Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’
Lockdown or Death for Your FaceBook Profile An Advanced User Guide to Social Networking Privacy
If you’re sick and tired of FaceBook’s continual encroachment on your privacy, here’s how to lock it down like a SuperMax prison or give it the Death Penalty.
I finally decided after all of FaceBook’s continual invasions on my personal privacy by sharing data to people and services which I don’t want — and by being completely irresponsible and untrustworthy in terms of computer security — that it was time to lock down my profile and minimize my exposure, while still allowing select people to interact with me on my user Profile.
With FaceBook, this is a very difficult thing to be able to balance, and I’m still not 100 percent sure that I wouldn’t be served by destroying my profile and leaving the service altogether, but I believe that for the time being, I’ve been able to create some sort of “miserable medium” that I can tolerate.
The User Scenario
FaceBook is an extremely complicated and confusing online service to use, with lots of settings that are needed to secure a profile and prevent undesired dissemination of information. Because I no longer trust the service whatsoever, I’ve created a “How-To” for the advanced user for locking down their profile and minimizing their risk
Keep in mind that this Lockdown I created is an extremely draconian method — nobody will be able to share your information or your statuses, you will not have any personally identifying information unless you absolutely chose to, and only the most essential applications will be authorized.
The user for which I have in mind is someone who is extremely concerned about their personal privacy and security, but also may wish to have people contact them via a brand or a business or some other following they maintain.
In this case I created this “Secure FaceBook Systems Architecture” to suit my own personal needs, in order to be able to interact with essential friends and business contacts in my personal profile, but also to allow anyone to interact with me in relation to my two blogs, Tech Broiler and Off The Broiler.
This requires groups of people to be compartmentalized and thus two separate profiles have to be maintained: Your secure personal profile, and also a Public Fan Page. Additionally, this method also provides the ability for centralized Status Updates to both the personal profile and the Fan Page via Twitter, using automatic RSS synchronization.
For those who do not require that level of complexity and only need to maintain a single profile, you can omit the phases for Twitter/Blog Update integration and Fan Page creation.
Australian Woman Sacked For Comment on Facebook
An Australian woman has been sacked from her job after she posted a “heat-of-the-moment” comment about a co-worker on social networking site Facebook, a media report said Sunday.
Twentytwo-year-old Caz Marshall from Adelaide was dismissed last month from her checkout job at a supermarket.
“Had I wrote it on the staff room wall or on the (Facebook) walls of everybody who works in that store to single this person out, yes, that would be different.
“But the fact it was a private conversation between me and another girl from work… it wasn’t even intended for the person I was writing about to read it,” Adelaide Now quoted Marshall as saying.
She said she removed the comment the next day but by that time it had been shown to store management.
Marshall said she was called to a meeting where she was shown her “six months’ worth” of Facebook posts. She was then sacked.
“I just feel like I could have been given another chance, I don’t feel like I necessarily had to be fired,” she told the Sunday Mail.
Marshall said she was now thinking of using Facebook only for positive comments.
She warned others to stay offline when angry: “Don’t go near the computer, don’t go near Facebook.”
Marshall said she regretted posting the comments.
“It was anger, it was frustration, this girl – she was my friend and she was hurting. You’re sticking up for someone, you want to make them feel better, to let her know that she wasn’t alone.
“It wasn’t something that I would normally do. It was done in the heat of the moment and the threat was not something I would carry out – it’s not in my character,” she was quoted as saying.
Samsung Officially Launches the Monte
Samsung Electronics has officially launched the Monte (GT – S5620).
The Monte combines a smooth curvy design with the intuitive TouchWiz 2.0 Plus User interface and features a suite of social network applications including Facebook and MySpace, allowing users to access their profiles whenever and wherever they choose. The phone comes with a Multi Instant Chat Messenger a universal Instant Messenger. In addition Monte users can enjoy full internet browsing, with an accelerometer sensor allowing the onscreen image to automatically adjust as you rotate the phone.
Users of Samsung Monte can push their e-mail, calendar, and contacts from their Google accounts to their phone through Google Active Sync technology. The phone is also equipped with navigation features with GPS supported by Google Latitude with a built-in version of the most advanced Google Maps Version 3.0. With this GPS support users will always know where they are and can keep their friends updated on their location at all times. With a Geo-tagging capability, users can imprint their photos with geographic tags to share their experiences with friends.
The Samsung Monte is a future ready phone with hi speed connectivity features like 3G and Wi-fi and comes with a 220MB internal memory which is expandable upto 16GB .
The phone offers a touch experience with a 3.0-inch WQVGA LCD screen and advanced imaging features like smile shot, panorama shot, photo slide show and image motion view with a 3.2-mega pixel camera. The phone also supports 3D sound effects. In addition, the handset features an embedded music search service, Find Music, which allows users to identify their favorite bands and download music direct to their phone – which they can listen to at any time using a host of enhanced multimedia features. For convenience, the phone also supports Smart Unlock and One finger zoom.
the Samsung Monte also offers users access to richer content through customized software applications developed by Samsung Electronics. The application store is hosted on Samsung Fun Club, and users can download a variety of content which range from Maps on Mobile, Mobile shopping experience, Cricket and to social network communities. Users can also read newspapers in 9 Indian languages through specialized software.
