topic Re: Newish Data Mining Attempts on FB in Electronics

Newish Data Mining Attempts on FB

Moonchilde — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 14:04:16 GMT

I just saw what I presume to be a new (to me) data mining (and GOK what else) scheme. There was a news story trending on FB that I investigated. There were many public comments, but several were cut & pasted on various pinup/hot chick type FB pages - identical content in very poor (as in non native speaking) English but with plain American/English names, i.e. Like a poorly executed phishing email. I would assume clicking on those pages would do Bad Things in lots of ways. Oh and they all had prominent options to Like the pages (where legit pages did not). Beware! Maybe this specific type of malware has been on FB for a while but I'm on every day, often click on the Trending subjects, and I've never seen it. Jerks.

Re: Newish Data Mining Attempts on FB

2blonde — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 14:48:53 GMT

They're always finding new ways to get us. I'm sure there will be a few who will click on it.

Re: Newish Data Mining Attempts on FB

ChynnaBlue — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 15:04:54 GMT

I don't know what you mean by "clicking on those pages." Are you saying clicking on the suspicious poster's Facebook page, or clicking on a link to a page outside of Facebook that the poster included in the post?

You can safely click on a person's name and visit his or her Facebook page, even if the person or post seems suspicious. Clicking a link someone posts to take you to a site outside of Facebook is another story. If you see this, you can click the top right corner of the comment and get a pulldown menu that will let you report the comment as spam. When I see those comments, I report them. (Same with the "I work from home and make $1,800 a week by...." links.)

Re: Newish Data Mining Attempts on FB

millieshops — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 15:41:12 GMT

I don't even click on links here in this forum! Had a virus from here years ago. Once burned, twice shy.

Re: Newish Data Mining Attempts on FB

Moonchilde — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 16:07:44 GMT

Interestingly, the whole topic disappeared from Trending right after I posted about this on my own (very private) FB page. It was #1-2 Trending for 15+ minutes and then poof. I wonder if FB poofed it.

What I was describing were supposedly legit FB pages, but I was not going to go there. The posts were clearly some bizarre c&p mass posting that stuck out in the Trending posts like a sore thumb because they were supposedly different, unconnected people, not at all the usual 'forwarded from' thing everyone does on FB. Creepy obvious.

Re: Newish Data Mining Attempts on FB

GCR18 — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 21:41:08 GMT

I don't click on links in FB and only click like on statements friends make.

Re: Newish Data Mining Attempts on FB

qbetzforreal — Sat, 26 Mar 2016 01:18:19 GMT

@ChynnaBlue wrote:
I don't know what you mean by "clicking on those pages." Are you saying clicking on the suspicious poster's Facebook page, or clicking on a link to a page outside of Facebook that the poster included in the post?

You can safely click on a person's name and visit his or her Facebook page, even if the person or post seems suspicious. Clicking a link someone posts to take you to a site outside of Facebook is another story. If you see this, you can click the top right corner of the comment and get a pulldown menu that will let you report the comment as spam. When I see those comments, I report them. (Same with the "I work from home and make $1,800 a week by...." links.)

The OP is not talking someone's actual FB wall but those "suggestions" off to the right of your News Feed. They're usually ads, or groups,

Re: Newish Data Mining Attempts on FB

qbetzforreal — Sat, 26 Mar 2016 01:19:19 GMT

@Moonchilde wrote:
I just saw what I presume to be a new (to me) data mining (and GOK what else) scheme. There was a news story trending on FB that I investigated. There were many public comments, but several were cut & pasted on various pinup/hot chick type FB pages - identical content in very poor (as in non native speaking) English but with plain American/English names, i.e. Like a poorly executed phishing email. I would assume clicking on those pages would do Bad Things in lots of ways. Oh and they all had prominent options to Like the pages (where legit pages did not). Beware! Maybe this specific type of malware has been on FB for a while but I'm on every day, often click on the Trending subjects, and I've never seen it. Jerks.

I've seen those.

Re: Newish Data Mining Attempts on FB

Moonchilde — Sat, 26 Mar 2016 02:22:39 GMT

@qbetzforreal wrote:
@ChynnaBlue wrote:
I don't know what you mean by "clicking on those pages." Are you saying clicking on the suspicious poster's Facebook page, or clicking on a link to a page outside of Facebook that the poster included in the post?

You can safely click on a person's name and visit his or her Facebook page, even if the person or post seems suspicious. Clicking a link someone posts to take you to a site outside of Facebook is another story. If you see this, you can click the top right corner of the comment and get a pulldown menu that will let you report the comment as spam. When I see those comments, I report them. (Same with the "I work from home and make $1,800 a week by...." links.)
The OP is not talking someone's actual FB wall but those "suggestions" off to the right of your News Feed. They're usually ads, or groups,

Not the ads, but the area at the very top right that says "Trending" and you can click on the topic. Once you click on the topic you can see the public FB page posts people have made about that topic. It's usually TV/radio/newspapers and individuals. These c&p things were three different posts almost in order from different women, identical and not "forwarded" from one to another. It read like a mass form letter that these sites were using hoping to get people to visit their page, but not for any legit purpose. The whole topic disappeared completely within 15 min. of me noticing it in #1, #2 spot. Never just went down the list, off/on, up/down as topics usually do. Almost like FB got rid of it all. And hasn't been back either.