Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Bug Cellphones Facebook IT

Facebook API Bug Deletes Contact Info On Phones 178

Posted by Soulskill from the rollouts-that-don't-quite-go-as-planned dept.
An anonymous reader writes "If you thought that Facebook's recent unannounced change of its users' email address tied with their account to Facebook ones was bad, you'll be livid if you check your mobile phone contacts and discover that the change has deleted the email addresses of many of your friends. According to Facebook, the glitch was due to a bug in its application-programming interface, and causes the last added email address to be pulled and added to the user's phone Contacts. The company says they are working hard at fixing the problem, but in the meantime, a lot of users have effectively lost some of the information stored on their devices."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Facebook API Bug Deletes Contact Info On Phones More

Facebook API Bug Deletes Contact Info On Phones

Comments Filter:

  • Well deserved (Score:4, Insightful)

    by icebike ( 68054 ) * on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:05PM (#40533819)

    Any fool who syncs their phone with Facebook deserves all the pain they are likely to get.
    The sad part is they inflict some of this pain on innocent bystanders who they happen to have in their phone books.

  • Yea right a 'glitch' (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arcite ( 661011 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:08PM (#40533865)
    Like most consumers are going to believe this. Of course, what right to they have to complain? FB is a free product and users willingly sign away every semblance of their privacy. Don't want to get burned? DON'T USE FB!

    • Yeah, it might even brick your phone and you have no right to complain. Wait, you dont?

    • Like most consumers are going to believe this. Of course, what right to they have to complain? FB is a free product and users willingly sign away every semblance of their privacy. Don't want to get burned? DON'T USE FB!

      No, FB is NOT a free product. Facebook charges quite a bit for the privilege of your ads being displayed to users. The users are the product, not the customer.

      • FB is a US company subject to our laws. So you're forgetting several things. To help you recall them more clearly, see this example:

        1) Your company succeeds to legally attract all 500 of your local neighborhood's children daily under the pretense of giving AWAY ("free", see?) food and candy. Everyone wins: parents bring them in daily since they no longer pay for kid's food and socialization sounds good to them and feels great for their kids... what's there to lose?

        2) On the not-so-well appreciated side is t

        • You forgot step 5.

          5) You hire a lobbyist to get the government to legally indemnify your company from any damage caused by making kids teeth fall out in return for buying the congressmen his next election victory.

    • Re:Yea right a 'glitch' (Score:4, Funny)

      by Schmorgluck ( 1293264 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @05:41PM (#40535113)
      No, I really think it's a glitch, because it's totally incoherent with their business model: Facebook deleting personal data? That would be new!
      • Well, it deletes the data after sending it all to the Facebook servers. It is my understanding that the Facebook app checks each user in the address book to see if they are FB users, so it knows whether or not to re-write the email address. In the process it seems to make sense that each user's name/email address would have to be sent to FB so server could determine whether the user has FB or not. So it looks to me like a Saagan's worth of user data (millions and millions) was grabbed in the process. While
        • It was ruled that a phonebook is not copyrightable. I will let you fill in the rest.
          • I would maintain that a phonebook is something that is widely distributed with no effort to protect it's contents. Most likely the phonebook also does not actually contain the copyright message. In the case of my address book, I have taken steps to protect the contents. I haven't published it. I have a password on my phone and on my laptop so casual users cannot access it and learn who is in it and the details of their contact information. It's purpose is to provide the data for me, and not for the publ

  • Dipshits (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cpu6502 ( 1960974 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:10PM (#40533885)

    Facebook's programmers have made one mistake after another. I first noticed it when they started redirecting my tablet from the www. to the mobile site. Bastards. They shouldn't be forcing me to a site I don't want to use.

    Then they changed my email to cpu6502@facebook.com. And now this story about the programmers erasing cellphone data "by mistake". Does Facebook hire monkeys to do their coding?

    • Re:Dipshits (Score:5, Insightful)

      by chill ( 34294 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:13PM (#40533937) Journal

      Yet still you have a Facebook account. Why exactly should they set the bar higher if all their screw-ups do is get them more free publicity?

