Details of 100 million Facebook users published online

The personal details of 100 million Facebook users have been collected and published online in a downloadable file, meaning they will now be unable to make their publicly available information private.




However, Facebook downplayed the issue, saying that no private data had been compromised.



The information was posted by Ron Bowes, an online security consultant, on the Internet site Pirate Bay.



Bowes used code to scan the 500 million Facebook profiles for information not hidden by privacy settings. The resulting file, which allows people to perform searches of various different types, has been downloaded by several thousand people.



This means that if any of those on the list decide to change their privacy settings on Facebook, Bowes and those who have the file will still be able to access information that was public when it was compiled.



Bowes’ actions also mean people who had set their privacy settings so their names did not appear in Facebook’s search system can now be found if they were friends with anyone whose name was searchable.



'Scary privacy issue'

On his website, www.skullsecurity.org, Bowes said the results of his code were "spectacular," giving him 171 million names of which were 100 million unique.

"As I thought more about it and talked to other people, I realized that this is a scary privacy issue. I can find the name of pretty much every person on Facebook," he wrote.




"Facebook helpfully informs you that "[a]nyone can opt out of appearing here by changing their Search privacy settings" — but that doesn't help much anymore considering I already have them all (and you will too, when you download the torrent). Suckers!"



"Once I have the name and URL of a user, I can view, by default, their picture, friends, information about them, and some other details," Bowes added. "If the user has set their privacy higher, at the very least I can view their name and picture. So, if any searchable user has friends that are non-searchable, those friends just opted into being searched, like it or not! Oops :)"



He said he discovered the top first name in the list was Michael, followed by John, David, Chris and Mike. The top surnames were Smith, Johnson, Jones, Williams and Brown.



A privacy expert expressed concern at the implications of Bowes' actions. Simon Davies, of campaign group Privacy International, told the BBC that some Facebook users "did not understand the privacy settings and this is the result."



"Facebook should have anticipated this attack and put measures in place to prevent it," he told the BBC. "It is inconceivable that a firm with hundreds of engineers couldn't have imagined a trawl of this magnitude and there's an argument to be heard that Facebook have acted with negligence."



'A little terrifying'

Some users of Pirate Bay shared his concerns.



"This is awesome and a little terrifying," lusifer69 wrote on the site. And another, Porkster, said: "I don't think this is a hack, but a collection from public domain info that people have shared. The importance of the info is structuring it and allowing someone to search or compute the data."



However, jak322 said: "I've got to say, who cares. All the info here is already in the public domain, is not sensitive and as a developer I already have access to what could be deemed personal and private data through the Facebook API."



In a statement emailed to msnbc.com, Facebook agreed, saying the information on the list was already available online.



"People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want," it said.



"Our responsibility is to respect their wishes. In this case, information that people have agreed to make public was collected by a single researcher. This information already exists in Google, Bing, other search engines, as well as on Facebook," the statement added.



"No private data is available or has been compromised. Similar to a phone book, this is the information available to enable people to find each other, which is the reason people join Facebook. If someone does not want to be found, we also offer a number of controls to enable people not to appear in search on Facebook, in search engines, or share any information with applications."

© 2010 msnbc.com

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Another Trip to Fort Adams

Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island, was established on July 4, 1799 as a First System coastal fortification. Its first commander was Captain John Henry who was later instrumental in starting the War of 1812.

The first Fort Adams was designed by Major Louis de Tousard of the Army Corps of Engineers. This fort mounted 12 cannon and was garrisoned during the War of 1812 by Wood's State Corps of Rhode Island militiamen.

After the War of 1812, there was a thorough review of the nation's fortification needs and it was decided to replace the older Fort Adams with a newer and much larger fort. The new fort was designed by Brigadier General Simon Bernard, a Frenchman who had served as a military engineer under Napoleon. Bernard designed the new Fort Adams in the classic style of Vauban and it became the most complex fortification in the Western Hemisphere.

Construction of the new fort began in 1824 and continued at irregular intervals until 1857. From 1825 to 1838 construction was overseen by Colonel Joseph Gilbert Totten, the foremost American military engineer of his day. In 1838 Totten became chief engineer of the Army and served until his death in 1864.[3]
A section of historic Fort Adams in a neglected state (1968)

The new Fort Adams was first garrisoned in August 1841, functioning as an active Army post until 1950. During this time the fort was active in five major wars (the Mexican-American War, American Civil War, Spanish-American, World War I and World War II) but never fired a shot in anger.

During the Mexican War Fort Adams was briefly under the command of Brigadier General Franklin Pierce, who would be elected President of the United States in 1852.

The War Department was concerned about the political sympathies of Marylanders during the Civil War, so the United States Naval Academy was moved in 1861 from Annapolis Maryland to Fort Adams. In September 1861, the academy moved to the Atlantic House Hotel in Newport and remained there for the rest of the war. Among the midshipmen assigned to the Naval Academy while it was at Fort Adams was Robley D. Evans who was wounded at Fort Fisher, North Carolina in 1865 and later commanded the Great White Fleet in 1907 on the first leg of its epic around the world voyage.
In 1862 Fort Adams became the headquarters and recruit depot for the 15th Infantry Regiment. This regiment, along with several others, was organized into a regiment of three eight-company battalions, with the 3rd Battalion formed at Fort Adams in March 1864.

As time went by the fort's armament was upgraded to keep up with technological innovations. Major kinds of ordnance used at the Fort included muzzle loading cannon in the 19th Century, breech loading, rifled artillery pieces in the early 20th Century and anti-aircraft guns during and after World War II.

Fort Adams also served as the headquarters for all fortifications in Narragansett Bay, as well as, a training center in both world wars. At peak strength in 1941 over 3,000 soldiers were assigned to the Harbor Defenses of Narragansett Bay.
Another section, 1968

In 1953, the Army gave Fort Adams to the Navy, which still uses some of the grounds for family housing. In 1965, the fort was given to the state of Rhode Island for use as Fort Adams State Park. In 1976, Fort Adams was declared a National Historic Landmark. In 1994, the Fort Adams trust was formed, which provides guided tours at the fort and oversees ongoing restoration work at the fort.

Among the notable persons connected to Fort Adams were Civil War generals John G. Barnard, George W. Cullum, William S. Rosecrans, Isaac Ingalls Stevens, John B. Magruder, Pierre G. T. Beauregard, Robert Anderson, Ambrose Burnside, John G. Foster, Thomas W. Sherman and Henry Jackson Hunt. President Eisenhower lived at what is now called the Eisenhower House during his summer vacations in 1958 and 1960.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Adams

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