Facebook Security Weakness Discovered on Blog24

Facebook Security Weakness Discovered

Posted by Chris
On May 01, 2008
Categories: Social Networks, Web

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The BBC’s technology programme Click has exposed a security flaw in the social networking site Facebook which could compromise privacy.

BBC Exposes Facebook Flaw

This BBC report claims to expose the security problem even though it is noted in the Facebook Terms and Conditions, as Spencer Kelly mentions in his report.

Is the BBC overreacting? This report ought to make people think more about their online safety and that is a good thing.

Facebook is great — BUT

Facebook makes sharing photos and messages with family or a group of friends really easy. It has proved to be popular for this reason. Unfortunately Facebook also makes it easy for new, often pointless, applications to be added. While the idea of users to be able to add to the Facebook experience with their apps is commendable the reality is less so. While Facebook may be aware of security issues caused by unscrupulous app developers there seems to be little done about the quality of the application that are being added to the social networking site.

The result is a vast array of meaningless games and features that clog the Facebook system. All too often these apps require many invites in order ‘work’, thus promoting, and doubtlessly gathering more user data, through Facebook’ user base. It not until you have invited so many fellow Facebook users that you realise just how truly ~~shit~~ worthless many Facebook applications are.

With over 70 million users worldwide increasing by 250,000 a day Facebook ought to make those users more aware of the security issues that social networking presents.

I do feel that BBC report may cause some people to overreact, perhaps even delete their accounts.

My advice to Facebook users is to check the privacy options, these are found via a link at the top of your Facebook page.

Next, consider the quality and long-term usefulness of the applications they choose to invite their contacts to use. Just how many wall-type apps do you need?

A slightly off topic tip is to share internet content using the ‘Share on Facebook’ bookmarklet. This can be found on your ‘My Posted Items’ page [see image on the right] — more information about Posted Items can be found on Facebook. It is a lot easier than finding and posting pictures and videos via the aforementioned Wall apps. It is a lot faster too.

For security tips Click, the BBC programme responsible for the video report have also created a useful list

Click’s Facebook security advice
If you are worried about Click’s investigation into the potential risk of identity theft by third-party applications on Facebook (1 May, 2008), here is our advice.

Photo of Facebook HQ by pshab.

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