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I'm a bit confused at the alarmist title. I just checked my FB settings, and the article is correct, the best you can restrict your phone number is to just fri
by CamelCaseName 8y ago
I'm a bit confused at the alarmist title.
I just checked my FB settings, and the article is correct, the best you can restrict your phone number is to just friends.
Why then are the top comments about the inescapablility of employers looking you up by phone number?
Unless you have your employer as a friend on Facebook, just change the setting to friends only.
My understanding is that on this setting, Facebook only allows someone to find your Facebook profile if they:
1. are your friend on FB and
2. have your phone number.
That seems quite reasonable to me.
- hopler 8y agoThe article disagrees with your understanding. "Facebook’s default setting allows everyone — with or without an account — to look up a user profile based off the same phone number " For the vast majority of people who aren't on TC/HN, it's a surprise. Once info is leaked, it doesn't get unleaked. It's not just this once incident, it's a pattern of Facebook abusing user trust and chronically launching new features that leak private or semiprivate information by default and destroying the culture of security industry wide by showing users that account recovery phone numbers are not safe to use.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoThis setting restricts the visibility on your profile page. The article claims that someone who already knows the number can type it into the search box and your profile will pop up. (No idea whether this is true either way and I'm no longer on Facebook to be able to check; just trying to clarify).