      Every time FB fucks up, the online world whines like it is the end of life as we know it. All you're doing is confirming to FB that you're addicted and can't live without them.

      Why again should they change? You're their bitch and they like it that way.

      • Re:Dipshits (Score:4, Insightful)

        by cpu6502 ( 1960974 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:24PM (#40534107)

        Because I like facebook's free service, just as I like free TV or free online magazines or free Firefox or free Opera or free Lubuntu. I just wish facebook was as competent as the other guys.

        If I was paying then yes I'd certainly cancel the account, just as I canceled Comsucks. I'm more tolerant of mistakes on free services (since technically I lose nothing) than I am of mistakes for paying services.

        • Facebook and wooden talking rings (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Because I like facebook's free service

          Can someone explain what service that is?

          Because all I've ever heard is stuff like, "I can chat w/ my friends on FB". Well, I can chat with them without FB too. Or, "I can learn where the party this w/e is gonna be". Well, I seem to learn that without FB. I've so far never seen something people claim they use FB for that doesn't work just fine if FB never even existed. I mean, jeez luise - people were going to parties and talking to family online before FB ever existed. Or, "It lets me find my highsch

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by webXtasy ( 615201 )

            "I can chat w/ my friends on FB"

            Agreed, definitely not the best (and far from only) thing for that.

            "I can learn where the party this w/e is gonna be".

            Agreed, definitely not the best (and far from only) thing for that.

            "It lets me find my highschool buds!"

            Sure, but if FB wasn't considerably more effective at this (i.e., you find a much higher percentage of folks you went to school with), it's because you have only three friends slashdork. It's more like, find the high school chic I had a huge crush on. You know so I can stalk her like never before, because, since we were high school friends (and I'm not in jail or something),

          • >>>I can chat with them without FB too.

            No you can't. If I went over to Usenet or Livejournal or Myspace and posted my latest status (going on vacation!), my friends would not see it because they are not members of those other websites. Therefore I post it on facebook where my friends, coworkers, colleagues are located.

            Plus sending out 1000 emails isn't very practical. And would be labeled spam.

            >>>Or, "It lets me find my highschool buds!" Which I did just fine without ever touching FB.

            I

        • I think it's really funny that people think they are not paying FB for access. They are taking your personal information from you (which has value) and selling that to advertisers.

          So no, FB is not free.

        • You are paying for Facebook -- just not with dollar bills.

          Me, I never had a Facebook account at all, and I don't think I'm missing out.

      • Yet still you have a Facebook account. Why exactly should they set the bar higher if all their screw-ups do is get them more free publicity?

        Every time FB fucks up, the online world whines like it is the end of life as we know it. All you're doing is confirming to FB that you're addicted and can't live without them.

        Why again should they change? You're their bitch and they like it that way.

        Because one day Google might get their act together and properly market their social network, to the point where Facebook actually has real competition. I attended the first day of Google I/O and was pretty disappointed that they did nothing to address Google+ being an utter ghost town. All they did was focus on this "events" feature, and "party mode". It's a nice addition, but it still isn't going to get people I care about to use the network. I'm thinking all they have to do is start posting up billbo

      • You're their bitch and they like it that way.

        "Mmmm, unt we like it that way too. Make my email cpu38499@facebook.com again. Do it even though I already set a username, then tell me the only way to change it back is to set my username. Then stop me from changing my username HARDER.... SO GOOD. Now flip me over unt use my profile pic to advertise to my friends."

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ZosX ( 517789 )

      Does Facebook hire monkeys to do their coding?

      I think they should begin recruiting monkeys. It can't make things any worse.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nyder ( 754090 )

      Facebook's programmers have made one mistake after another..... Does Facebook hire monkeys to do their coding?

      They probably hire SoE programmers.

      SoE is Sony Online Entertainment.

    • > Does Facebook hire monkeys to do their coding?

      Hey, don't insult primates. These guys http://www.newtechusa.com/ppi/talent.asp [newtechusa.com] would be a step up over Facebook's programmers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dan541 ( 1032000 )

      I'd say the marketing department is interfering with things they don't understand.

