Strange Facebook Friend Suggestions
— Facebook, Tracking, Surveilance, Weird — 1 min read
Facebook just suggested a bunch of “People You May Know” to me and usually I can figure out where the suggestions come from (mutual friends, school, work and recently phone book contacts, which I quickly disabled)
But today, it was different. I had apparently nothing in common with any of the suggestions.
When looking at each of the profiles to try and figure out a link, I noticed a bit of a pattern with some of the locations of the people, so started writing them down and adding them to a map.
Sure enough, I was right. The majority of the locations were destinations on some of my usual train commutes (trains on the East Coast from Glasgow to London Kings Cross).
![A map showing correlation of stops and train stations on the East Coast line in the United Kingdom](/static/c0503c4cf95de91a371ba8b40648eaaa/8d234/fb.png)
Could Facebook be suggesting friends based on sharing train wifi? Can iOS apps see the SSID you’re connected to? Could it be based on GPS location + time?
Weird, Facebook. Really weird.