100 million Facebook profiles compiled and made public

An online security consultant has compiled information from the profiles of 100 million Facebook users and published it in a database downloadable and searchable by anyone online.

Ron Bowes, who blogs at Skull Security, used information that Facebook users had set to "public" and therefore, was already available to anyone who tried to search for it. The news has generated a lot of attention and alarmed many who use the popular social networking site, which hit 500 million users this summer.