A new potential security problem with Facebook

I dont know if anyone else has seen this but Facebook users should be aware…

Facebook says that developers of Facebook apps can now gather personal contact information from their users.

If I read it correctly it seems like you’d have to take special action to enable the options and if most users don’t have a clue they won’t know how to do that?

Well they obviously have not had the reaction they expected as ‘Facebook suspends personal data-sharing feature’ according to this article in The Register.

Stuart

There’s an awful lot of viral mis-information on Facebook. People read something, interpret it incorrectly, post a message saying how awful it is and it spreads like wildfire. Everyone wants to believe bad news. I’ve corrected a few people that I’ve seen posting incorrect stuff, but the good news never travels.

I see the same at work…someone gets an email reporting the latest greatest virus (actually a 10 year old hoax virus) and it’s round a thousand users in next to no time. My message telling people it’s a hoax takes days to be read (if it’s read at all).

I do not really understand why people go on facebook, what is the attraction? to me any organization like that holds allmighty risks, identity theft for one, surely if you have friends then you know where they are and how to contact them, so why tell the whole world who your friends are and what you are talking about? I know there are risks with anything in cyberspace but to me facebook is asking for trouble, how many poor kids have been groomed on there by perverts?

Geoff

My daughter is a Facebook addict. We have ensured that the only ones who can see her posts are her “friends” and my wife monitors her page daily. Most of the conversations are the same girl talk that has been going on for generations before on the phone. Same stuff - different technology. The big difference is now instead of talking to one person at a time, she can potentially talk to all at once. It is quite busy on snow days when school is out and they are trapped in the house.

My facebook is only re-posts of the weather tweets once an hour. The reason for both accounts is a service in case anyone wants weather updates. Currently there are about 50 or so “friends” who are receiving these posts. I never post anything else. It is funny when I check out the posts of others that show up on my site. Many times I feel like one of those “stalkers” secretly peering into the lives of others. :hiding:

Call me cynical but I think they were 99% sure that they would get the reaction that they did. Facebook is a business, and that entire business is based on making money off the personal information that users have kindly donated to them. Look at the history, they are continually pushing the privacy envelope past the point where they get busted, retreat a little, and then try it again in a slightly different direction.

To be little OT but in same category…
Don’t to forget all the iPhooones & co, what share whatever they want to whoever they want trought the apps, or what data say Apple collects from the users without asking for it and then share forward, nobody knows, and almost no-one care…Secure, yep

That’s why I dont have an Iphone… :wink: :wink:

Stuart