Facebook was warned five years ago that the “reverse-lookup” feature in its search engine could be used to steal your phone number. The Facebook feature allowed 3rd parties to harvest names, profiles, and phone numbers for virtually all Facebook users. One could use this technique to build up a database of phone numbers and associated accounts without targeting any specific phone number or account. But the company ignored the red flags until last week.
In prepared testimony to Congress, Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that malefactors had used the reverse-lookup “to link people’s public Facebook information to a phone number,” he wrote. “When we found out about the abuse, we shut this feature down.” He said that Facebook only discovered the incidents two weeks ago.
When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes the stand before a joint congressional panel today to explain this, he will not be under oath. But he will be required by federal statute to tell the truth, and if he lies he could face serious legal consequences.
Supposedly, it is standard practice not to swear witnesses like this in under oath. But they are required by law to tell the truth. Oh, well, now I feel so much better.
BTW: This is how pollsters build databases of people to call. For example, from Facebook, they know who are staunch Hillary supporters. They use that database, tie it to phone numbers, and call those supporters and frame them as "independents." Then, they report that all these independents miraculously reported that they were pro-Hillary. It's all a scam. They build a polling base that will deliver the answers they want.
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