Facebook Is Spamming Users Via Their 2FA Phone Numbers (mashable.com) 119
According to Mashable, Facebook account holder Gabriel Lewis tweeted that Facebook texted "spam" to the phone number he submitted for the purposes of 2-factor authentication. Lewis insists that he did not have mobile notifications turned on, and when he replied "stop" and "DO NOT TEXT ME," he says those messages showed up on his Facebook wall. From the report: Lewis explained his version of the story to Mashable via Twitter direct message. "[Recently] I decided to sign up for 2FA on all of my accounts including FaceBook, shortly afterwards they started sending me notifications from the same phone number. I never signed up for it and I don't even have the FB app on my phone." Lewis further explained that he can go "for months" without signing into Facebook, which suggests the possibility that Mark Zuckerberg's creation was feeling a little neglected and trying to get him back. According to Lewis, he signed up for 2FA on Dec. 17 and the alleged spamming began on Jan. 5. Importantly, Lewis isn't the only person who claims this happened to him. One Facebook user says he accidentally told "friends and family to go [to] hell" when he "replied to the spam."
If this is a shock to you. (Score:2, Insightful)
You are a moron and just the sort facebook loves.
This is why [Re:If this is a shock to you.] (Score:5, Insightful)
They already know it, of course-- they hoover up information from everywhere. But they can't officially admit that they know it.
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"Yes, this is EXACTLY why I never gave FB my phone number for TFA despite how many times they tell me how secure it will make me."
I didn't even give them my name, my email address nor a password.
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Re: If this is a shock to you. (Score:1)
Exactly. Delete Facebook and change your cell number while you're at it.
I have two numbers. One which all the whatsapp muppets have and other is private. No cloud sync, no numbers even in the phone book.
Re: If this is a shock to you. (Score:2)
Ah, you mean like a Rolodex.
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You do know that Facebook owns Whatsapp?
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It's still handy to order pizza when I'm on the way home and 20 min from the make-to-order place.
I don't want incoming calls. My time "out and about" is MY time. I don't need distraction just because someone else is bored or wants to sell me something. Try email if you want to get in touch with me.
Users misunderstood what Facebook's 2FA stood for (Score:5, Funny)
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As someone who is very good with password hygiene and also uses a VPN, I've basically had 2FA forced down my throat. I am definitely suspicious that this was just a way to track me more easily under the guise of security.
Re: Users misunderstood what Facebook's 2FA stood (Score:1)
How exactly have you had it âoeforced down your throatâ? Facebook *does* ask me to sign up for it now and then, but has never made it a requirement. And whatâ(TM)s with all this perviserating from people who would never / donâ(TM)t use FB to begin with?
WTF is 'perviserating' (Score:1)
And what the fuck do you mean by 'perviserating' ??/.
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When we have no idea what word you meant to use, that's YOUR fault, not AC's.
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I'm saying English isn't my primary language, so I Googled the word 'perviserating' and got no useful results.
Now what? Should I sign up for a mind-reading class?
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Not that 'perseverating' is in my vocabulary either, but here's a screengrab of my Google search for 'perviserating'. Can you point out where it corrects the word?
https://imgur.com/a/zXQKF [imgur.com]
Please do keep calling me a liar just because Google reacts differently in different countries.
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No one likes a Spelling Nazi, you people are worse than Hitler.
No... not really. Hitler was quite a bit worse than Spelling Nazis. You should read a history book.
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Hitler was quite a bit worse than Spelling Nazis. You should read a history book.
Spelling nazis are in charge of editing the history books. Revisionist history favors those with the power of the press.
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Hitler was quite a bit worse than Spelling Nazis. You should read a history book.
Spelling nazis are in charge of editing the history books. Revisionist history favors those with the power of the press.
Are yew tellin' me it woz really the grammar Nazis that coursed the holocaust?
Re:Users misunderstood what Facebook's 2FA stood f (Score:4, Interesting)
Why? (Score:2)
Am I not surprised?
SPAM away Facebook--the more, the better (Score:1)
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Don't worry, they probably already have a shadow profile of you.