  • Sorry, 'bug'? Isn't that a bit like saying a behavioural 'bug' caused Facebook to kick my grandmother in the shin? (Which I don't doubt they would do if there was money in it.)

    • Re:BUG?? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:45PM (#40534333) Homepage Journal

      Sorry, 'bug'? Isn't that a bit like saying a behavioural 'bug' caused Facebook to kick my grandmother in the shin? (Which I don't doubt they would do if there was money in it.)

      I'm under the impression it was originally planned to replace all your contacts email addresses with the new and improved friendxyz@facebook.com email addresses .. so they can, you know, route all of your email and use it for harvesting yet more information from you.

  • Bug? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Parafilmus ( 107866 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:17PM (#40534007) Homepage

    It seems a bit disingenuous to call this a "bug."

    The API was operating as designed: when a friend lists a new email address, my address book is updated to reflect it. That's normal behavior.

    The "bug" in this case was Facebook's decision to modify their users' contact info without permission. The API is not to blame here.

    • Re:Bug? (Score:4, Funny)

      by zlives ( 2009072 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:20PM (#40534041)

      +1

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. Highly unethical. They have no business changing data under user control. At least here (Switzerland) it may actually be a criminal act to do so without asking permission ("Datenbeschaedigung").

      At the same time, it was also utterly incompetent, because you do no change important data on devices you do not control without being extremely careful. As in making backups.

      • You could conceivably ask for deportation of Mark Zuckerberg from the US to compensate for Julian Assange, you know, if need arises.

    • It seems a bit disingenuous to call this a "bug."

      The API was operating as designed: when a friend lists a new email address, my address book is updated to reflect it. That's normal behavior.

      I can't quite tell if you're being a bit sarcastic. What happened was that the API overwrote the current email in the phones' address books with the most recently email added to the Facebook contact.

      In the majority of cases, those who allowed their Blackberry, Android, iOS6 beta and Windows Phone 8 beta phones to sync their contacts with Facebook, have had the originally stored email addresses overwritten. The lucky ones had their contacts duplicated - with the new ones containing the @facebook email addresses.

      It's plausible to me that they intended the API to add the new email instead of overwriting, so this could be a bug.

      • Bugs do not "happen" when you have a supposed active userbase of 10% of 7 billion people.
        Coders first test ANYTHING major in a contained lab environment. Then they stage this. Eventually they roll out to maybe a tech team or two within the company. When happy, they roll out country by country. Don't believe me? Remember when EVERYONE wanted Google Buzz but you had to wait your turn for this update to reach your particular account? Irrelevant? then remember that Facebook timeline itself was slowly rolled out

        • What you say (in the first paragraph) makes sense. I would very much hope that FB does as much or more debugging and testing as other tech companies. But as much as I suspect FB of being insidious, I find it hard to believe they would knowingly release code which would irrevocably erase/overwrite users' contacts email addresses. They would basically have to be as cynical and sociopathic as traders at Goldman Sachs, which I suppose is entirely possible.

        • If a billion users have to call FB at the same time to discuss what has happened to their address books, this will mean FB will have to hire a bunch of support people, at least temporarily to handle the support load. We should be thanking FB for making such a unique contribution to the US jobs situation.

    • Re:Bug? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:50PM (#40534419) Homepage

      The "bug" in this case was Facebook's decision to modify their users' contact info without permission.

      Nonsense. You gave them persmission when you enabled "syncing". Only a fool would allow an advertising agency with which they have no contract to not only run unaudited software on a computer containing their only copy of important data but also permit that software write access to the data.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bruno.fatia ( 989391 )

        You do realize that same sentence could apply to Google with Android OS? Only that they do have full root control on your phone.

        PS: I do use an Android phone with sync to Google servers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rich0 ( 548339 )

        You could say that it was a bad design to not give phone owners control over WHICH email addresses Facebook could update.

        That is the problem with accept-or-don't-install permission systems. You end up with either not using an app at all, or giving it access to modify anything in your contacts. Why not have an in-between setting like - allow the app to add info to contacts and modify the info it adds, but not touch what is already there? Then when the app asks for unconditional access give the user the ab

    • Agreed. This is not a bug. It is an unintended consequence of the choices they made. The API is syncing as you would expect. When an email address changes, it updates to change to the new address. What FB didn't realize was that when they defaulted everyone's email address to their own, that when their sync occurs, it would do exactly what they had expected it to do. Someone just didn't think that this would cause a problem when it trickled down.

