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privacy

Facebook Could Be Fine For Holding Data Deleted By Users

October 21, 2011

Facebook could face a fine of upto to €100,000 (£87,000) after an Austrian law student discovered the social networking site held 1,200 pages of personal data about him, much of which he had deleted.

Max Schrems, 24, after attending a lecture by a Facebook executive while on an exchange programme at Santa Cara University, California, decided to ask Facebook for a copy of his data.

Schrems was shocked to find messages and information that he believes were deleted from his profile, in the the CD he received from Facebook. The CD also contatined data of rejected friend requests, incidences where he “defriended” someone, log of all Facebook chats he had, as well as names of all the people he “poked”. It also contained a list of photos he had detagged of himself, events he had attend, and those he hadn’t replied to, and much more.

He decided to log a list of 22 separate complaints with the Irish data protection commissioner, after discovering that European users are administered by the Irish Facebook subsidiary.

A spokeswoman for the commissioner confirmed its officers would be investigating alleged breaches raised by Schremas as part of the first audit to be carried out new week. If the commissioner decides to prosecute, and if Facebook or any employees are found guilty of data protection breaches, the maximum penalty is a fine of €100,000.

Schrems has also set up a campaigning website to encourage others to follow his lead.

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Facebook Publishes It’s official “Guide To Facebook Security” For Users.

August 21, 2011

Facebook on Thursday released the official “Guide to Facebook Security”, aiming to educate Facebook users to keep their Facebook accounts safe. The guide comes in a PDF format and can be easily downloaded from Facebook Safety Center here: www.facebook.com/safety

The 20-page guide co-authored by security experts Linda McCarthy and Keith Watson Denise Weldon-Siviy, an editor and teacher. It explains how users can:
• Protect their Facebook account
• Avoid scammers
• Configure advanced security settings
• Recover a hacked Facebook account
• Stop imposters

Facebook which has over 750 million users accross the globe, its privacy and security is of crucial important. There are many personal information that people share in this platform. If users aren’t acquainted with privacy-protection and security practices, then they will be exposing their identity to scammers and fraudulent people.

The guide offers some top tips for staying safe online:
• Only befriend people you know.
• Create good password.
• Change pasword frequently and never share to others.
• Share your personal information only to trusted people and sites.
• Only download apps from sites you trust.
• Keep your anti-virus software update.
• Log into Facebook only once each session.
• Logging out of Facebook when you are not using.
• Beware of enticing links coming from your Friends.

Security on Facebook is both a shared responsibilty between Facebook and the people using this platform. It is worth looking at this ‘Guide to Facebook Security’ and make your world of social networking secure and protected.

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Anonymous Threaten To kill Facebook On November 5 Over Privacy Policy

August 10, 2011

article 2024449 0D60E01B00000578 581 634x325 Anonymous Threaten To kill Facebook On November 5 Over Privacy Policy

Members of Anonymous have adopted the Guy Fawkes masks used in V for Vendetta. They said it will “kill” Facebook on Nov 5.

A hacking group Anonymous has allegedly said it will destroy Facebook on November 5, 2011 (Guy Fawkes Day), the anniversary of the failed 1650 Gunpowder plot to blow up the English parliament and assassinate James I. They alleged Facebook of misusing its privacy policy.

The threat is conveyed in a video posted on YouTube on July 16. The video claim that Facebook has been selling user information to government agencies and giving it to security firms so they can spy on people.”Kill Facebook for the sake of your own privacy,” according to the message on the video. But one of the scariest quotes from Anonymous’ message is when they stated: “This is our world now”.

Facebook declined to comment on the alleged Anonymous plot but the site has repeatedly said in the past that it doesn’t sell information with any third parties that the user hasn’t approved.

One of the most common tactics of the anonymous group is launching distributed denial-of-service attacks which involves multiple people using scripts to repeatedly access a website, slowing it badly pr shutting it down if its servers can’t handle the traffic. However, Anonymous did not specify how they plan to disrupt Facebook.

But it appears that everyone who is part of Anonymous isn’t up for attacking Facebook. Eugene Kaspersky, co-founder and CEO of Kaspersky Lab and a security expert, wrote “The news around #Anonymous to attack #Facebook on Nov 5 most probably is fake”. It is loosely organized with no clear leadership structure.

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Facebook Create Page To Educate Users About Instant Personalization

December 21, 2010

In a bid to educate and address concerns at the same time, Facebook created a page and video for the instant Personalization program.

Okay!! But what is this instant Personalization thing?

Here is what Facebook says about instant Personalization:

“Just as your News Feed on Facebook is built uniquely for you, instant personalisation sites let you easily bring your friends and interests with you.”

That means, whenever you visit any partner site that offer instant personalization, the sites will be more personalized. For example, on visiting rottentomatoes.com you will see movies that your friends like, rated, and your friends movie reviews etc.

In order to clear the air that Instant personalization feature does not share private data with third-party websites without consent, Facebook says:

“Partners adhere to Facebook’s guidelines and may only use your public information to serve you a personalized experience. Public information includes your name, profile picture, gender, networks, and other information shared with everyone.

When you first arrive on a participating site, you will see a notification and a way to turn off the customized experience in one click. Your information can only be used to present you with a more personalized experience and cannot be transferred to advertisers or used for any other purposes.”

You can either turn off instant Personalization from a particular partner site or you can turn off instant Personalization totally (from all partner sites) by unchecking the “Enable instant personalization on partner websites” option from your Applications, games and websites’ privacy settings.

Visit the instant Personalization program page to know more about it.

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Facebook Users Dupe By Rubber Duck's Friend Request

December 7, 2009

Despite repeated warnings and advices to stay alert keep personal data in private on social-networking sites, Facebook users are still very much laid backed when it comes to security.

IT security vendor, Sophos, created two falsely named accounts – using anagrams of the words “false identity” and “stolen identity”, for its research.

One of them, Daisy Feletin (21, single), was represented by a picture of a rubber duck toy and the other, Dinette Stonily (56, married), with two cats lying on a rug. Each of them sent out friend request to 100 randomly-selected contacts in their age group. After two weeks, 46% accepted Daisy Feletin while 41% accepted Dinette Stonily plus 8 users befriended Dinette on thier own.

Once connected, the fake profiles were able to access a significant amount of personal information from their new friends: 89% birthdays, 100% emails, 46% of their friends and family data.

“Ten years ago, getting access to this sort of detail would probably have taken a con-artist or an identify thief several weeks, and have required the on-the-spot services of a private investigator. Sadly, these days, many social networkers are handing over their life story on a plate,” according to Sophos on its blog.

Take 30 minutes and keep your information safe, don’t feel burdened or stress to check out the Facebook Privacy Settings, or at least keep the must have privacy settings in place to keep yourself safe.

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