Samsung Monte is attractively priced at Rs 12,390.
Tweets Can Spell Trouble in Divorce Cases
Anu Sharma, 30, suspected that her husband was lying to her every time he cited urgent business tours to stay out of the house. One day she finally got proof in the form of a tweet. The next day, she filed for divorce, using the tweet as evidence.
When it comes to fighting a divorce case, tweets are not necessarily sweet. Your status message on social networking websites can even be used as secondary evidence in court cases.
Legal experts say tweets and messages on social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut can reveal one’s state of mind; therefore they can be taken as secondary evidence in legal matters. This clause comes under the IT Act of 2000, amended in October last year.
Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court lawyer, said: “The IT Act of 2000 was primarily legislation promoting e-commerce and the concept of social networking was not even heard of then. Thus, this clause was incorporated because of the widespread use of microblogging and social networking sites.”
“This trend is catching up now, specially in divorce cases, although it started only last year,” Duggal told IANS.
Citing Anu Sharma’s example, Duggal said: “Her husband used to give her excuses that he was going out on business tours. But instead he would meet friends and socialise. Finally, he was caught when on one of his ‘so called’ business tours, he tweeted: ‘Having a great time with friends over beer, I am in town, come over and join me.’
“Tweets and status messages are usually taken up as secondary evidence. And they are as important as the primary ones,” Duggal told IANS.
He said even an angry tweet or status message like, “I hate my wife”, if produced in court as a printout or screen shot becomes secondary evidence.
“Any written word available in the public domain can be used under this Act. A statement like this can be used on grounds of mental cruelty,” added Duggal.
Agreed Karnika Seth, attorney at law firm Seth Associates who specialises in cyber crime.
“There are couples who are filing for divorce on reasons which could not have been proved before, but with tweets and status message updating several times a day, it works as additional evidence, often making adultery easy to prove,” Seth told IANS.
She also added that many people used to hire private detectives, but this had become a new way of finding the truth.
“In one such case, a man had e-mailed threatening messages to his wife. His IP address could be traced, but the message was not digitally signed, thus the messages were taken as a secondary evidence and a divorce case was filed.”
Seth said a numeric address or domain name given to a website to track it is called IP address. Digital signatures are specially designed icons or even one’s original sign encrypted on the e-mails are the two criteria on the basis of which primary or secondary evidence is distinguished.
According to her, blogs and chat messages can also be used as evidence.
As the clause is only a few months old, no specific statistics is available yet on how many people have used tweets or status messages in legal matters.
Maninder Walia, researcher with the website Cybersmart, feels the act curbs people’s freedom of speech and thoughts.
“The idea behind this act is to control the ever expanding cyber crime which is a threat to national security. But when it comes to freedom of speech and thoughts, this act may be a hindrance,” he said.
Walia feels if a person writes on his or her status message about drinking a lot or something similar, this could also be presented as evidence tagging him or her as an alcoholic in court.
He feels social networking sites are easy interaction platforms, hence things written as tweets, status messages in good humour or otherwise should not be put under the scanner.
“The law needs to pinpoint what kind of information should be used as evidence and in what cases. The act should be reviewed; the internet is moving fast, the law should not lag behind technology,” he said.
Facebook Board Member Hacked, Friends Phished
Facebook seems to be growing less secure by the month.
Is the Facebook mammoth finally toppling over? Recent news points to a crippling stance in reputation, including a flaw that allows users to view one of their friend’s live chat window, and an analysis reporting that Facebook users are actually looking for ways to delete their account. Now a Facebook board member is coming under fire after a hacker gained access to his account and spammed friends with phishing scams.
The phishing event, a scam called FBDigits that has targeted Facebook users since April 20, took place Saturday evening and involved over 2,300 friends on Jim Breyer’s list. A message was sent from his account, asking “Would you like a Facebook phone number?” The scam claims to be an app that offers “revolutionary phone software that integrates into Facebook Chat.” It supposedly allows users to make free phone calls and text messages from within Facebook.
Naturally, that’s not the case. “This was a phishing scam and Jim’s account appears to have been compromised,” said Larry Yu, a Facebook spokesman, late Sunday. “The issue has since been resolved and we’re actively trying to block this activity.” The company also released a formal statement Monday morning, saying that Facebook needs the help of its users to combat the growing threats. But as fears of privacy and security issues grow, Facebook may find itself spiraling downhill as users flock to other social networking solutions.
“We take security very seriously and have devoted significant resources towards helping our users protect their accounts,” Facebook said. Breyer, who is a partner at Accel Partners, has not made a formal statement, nor has he answered questions regarding the breach.