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"Hammer" would be the opposite of spammer, right?
Break it down.... STOP!
Spammertime.
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's highly likely that they already have your phone number.
Exactly. You can have no direct involvement with FB but people who do will give data about you to FB. The chance they don't have your phone number is roughly zero.
Not only that but for most people they also have your facial biometrics, because you will at some point be in a photo that someone uploads to FB (unless you haven't left your basement in the last 10 years). You don't even have to be tagged for them to work out who you are.
In fact, recently, your face doesn't even have to be visible for them to
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in 2000, when the "i love you" trojan was harvesting people's address books, everyone was up in arms. Microsoft's reputation for security was damaged for a decade, IT managers had to start educating people about trojans and spear-phishing. Today, everyone expects that software harvests their personal information without asking and doesn't seem to care. How far we have fallen.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Duh -- blame your friends (Score:3)
Unfortunately people give permission to Facebook to "look for friends" by sharing their address book (Linked In does this as well). If you're in the address book, guess what? LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc now have a complete list of all your information thanks to your friends.
This is how you get the "magical" friend/contact suggestions in these services.
Re: Duh -- blame your friends (Score:2)
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Is why I haven't given my phone number to eBay or Gmail or Facebook or anyone else with the claim that "it will secure your account". I also won't give it to Home Depot, Target, or (now defunct) Radio Shack when they ask for your phone number "to help with returns". Because you know sooner or later the marketers are going to steal the whole phone number database and abuse it. Corporations cannot be trusted with personal data. /warranty cards
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What kind of idiot would give their phone number to Facebook?
Why wouldn't you? Ever heard of a phone book? I think my phone number is plastered pretty much all over the internet. That's generally how a communications medium like a phone works.
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Ever heard of a phone book? I think my phone number is plastered pretty much all over the internet. That's generally how a communications medium like a phone works.
Last I checked, my number isn't in the phone book, and has never been there. That's on purpose, of course.
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Cool. That makes you part of the 0.001% of the population who gives a damn.
Quit (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, if you barely sign on anyway, just quit.
Re: Quit (Score:1)
Seriously, if you barely sign on anyway, just quit.
Hah, you rube! You think you can just âoequitâ Facebook like that? Itâ(TM)s way too late, fool.
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The only winning move is not to play.
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If all of my friends, many of whom I consider smart and reasonable people, suddenly and inexplicably decided to jump off a bridge all at once, I would quickly reach the conclusion they knew something I did not and that jumping off the bridge was deemed safer than staying on it.
So yes.
Re:Quit (Score:5, Insightful)
You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.
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No one is surprised that Facebook and its ilk are slime is the day we can claim victory. At this point we are all just fodder for their ultimately fruitless Frankenstein 'AI' experiments. They understand nothing. Welcome to AOL 2.0, and I have no doubt they will meet the same fate. Suck it, AI dweebs.
Well if that's the case can we at least get some CD-ROMs? They were marginally useful.
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You're in luck! You can buy AOL CD-ROMs on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/AMERICA-ONLINE-5-0-HOURS-PLASTIC/dp/B00X2W631I [amazon.com]
begging (Score:3)
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I have never given Facebook my phone number, nor have I ever installed the app. Somehow they are texting me and BEGGING me to come back. It's kind of funny.
I never get any e-mails from Facebook (I wonder if I have them blocked and I forgot I blocked them). In the past I have signed up using temporary e-mail addresses and a VPN, just so I could check things out, fake name, and never logged back in with that account. They won't let me do that anymore, they ask for a phone number before I can sign up.
The original user is an idiot (Score:5, Informative)
I can virtually guarantee that he was confused and enabled his mobile number as "the" mobile number on his Facebook account when setting up 2FA. (In fact, I'd be surprised if Facebook allowed a distinct 2FA number that hadn't already be validated as belonging to you to be set.)
As for why it showed up on his wall, maybe if he used Facebook more he'd realize that that's a feature. Send an SMS to the 5 digit SMS code and it will be interpreted as a FB Status update (unless it matches another string, like poking a user using a distinct notification number).
