fb-sleep-stats: Using Facebook to track your friends' sleep

A small tool to show the potential privacy implications modern social media have. By tracking online/offline status of people on Facebook, it is possible to get an accurate image of their sleep pattern.

Read the blog post: https://medium.com/@sqrendk/how-you-can-use-facebook-to-track-your-friends-sleeping-habits-505ace7fffb6

Installation

Prerequisites

• Git (how to install)
• Node.js (how to install)

Clone repository

git clone https://github.com/sqren/fb-sleep-stats.git

Configuration

Open the source code folder:

cd fb-sleep-stats

Copy the default config file:

cp config/default.json config/development.json

Update the following values in config/development.json

• "c_user": your numeric Facebook user id
• "xs": xs value from Facebook cookie
• "appId": Facebook App Id

Make sure there are no trailing tabs or spaces in the config file!

Install dependencies

npm install

Build browser dependencies

npm run webpack

Starting

You need to have two processes running simultaniously: the scraper and the webserver. Therefore, you must run the following two commands in separate windows/tabs.

Start scraping

This will run continously, polling Facebook every 10 minutes. Keep it running for as long as you want to track sleep.

npm run scrape

Start server

npm start

See the result in the browser: http://localhost:3000

#Troubleshooting

I get an error when running "npm run webpack"

Try re-installing the node-modules:

rm -rf node_modules
npm install
npm run webpack

No users show up

• If you have an ad-blocker, you must disable it for the site.
• You need to run npm run scrape and keep it running. When you stop it, it will stop tracking.

Changes to development.json are not picked up

• You have to run npm run webpack

How do I update to the latest version?

After pulling the latest version, you must rebuild the dependencies:

git pull
rm -rf node_modules
npm install
npm run webpack

ReferenceError: Promise is not defined

Update Node.js to the latest stable version of the branch you are on (v5.7.1, v4.3.2 or v0.12.11). After that rebuild dependencies:

rm -rf node_modules
npm install
npm run webpack

Cannot parse config file

Your config file contains invalid json. Find the errors by using a tool like http://jsonlint.com/

Where is the data stored?

You can find the data in JSON-format here: src/server/services/db.json.

Other issues

If you encounter a bug or have a problem, please go to Issues and use the search functionality, in case someone else already asked the question. If you can't find anything helpful you are very welcome to create a new issue

Disclaimer

Facebook reached out to me and informed me, that it is against their terms to access their website by automated means. Additionally I am not allowed to urge anyone to do so. Therefore: I urge you to use this project for educational purpose only, and not use it to access Facebook.