    • The "bug" in this case was Facebook's decision to modify their users' contact info without permission. The API is not to blame here.

      You're close.

      Facebook simply thought with the fantastic services they offer everyone would be delighted that they would be able to use facebook for their e-mail needs as well. The bug was that they didn't realise that there are a few, probably just a highly vocal minority of their users, that doesn't consider Facebook the be-all and end-all for their communications.

      And personally, I'm still hoping for a viable competitor to rise.

  • The real issue is with permissions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sabri ( 584428 ) * on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:19PM (#40534039)
    While a lot of people (and trolls) will bash Facebook and its coders, the real issue here is the broken permissions system on Android and Iphone.

    When you install an application such as Facebook, you are forced to grant more permissions than is good for you, opening up your phone for bugs like this. Those permission systems should be fixed (as well as the bug).

    • Re:The real issue is with permissions (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bbecker23 ( 1917560 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:27PM (#40534141)
      Permissions Denied has always worked well for me in limiting unwanted permissions. Admittedly, a third-party app shouldn't be needed for this, but solutions are out there.

      https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stericson.permissions&hl=en

      • Re:The real issue is with permissions (Score:4, Informative)

        by mlts ( 1038732 ) * on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:43PM (#40534311)

        On Android, I would recommend LBE Privacy Guard (requires root) to ensure FB keeps its sticky fingers out of the contacts.

        On iOS, it requires jailbreaking, but there is a Cydia app called PMP or Protect My Privacy which will allow FB to have what it thinks is a contact list... when in reality, it is getting randomly generated garbage.

        Either way, FB gets nothing that it shouldn't have if you know what you are doing.

        • Re:The real issue is with permissions (Score:4, Informative)

          by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:49PM (#40534409)

          On iOS, rather than jailbreaking, you can just wait until later this month when iOS 6 comes out, since it has built-in controls for granting/restricting each application's access to your contacts.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

            And iOS 6 builds the Facebook apps into iOS [go.com], so you won't be able to remove it OR deny it access to your contact information, because it will literally be part of Contacts.app!

            Wait, shit.

            • Aside from iOS 6 having Facebook integration, none of what you said is true.

              The Facebook integration iOS 6 is adding is like the Twitter integration they added in iOS 5. You can log in from one place in your global settings, and then share content from a number of places throughout the device. The device will be pulling your friends from Facebook and making them visible in your Contacts app, but that information isn't flowing the other way by default, meaning that Facebook doesn't get free access to your co

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      While a lot of people (and trolls) will bash Facebook and its coders, the real issue here is the broken permissions system on Android and Iphone.

      No. Not really. Whenever you want to change date under user control you a) ask them first and b) be very, very careful, and make a full backup of the old data. At least any halfway competent developer or sysadmin knows that. True, most screw-ups have multiple causes, as does this. But the fact remains that Facebook demonstrated extreme incompetence and complete disregard for their users here, and they did if motivated by greed. That is completely unacceptable.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rich0 ( 548339 )

        Well, the argument used to be that good applications have idle loops that yield and are deigned to not hang in event handlers.

        Then somebody came along and built pre-emptive multitasking and process separation into the OS, so that we can run systems with more than three applications on them and not have to reboot the thing every 20 minutes.

        Buggy apps are bad. Poor OS design is worse.

    • Re:The real issue is with permissions (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Trepidity ( 597 ) <delirium-slashdotNO@SPAMhackish.org> on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:30PM (#40534181)

      In this case I don't think that's the underlying problem: even if it were opt-in, a lot of users would opt in to syncing email addresses, because in the normal case that's what they want. If a friend leaves company A and goes to company B, updating the address in your phone is convenient. What's less convenient is Facebook changing their email address when the old one was still valid and the friend didn't actually remove it...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rich0 ( 548339 )

        True, but the defect in this case is not having sufficient privilege granularity. A user should be able to grant access to Facebook to add info to contacts and modify the info it maintains, but require explicit approval to modify content that is managed elsewhere. All-or-nothing isn't the right solution.

