: "Marco Toledo Bastos" <herrcafe at gmail.com>
> To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] How does Facebook find friends?
> Message-ID: <001201cb5c6c$0c899e40$259cdac0$@com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
> 
> Anders,
> 
> This also got me thinking. It all started a few years ago when my
> hairdresser, who I went to once, and who has sent me a few emails, turned up
> as a
> FB suggestion. We didn't have any friends in common and I most certainly
> have NOT allowed FB to go thru my Gmail contacts (or any other account).
> This all had happened once before when FB suggested another person with whom
> I sure shared no friends whatsoever.
> 
> Since I'm dead sure I haven't given Facebook permission to contact my Gmail
> account and FB sure isn't allowed to mine my cache, I was ready to go
> paranoid (seemed like Facebook was stealing my Gmail contacts). But after a
> few emails to friends and nerds of all stripes, we came up with the
> conclusion that it was the hairdresser who allowed FB to collect *her*
> contact info. That's how FB knew we had been in contact in a given moment.
> 
> Bottom line: there are only two ways FB could have gotten that info from me.
> Either by mining my Chrome cache, and I refuse to consider this possibility,
> or breaking into Googles's office in Mountain View, since Gmail was the only
> place where I had that info stored. So getting back to your question, the
> kid might not know his uncle's e-mail, but my two cent is that the uncle's
> contact list sure includes the kid's name and/or his e-mail.
> 
> Either way, this is not good. But it is the future, and the future is here.
> 
> []s
> MTB
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 01:14:11 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Stacy Blasiola <blasiol2 at uwm.edu>
> To: Marco Toledo Bastos <herrcafe at gmail.com>, air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] How does Facebook find friends?
> Message-ID: <t2bfkdsrsoj9l7xcfn4nb4ks.1285395247389 at email.android.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> I believe this is akin to the way in which gmail scans emails for keywords. I may not use gmail, but if I email a friend who does, then Gmail can scan the email I've written. 
> 
> Comparatively, if I don't allow Facebook to access my email list, but I have a friend who does and I'm on theirs, then Facebook will make the connection. 
> 
> In both cases, only one user has agreed to the terms. This seems problematic. I believe, particularly in the Facebook example, that it gives other people rights over our information that I'm not so sure they should have. 
> 
> -Stacy Blasiola
> 
> UW-Milwaukee
> Graduate Student
> Media Studies
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Marco Toledo Bastos <herrcafe at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Anders,
> 
> This also got me thinking. It all started a few years ago when my
> hairdresser, who I went to once, and who has sent me a few emails, turned up
> as a
> FB suggestion. We didn't have any friends in common and I most certainly
> have NOT allowed FB to go thru my Gmail contacts (or any other account).
> This all had happened once before when FB suggested another person with whom
> I sure shared no friends whatsoever.
> 
> Since I'm dead sure I haven't given Facebook permission to contact my Gmail
> account and FB sure isn't allowed to mine my cache, I was ready to go
> paranoid (seemed like Facebook was stealing my Gmail contacts). But after a
> few emails to friends and nerds of all stripes, we came up with the
> conclusion that it was the hairdresser who allowed FB to collect *her*
> contact info. That's how FB knew we had been in contact in a given moment.
> 
> Bottom line: there are only two ways FB could have gotten that info from me.
> Either by mining my Chrome cache, and I refuse to consider this possibility,
> or breaking into Googles's office in Mountain View, since Gmail was the only
> place where I had that info stored. So getting back to your question, the
> kid might not know his uncle's e-mail, but my two cent is that the uncle's
> contact list sure includes the kid's name and/or his e-mail.
> 
> Either way, this is not good. But it is the future, and the future is here.
> 
> []s
> MTB
> 
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