 Welcome to News Desk on SiliconANGLE TV for Thursday, October 25th, 2012. I'm Kristen Folletti. Once again, Facebook is in the public eye about privacy, but what's the one thing Facebook doesn't want to share? Also, why doesn't Australia trust Huawei? Here to answer these questions, we're now joined by SiliconANGLE contributing editor John Casaretto. Welcome, John. Good morning. A blogger by the name of Bogo, who hosts a technology blog, recently posted that he was able to purchase more than one million Facebook entries containing full name, email, and Facebook profile URL for the bargain price of just five U.S. dollars. The availability of this list raises some questions about Facebook user privacy and Facebook's handle on its vast amount of data. How do we know this information is legitimate, John? Well, according to the offer in what Bogo is reporting, what was included in the list was collected through a bunch of Facebook apps. And the list is regularly updated, and they try to eliminate duplicates and invalid emails. And unfortunately, I mean, the situation is that there's a lot of nefarious operators out there that have ways of collecting information and releasing apps and getting people to volunteer their information. It's a bit of social engineering, if you will, not all that different from Facebook itself. So it's interesting that they put a collection together like this and are offering it for sale for that cheap. Why was the list available for purchase, and who would have access to the Facebook information to create such a list? Well, you know, quite often what people don't realize is that when they install applications and they install the Facebook apps or they, you know, thumbs up and like something or a video app, you're sure you've seen those, they give away quite a bit of information. They agree to share information, they agree to let applications post to their wall, if you will. You know, a bunch of things like that happen. So again, there's a market out there for these kinds of things, not really a black market per se, but there are internet marketers and things like that that are willing to pay for, you know, position, the ability to spread their message, you know, pretty easily and kind of cheap that way to get their products, whatever it may be out there in front of the people. Someone from the Facebook Policy Department contacted Bogo. Their conversation was recorded and the Facebook official asked that Bogo not share the information about their conversation in his profile or blog. The Facebook authority also asked that Bogo send the file he acquired to Facebook and to delete any evidence of it he may have. He was also asked to hand over website transaction information from the website he purchased the list from. Bogo agreed to hand over the data and asked what action Facebook would take next, but Facebook replied saying it would be an internal legal investigation and that they would not share any information with third parties. So why would Facebook want to keep this information quiet? Well, Facebook has a history of privacy issues and privacy concerns in the public forum. So that's something that they definitely want to keep a handle on and kind of keep suppressed if they can. If it's a major issue, if there's been a violation of their terms of service, it's something they definitely would want to isolate and make sure, you know, got the minimum publicity altogether. Bogo also asked if it was possible to tell what the problem was after they finished the investigation so that users could protect themselves and he was met with the same reply. Do you think Facebook was aware that this data was being so easily accessible? Yeah, I think the nature of the data is probably something that they're aware of that there are, you know, people that are writing apps that collect information. I think that probably possibly if there was anything that would be a surprise to be the fact that it was being sold openly in such a way and particularly at such a rate and apparently rather publicly so. What kind of action do you think Facebook should take to rectify the privacy leak? You know, that's a good question. I think they'll try to find a source of this potentially shut down the whoever has written the applications, at least lock them out for a period of time and slap on the hand and make sure that this information is of something that's being sold as openly as it is for the purposes that it is. I mean partnerships are one thing, you know, I'll share my list with you, you know, you're a partner, but just kind of openly selling the people's information like that, their emails and all the information they could possibly gather, that's a pretty big violation of privacy. And I think that Facebook is that's why they're looking into this and taking this quite seriously. Should users be concerned that their privacy is out there and available? What can we do to protect ourselves as users again, express caution that you install the minimum number of apps that you can, you know, express caution in installing, you know, different things that have access to your page, what you're giving up, you know, just stick with the trusted names would be the most the biggest thing. But, you know, Facebook is all about your information. It's all your information out there. So you give that up when you when you come to the site, your information is already there. It's just a matter of controlling what you do with that information and how openly you engage with that. So that'd probably be the biggest thing. The Chinese telecom business Huawei has offered to give Australia unrestricted access to its software source code and equipment in an attempt to diffuse speculation that it might be a security threat. Questions have been raised about the company's ties to the military, something it has denied. Where did these questions originate from? Well, there's been a history of Wale in the market out there. You know, they're a telecom giant. They're a huge competitor to Cisco worldwide. They haven't had a lot of traction here in the U.S. And that's because of a bunch of actions that Cisco and other telecom manufacturers have put forward to try to stop, to stem the tide of Huawei's influence. They are a very cutthroat, low price manufacturer of a network and telecom gear. They've been accused of a number of things from, you know, cyber espionage, corporate espionage, building things with, you know, blatantly copied code to, you know, utilizing, you know, China's infrastructure to build low cost, you know, undercutting basically manufacturers here. So, you know, there's a pretty rich history of those kinds of things. And also probably the biggest thing in the focus of the story would be, you know, the fact that, you know, Huawei, any Chinese company is has to be really kind of reviewed to see how closely they are tied to the Chinese government. There is no Chinese company that is not under the influence of the state, per se, in any way, shape or form. It's just a matter of how closely they suspect that they might be tied to that. And with network equipment, it can be pretty critical. Why is Huawei now giving access to Australia? Well, they were denied a couple of years ago a major contract to help build some rollout national infrastructure there. Again, this is coming to play over and over repeated stories from across the world, and particularly here as well. The fact that there's a lot of suspicion of Huawei's intent. There's a talk of code that, you know, has a backdoor that could open the door to espionage when you're talking about critical core infrastructure. You know, it's a big deal. The endpoint is one thing. Cheap hardware on your desk is one thing. But when you're talking about core pieces of infrastructure on the Internet for a banking institution, for, you know, defense contractor, you know, those kind of things, you know, they bear some some review and that's what they've been the big issue here. Huawei said it needed to dispel myths and misinformation. They're taking a collaborative approach with Australian authorities to resolve any miscommunication. What else are they doing to work with Australia? Well, there's been some proposals that have been put forward to basically work collaboratively and create a cyber evaluation center to test equipment to look at those kinds of things. And I think that's kind of where we're going with this. We're always going with this and opening up, you know, their code and opening up their access to their source code and all their equipment, everything that they have. To try to assuage some of those concerns. In your opinion, what else does Huawei need to do to gain the trust of Australia and other countries? Well, yeah, I think that this is a good first step. I think that, you know, really kind of building a history and taking those those baby steps into, you know, a position where it's trusted to get some wind stories. I mean, they could certainly, you know, start to turn a lot of this around. And I think that, you know, it's something that it continues. It's kind of this this theory of working together with countries and being open. And I think this is a step in the right way. Well, John, thanks so much for your time. And it was great to have you on. Thank you very much. And remember, you can follow the news of the day and get the latest breaking analysis here at Newsdesk on SiliconANGLE TV.