    • While a lot of people (and trolls) will bash Facebook and its coders, the real issue here is the broken permissions system on Android and Iphone.

      The only iPhone users affected are the ones running the beta iOS6 who enabled Facebook integration.

      I'm glad this happened now - it will likely mean Facebook won't have carte blanche access throughout iOS 6.

    • I was quite surprise when using the FB app on my Nokia Belle (Symbian^3) phone, to discover that my phone's contacts' photos had been populated from FB. I don't recall giving permission for this app to access my phone's address book. I certainly hope that the data goes only one-way (i.e from FB to phonebook, and not phonebook to FB). :-/

    • When you install an application such as Facebook, you are forced to grant more permissions than is good for you

      Well, maybe. I've noted that for two apps that do the same thing there may be wildly varying scope of permissions. Also, nobody is forcing you to grant those permissions. You can instead not use the facebook App. Since my only Android device runs 2.1 (I know, I know) the facebook app just opens my browser anyway, and that interface is fucking awful but it does work.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Rich0 ( 548339 )

        Or, maybe there is a choice other than using an application with a suboptimal experience, or using a lousy interface?

        I use LBE Privacy Guard. It blocks most of the more intrusive application behaviors but still lets me use the applications (unlike alternative implementations like CyanogenMod's, which usually just crashes the applications and the people who add it insist that you shouldn't be using it anyway).

        Take-it-or-leave-it is a lousy design, and it is an unnecessary one. When displaying the user a li

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MacDork ( 560499 )

      the real issue here is the broken permissions system on Android and Iphone.

      I don't have an app permission system on my desktop, yet it gets along just fine. The real issue is the real issue: Lousy quality control. Some PHB decided to make a change in business rules without evaluating/testing the impact it would have across their product line.

  • Wow, thanks (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Georules ( 655379 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:21PM (#40534063)
    Thanks for the heads-up. I promptly uninstalled the facebook app from my phone. I have way too many email addresses in my contacts that I can't afford to lose. My contacts aren't just my contacts on my phone, I use those contacts for gmail. Facebook is going to have to find a really good reason for me to care to reinstall the app.
    • I uninstalled FB from my phone as much as I could a year or so ago. I specifically went out of my way to disable check-ins and the like as much as I could, yet I noticed that every time I fired up the FB app, it would engage my gps for a good 30 seconds. So I uninstalled all the updates, logged out, and now use the mobile web interface if I need to. Yeah I still use FB, but I don't really trust them at all.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rich0 ( 548339 )

        Use LBE Privacy Guard. You can control individual permissions like location detection and such. Don't ask Facebook to not check in - just block its access to the location API.

  • Thanks Google (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bazald ( 886779 ) <bazald&zenipex,com> on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:23PM (#40534095) Homepage

    For the first time, I appreciate your API changes which broke direct contact synchronization through the Facebook app.

  • Incompetents (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:24PM (#40534105)

    That is why you do not change data under your user's control, without a) giving them a warning and ask them to opt-in and b) making backups. Any halfway competent software engineer or system administrator knows that. Apparently, Facebook does not have such people and is still half-assing it. These people are really a disgrace.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dan541 ( 1032000 )

      Any halfway competent software engineer or system administrator knows that.

      But does Marketing know that?

  • Demand a refund. (Score:4, Funny)

    by vlm ( 69642 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:25PM (#40534115)

    I think they should demand a refund of their subscription fee.

  • the bizarre part of FB (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Here's the really bizarre thing.

    Of my FB using friends (eg most of them), about 80% claim to hate Facebook. Yet, they continue to use it. It's like abused-wife syndrome or something. They all go on and on about how it sucks, but they keep going back to him because maybe this time he won't hit me.

    It looks to me surely like they are insane. I seem to do just fine iwthout using Facebook at all. I still have a social life, I still interact with my friends online, I still chat w/ ppl and email them, I still

    • Re:the bizarre part of FB (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cant_get_a_good_nick ( 172131 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:31PM (#40534191)

      It s not that Facebook is cool, it's that social networking is cool, and there is no other realistic alternative. If I (collective I, I personally don't use facebook) have something to share to a group, Facebook is the simplest and the widest audience.

