Facebook Leaks IP Addresses (Binary Intelligence)

[Drew Wilson]

Facebook has nice email notifications whenever a friend comments on your status, sends you a message, or a variety of other reasons. The emails have subjects similar to "John Doe commented on your wall post." The unfortunate thing is that this email also appears to contain John Doe's (or your other friend's) IP address.

The email headers contain a line similar to:
X-Facebook: from zuckmail ([MTAuMzAuNDcuMjAw])

Copy this line out and feed it to this page:
http://www.myiptest.com/staticpages/index.php/trace-email-sender

You will get the IP address of your friend and clicking on it will get a geolocation-based map. This will also show you if your friend used their cell phone to post and who they use as their service provider.

This information is great when a fugitive is taunting law enforcement through their Facebook page, but not when a wife is trying to hide from an abusive husband and assumes Facebook is the best form of communication.

More... (http://www.binint.com/2010/05/facebook-leaks-ip-addresses.html)

I love how throughout the school semesters, people were begging me to get on Facebook. Be it through projects, keeping in touch, etc. I told them, "Just e-mail me" and it was as if I was asking for the moon.

While I recognize e-mail is a very limited way of keeping some things private, but at least my whole life to every intricate last detail isn't on there.

[Signa]

Unless you are a celebrity, there is little advantage to using Facebook over an IM program or standard email. You don't need to collect friends or post shit on a wall to keep in touch with your friends.

[carpefile]

I hate to subject myself to the label of "Facebook Fanboi" but EVERY email has originating ip information in the header data, which you can plug into that page you posted and receive the same locational info from. So those emails you want everyone to communicate with you through instead of facebook reveal exactly the same thing.

Btw, facebook has fixed this, and in less than 24 hr.s from when the blog posted it.
"Update: It looks like Facebook fixed the default behavior of the sent emails. Your IP Address is no longer included in the notification emails. I will give Facebook credit that they solved this in less than 24 hours."

I admit I love facebook, I find it to be far easier and more efficient than im or email to keep up with friends, particularly with group activity events. Stuff like class reunions, local band gigs, bbqs, etc.

Its all in how you configure your privacy settings. You have complete control over how much or little information is shared and with who, provided you take the time to actually set the parameters in the options made available to you.