Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Data Extract

December 10, 2011, by Seth Hettena. 0 Comments

ikoni

Publicly available information extracted from Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page via Graph API

{
“zuck”: {
“id”: “4″,
“name”: “Mark Zuckerberg”,
“first_name”: “Mark”,
“last_name”: “Zuckerberg”,
“link”: “https://www.facebook.com/zuck”,
“username”: “zuck”,
“birthday”: “05/14/1984″,
“hometown”: {
“id”: “105506396148790″,
“name”: “Dobbs Ferry, New York”
},
“location”: {
“id”: “104022926303756″,
“name”: “Palo Alto, California”
},
“bio”: “I’m trying to make the world a more open place.”,
“quotes”: “\”Fortune favors the bold.\”\r\n- Virgil, Aeneid X.284\r\n\r\n\”All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once you grow up.\” \r\n- Pablo Picasso\r\n\r\n\”Make things as simple as possible but no simpler.\”\r\n- Albert Einstein”,
“work”: [
{
"employer": {
"id": "20531316728",
"name": "Facebook"
},
"location": {
"id": "104022926303756",
"name": "Palo Alto, California"
},
"position": {
"id": "142979352398617",
"name": "Founder and CEO"
},
"description": "Making the world more open and connected.",
"start_date": "2004-02"
}
],
“sports”: [
{
"id": "105650876136555",
"name": "Tennis"
},
{
"id": "112597985421493",
"name": "Fencing"
}
],
“favorite_teams”: [
{
"id": "116174408393207",
"name": "Yankees"
}
],
“education”: [
{
"school": {
"id": "108366532520435",
"name": "Phillips Exeter Academy"
},
"year": {
"id": "194878617211512",
"name": "2002"
},
"concentration": [
{
"id": "103111709729108",
"name": "Classics"
}
],
“type”: “High School”
},
{
“school”: {
“id”: “107668489256529″,
“name”: “Ardsley High School”
},
“year”: {
“id”: “143018465715205″,
“name”: “2000″
},
“type”: “High School”
},
{
“school”: {
“id”: “105930651606″,
“name”: “Harvard University”
},
“year”: {
“id”: “113125125403208″,
“name”: “2004″
},
“concentration”: [
{
"id": "104076956295773",
"name": "Computer Science"
}
],
“type”: “College”
}
],
“gender”: “male”,
“locale”: “en_US”,
“languages”: [
{
"id": "106059522759137",
"name": "English"
},
{
"id": "103088979730830",
"name": "Mandarin Chinese"
}
],
“updated_time”: “2011-12-07T23:45:34+0000″
}
}

What Facebook Knows About You

December 10, 2011, by Seth Hettena. 0 Comments

What Facebook knows about you everytime you visit:

  • Your IP address
  • Your location via GPS
  • The type of browser you use
  • The webpages you visit
  • When and where you took the photos or videos you post

Anyone, including people off of Facebook, can see the following information about you:

  • Name
  • Profile photo
  • Your network
  • Your username

With your username, someone can find out:

  • Your age range
  • Your location
  • Your gender

If you don’t care about your Facebook privacy then carry on

November 29, 2011, by Seth Hettena. 0 Comments


Update: “Mr Zuckerberg’s latest mea culpa is unlikely to be his last,” The Economist

Facebook settled with the Federal Trade Commission today, admitting that its repeated assurances to its 500 million users that it would puyour private information in a secure little box were lies. Mark Zuckerberg calls them “mistakes.”

I’m posting this because this news might well be overshadowed by a well-timed leak to The Wall Street Journal that Facebook is hoping for a $100 billion initial public offering later this year.

The FTC complaint lists a number of instances in which Facebook allegedly made promises that it did not keep:

  • In December 2009, Facebook changed its website so certain information that users may have designated as private – such as their Friends List – was made public. They didn’t warn users that this change was coming, or get their approval in advance.
  • Facebook represented that third-party apps that users’ installed would have access only to user information that they needed to operate. In fact, the apps could access nearly all of users’ personal data – data the apps didn’t need.
  • Facebook told users they could restrict sharing of data to limited audiences – for example with “Friends Only.” In fact, selecting “Friends Only” did not prevent their information from being shared with third-party applications their friends used.
  • Facebook had a “Verified Apps” program & claimed it certified the security of participating apps. It didn’t.
  • Facebook promised users that it would not share their personal information with advertisers. It did.
  • Facebook claimed that when users deactivated or deleted their accounts, their photos and videos would be inaccessible. But Facebook allowed access to the content, even after users had deactivated or deleted their accounts.
  • Facebook claimed that it complied with the U.S.- EU Safe Harbor Framework that governs data transfer between the U.S. and the European Union. It didn’t.

Carry on!

 

Great Quotes

October 26, 2011, by Seth Hettena. 0 Comments

It is utterly impossible, as this country has demonstrated again and again, for the rich to save as much as they have been trying to save, and save anything that is worth saving. They can save idle factories and useless railroad coaches; they can save empty office buildings and closed banks; they can save paper evidences of foreign loans; but as a class they can not save anything that is worth saving, above and beyond the amount that is made profitable by the increase of consumer buying. It is for the interests of the well to do – to protect them from the results of their own folly – that we should take from them a sufficient amount of their surplus to enable consumers to consume and business to operate at a profit. This is not “soaking the rich”; it is saving the rich. Incidentally, it is the only way to assure them the serenity and security which they do not have at the present moment

- 1933 Senate testimony of Mariner Eccles, later first chairman of Federal Reserve.

via the excellent London Banker

Brent “The Enigma” Wilkes Continues to Drain Taxpayers

October 25, 2011, by Seth Hettena. 0 Comments

Another Winning Hand for "The Enigma"

It’s been a long time since we heard from Brent “The Enigma” Wilkes. But the Enigma is back, baby!

Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Wilkes a new hearing in his case in San Diego federal court.

Wilkes, you may recall, was the sleazy defense contractor at the center of the Randy “Duke” Cunningham bribery trial. Cunningham steered defense contracts to Wilkes, who used the money to live high on the hog. He was poker buddies with Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, once the No. 3 guy at the CIA.

In 2008, Wilkes was convicted of bribing Cunningham with prostitutes and other goodies and sentenced to 12 years prison. By all rights, he should be there. But Wilkes, the master manipulator, continues to game the system.

The 9th Circuit allowed Wilkes to go free on bond pending his appeal. While Cunningham, Foggo and others do time, Wilkes runs around playing poker at San Diego casinos (where he goes by the nickname “The Enigma”). Meanwhile, his taxpayer-funded attorneys bombard federal prosecutors with reams of paper on his behalf. What a fucking waste.

Now it looks like the legal maneuvering by Team Enigma will drag into a fourth year. Your taxpayer dollars bought Wilkes more time because The Enigma’s lawyers argued successfully that the judge presided over Wilkes jury trial failed to read the minds of the judges 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The trial judge, Larry Burns, declined to grant immunity to one of the government’s witnesses that Wilkes wanted to call for his defense. According to the 9th Circuit, this was a no-no because Burns failed to apply the 9th Circuit’s holding in a separate, unrelated case that was decided after Burns made his ruling. Wow. Just wow.

All of Wilkes other arguments were brushed aside, including one that I found particularly interesting: Why was Cunningham never called to testify. According to prosecutors, “one of the reasons the Government did not call Cunningham at trial was because prosecutors did not trust him to refrain from fabricating testimony that he believed would help the prosecution (and thus enhance his chances for a reduced sentence).”

 

Great Opening Lines

October 12, 2011, by Seth Hettena. 0 Comments

“When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon”

~James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss

RIP Steve Jobs

October 6, 2011, by Seth Hettena. 0 Comments

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Text of Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford University.

Awlaki FBI FOIA Request

October 4, 2011, by Seth Hettena. 0 Comments

October 4, 2011

David M. Hardy
Section Chief, Record/Information Dissemination Section
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Attn: FOI/PA Request
170 Marcel Drive
Winchester, VA 22602-4843

Dear Mr. Hardy:

This letter constitutes a request (“Request”) pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. subsection 552.

I am requesting a copy of all records or information concerning ANWAR AL-AWLAKI (aka Anwar al-Aulaqi).

Mr. Awlaki was born in 1971 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was killed in Yemen on Sept. 30, 2011, according to a statement President Barack Obama made the same day. I trust the attached statement of the president will serve as the proof of death you require for this request.

Awlaki was a leader in al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and was one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. He was the subject of numerous investigations by the FBI for more than a decade.

If you deny all or any part of this request, please cite each specific exemption you think justifies your refusal to release the information and notify me of appeal procedures available under the law. I expect you to release all segregable portions of otherwise exempt material.

I look forward to your reply to this Request within twenty (20) business days as required by 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(6)(A)(i).

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Seth Hettena

Some of you may have heard…

October 3, 2011, by Seth Hettena. 0 Comments

that I’ve taken up boxing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anwar al-Awlaki’s Death

September 30, 2011, by Seth Hettena. 1 Comment

The US is announcing the death of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who moved to Yemen where he waged jihad against his former homeland. Assuming this is true — and not a repeat of what happened in 2009 when Awlaki was falsely reported as dead — it’s a major blow against one of al Qaida’s superstars.

What made Awlaki so dangerous wasn’t his so-called operational abilities, as the U.S. is now claiming, although no one is actually bothering to ask what that means. Awlaki was an intellectual, not a fighter. What made Awlaki so dangerous was his somewhat unique ability to inspire disaffected Muslims in the West to take up arms in the cause of jihad.

Awlaki may have rejected the West, but he knew how it worked. He spent many years here in San Diego and spoke both Arabic and English beautifully. Recordings of his sermons are very popular. He also knew how to use the Internet to reach people. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that U.S. counterterrorism officials started linking him to terrorism in the very same month that Awlaki started his now-defunct jihadist website.

What I always found fascinating about this so-called holy man got busted for prostitution twice in San Diego and was picked up by San Diego police for “hanging around a school.”  Maybe that’s why he needed his martyrdom, so he could wash his sins away. (I’ve written about him before here.  I also put together a comprehensive timeline.)

I won’t be shedding any tears for a man who plotted to kill Americans and praised the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan as a “hero.” But Awlaki wasn’t Osama bin Laden. He wasn’t an Iraqi insurgent or a Taliban trying to kill U.S. troops. Awlaki a U.S. citizen.

He knew his death would point out the hypocrisy of a country with a constitution that guarantees its citizens due process of law and then goes out and assassinates them in Yemen with a drone strike. He knew we would succumb to our fears.

Like it or not, he was one of our own.