      • I don't get what's cool about it either... really. Most of these social networks are collections of people you would never actually socialise with in person even if you could.

        It's like the yearbook club has taken over the school.

        If it wasn't so ridiculous I'd think it was a Buffy episode and any moment now we'll get the big reveal where Fuckerberg is doing blood magic to get signups.

    • They all go on and on about how it sucks, but they keep going back to him because maybe this time he won't hit me.

      You don't understand. Facebook is going through a really tough time, what with the IPO going so bad and the stock price tanking. It's been really tough for Facebook, he's under a lot of stress. I mean, sure's he's done this kind of thing before, but that was a long time ago, when he was younger. He's more mature now, and got himself listed on a proper stock exchange. I'm sure things will settle down in the future. He loves me you know, much more than MySpace or Google+ ever did. He even told me he co

  • Not entirely a FB bug, phone software is the prob (Score:3)

    by Jthon ( 595383 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:35PM (#40534245)

    The Facebook bug here is that if you ask Facebook for someone's email, it was returning the last one added which was that stupid @facebook.com email. But why was the phone deleting contact info and replacing it? If your only source of contact data for a person was their Facebook email then yeah I can see that swapping, but why isn't the phone keeping Facebook, and other contact info separate?

    My phone shouldn't see Facebook info change, then go and delete the work email from my Google contacts, or phone contact. If these phones are doing that I'd argue you have a phone SW bug. I wouldn't want any random sync service to suddenly override my manually entered contact data.

    As for people complaining about work emails being swapped, why do you sync work emails via facebook? You should have that entered into a separate place. My Android phone is smart enough to keep google contacts and facebook contacts separate, and merge the accounts for display purposes. (And my old Palm Pre back in the day did an even better job of this.)

  • Make yourselves useful for once - go after Facebook. I, for one, will be cheering you on.

  • blessing in disguise? (Score:3)

    by Eponymous Hero ( 2090636 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @04:55PM (#40534513)
    it looks to me like this might already be fixed (at least if they're rolling out in stages i got a fix update it seems) and better yet all my contacts synced from FB have their email addresses reverted back to their real addresses and not that shit @facebook.com address. maybe this "glitch" was some real damage control for that email address fiasco?
  • Since you have access to a phone's contacts: I'm surprised you didn't skim phones for them, and add them as friends automatically.

  • I bought an HTC Amaze 4G (aka Ruby?) from Wind Mobile in Canada and it had a Facebook app on it. Which was always running. When I killed the app and the service, it would come back, restarted by HTC Sense I suppose.

    The app's permissions were... everything. And I couldn't uninstall it.

    I hooked it up to my computer, set to "Internet Pass-through" and ran tcpdump - no sign of "phoning home". Back to the store for a return. I called HTC and told them why.

    But, after a couple more weeks of research (phoneless), I bought it again (the only phone I really liked) with the intention of rooting and removing FB app.

    Before I could though, I added a contact's phone & email. They later sent me an SMS and ... the contact had a photo. WTF?!? How'd that happen?

    Turns out it was the photo from that person's FB account. So the app did phone home, probably dumping all my contacts to the mothership. It certainly sent back my new contact's email and/or phone number.

    I'm still considering filing a complaint with Canada's Privacy Commissioner.

    Meanwhile ICS has been pushed out, so I set that app's data bandwidth cap to zero. Guess I'd better root the thing sooner rather than later.

  • With apologies to Arthur C Clarke ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @09:11PM (#40537119) Journal
    ... sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
  • Email deletes you!

  • It happened to me. I was pissed.

  • I had an android and made the mistake to install Facebook.
    It was so friendly to add my phone number to my profile within seconds. Thanks. That is one more bit of information that will never be deleted from the FB database.
    My apologies to everybody in my contact list that are also registered at FB now because of my stupid action. I should have known better...

    I'm so sorry :(

Slashdot Top Deals

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. -- Bengamin Disraeli

Close