It's rarely used nowadays because a majority of folks probably use the app, but if you want to update via text message that's how you do it.
Ticket closed: PEBCAK (and stop whining)
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Doesn't surprise me at all. (Score:2, Informative)
More likely reasons for 2FA: (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's try to come up with more likely explanations as to why Facebook, Google, et al. want our phone numbers so badly:
Re:More likely reasons for 2FA: (Score:4, Funny)
Correlate you with all the prostitutes and drug dealers who saved your phone number on their phones.
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AND correlate your identity with whatever micropenis nickname those people used for you.
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If you have an Android phone with Google Play, Google already know your phone number.
If you have a Facebook app installed, Facebook already know it too.
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Is that so? I don't think GSM phones (with SIM) can see their own phone number, similar to how you can't see your IP address when you're behind a NAT.
My (EU, SIM) Android phone, in settings / about phone / status shows "phone number: unknown".
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Yes they can. It's a basic command to the modem, actually. Most phones will retrieve and show the local phone number as a convenience (because there are people who do not know their own phone number - after all, how often are you calling yourself?).
Every phone I've had
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Well, the answer is thus: SIM cards know their number when it's programmed into the SIM. By default they do not know their number.
I thought they knew by default and I found out "the hard way" that it isn't so. I bought a cheap pre-paid card to use in one of my UMTS modems. Interestingly I did not get the number when buying the SIM. I suspect it was written on the receipt, which I threw away when I bought it. Given I had trouble sending SMS using smstools, I wanted to try sending SMS to it, and when I
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It's up to your operator if they populate that information on the sim card.
If they want to they can update it remotely.
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It's up to your operator if they populate that information on the sim card.
If they want to they can update it remotely.
Yes, but it means you can't assume it's there (or not there). There is no well defined default.
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Re: More likely reasons for 2FA: (Score:2)
> I mean, it's not like facebook provide identity services, allowing a facebook login to be used for accessing other services run by third parties. If they offered that service, things might be different.
They do.
You're probably getting tired of hearing it but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I told you so.
Full stop (Score:3)
"Facebook Is Spamming Users..."
That's all I needed to read, everything beyond that is just detail.
Of course Facebook Is spamming you, THAT'S WHAT THEY DO.
trickery (Score:4, Informative)
Possible user errors aside, why would you ever willingly give your phone number or any other personal details not strictly necessary to a company in the business of selling your personal data ???
It should be obvious to an idiot that for FB, 2FA is just a welcome excuse to get you to give up your phone number, which of course they will immediately turn around and sell.
Honestly, you have to be stupid not to spot that.
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This is what the GDPR is about (Score:3)
The up coming General Data Protection Regulation [eugdpr.org] says, amongst many other things, that data must only be used for the purpose that it is obtained and can only be used with the explicit permission of the individual. Hopefully scum-bags like facebook will change once they have had a few fines of 2% of the annual worldwide turnover [wikipedia.org].
Non-Story (Score:2)
Not so fast... (Score:4, Interesting)
(Logging in to repeat my anonymous post)
I received several SMS messages like this, from half-a-dozen numbers, a week or two ago. There were maybe 20 messages over a 1 hour period.
Here's the thing. I don't have a Facebook account. I did, once, about 10 years ago. I cancelled it after only about a month, and that was long before they implemented 2FA. And it was also long before I had my current phone number. This number has never been given to Facebook for anything, at least not by me.
I thought they were a scam of some sort, and just ended up blocking the numbers as spam in my messaging client (Signal).
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This could be fun (Score:2)
Am I reading that right. Sending a text to Facebook will show the post on their page?
It's pretty easy to spoof where an SMS came from. This could be fun.
Annoying but NOT surprising .... (Score:2)
I, too, refused to ever provide FB with my phone number - even though it prompts regularly to add it.
I'm finding that increasingly, "free" services online that ask for your cell number DO use the info for marketing purposes.
For example? I know many people who noticed that right after they started playing that HQ Trivia game on their phones, they started receiving a lot of scam and solicitation calls on their number. I definitely did.