Facebook security

I've been using Facebook more often lately, almost everyday. And yet as I tried to sign in yesterday it's telling that I need to verify my account. It doesn't make sense really. The reason given is that I'm signing in from an unfamiliar location. Wow, so Facebook keeps track of from where I sign in and I actually have to sign in from the same place all the time? Please.

Besides, I've been signing in from the exact same location for the last few days and yet there was no problem. Now I'm thinking maybe it's some sort of phishing attempt. I feel so uncomfortable going through this step. Just one more reason to hate dislike Facebook. Below is the message I get after entering my email and password.

You are signing in from an unfamiliar location. For your security, please verify your account. This check prevents others from accessing your account without your permission. If your password is stolen through a phishing site, for example, this step keeps your account safe. You will not be prompted every time. For additional information please see http://www.facebook.com/security.

I still don't understand how entering my birth date will help Facebook know that it's really me. Seriously! My birthday is displayed on my profile, it's practically public information. If somebody is really trying to break into my account and made it pass the username/password that person most likely will have my birth date. I hate strongly dislike Facebook I wish my friends were not on there.

What Facebook does with your deleted photos

Remember my Facebook Horror Story? Today I read an article on Yahoo Tech where Christopher Null explains how the photos you delete from your online pages don't get deleted. Of course if you are one of my beloved readers that's not news to you.

I've actually reused my deleted Facebook profile picture. What happened is I wanted to add many new friends and I wanted them to recognize me when they received my invite. Guess what I did? Since I didn't have a photo with me I simply went on my deleted facebook photo's address, downloaded it and uploaded it to Facebook again. If you read the Yahoo tech article you'll notice that the author claims the sites would keep your deleted content only for a few days or weeks, in my case the photo was still available at the old address after a few months. Keep in mind that this was a photo that should not have been public in the first place.

Facebook Horror Story

Or, What Happens to your photos once you post them on Facebook.

So you have a Facebook profile and you enjoy reading daily updates from your friends and browsing their photo albums. You also enjoy posting your own photos and updating your status. It's fun and safe, you think, because after all, you use the privacy settings to not show your profile in search results and all your photos are accessible to your friends only. You feel in complete control of everything that you've added to Facebook so far.

But do you realize that simply by posting your photo on Facebook you grant the site the right to reuse that Photo for any purpose they please. Yes, they can use your private photos anytime anywhere because you grant them that right. You don't believe me? Read this directly from their Terms of Use:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

No big deal, you think, because after all you can delete your photos on Facebook can't you? In fact you can't. You can't delete your account either. Still don't believe me? More from the Terms:

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

So as you just read, even when you delete something from Facebook it remains there indefinitely. Even though they say that the license you granted theme expires ask yourself this: if they did not intend to reuse your content why would they keep it?

You might be thinking it's no big deal because you're not famous. The fact is it may not bother you now but who knows in 2, 5, 10, 20 years what will you think of it?

And this is not even the horror story I promised. Nope, I have my very own your-content-is-ours-and-we-keep-it-forever story with Facebook.

So here I am, a reluctant but long time hi5 user now on Facebook where many of my hi5 friends seem to have migrated. I added just one picture so my long lost classmates can recognize me when I send them friend requests. You can read my first impressions from using Facebook then come back to read the rest of this story.

One day, a friend sent me an invite to install an application. Actually the application used my friend's details to send me an invite to install it. While in one of those confusing pages where you choose what type of access to grant the application I see a Facebook-like button telling me I have one message. Thinking the message was from the application I clicked.



I know I should have been more careful but I would have never guessed that Facebook allowed ads with buttons that look exactly like the ones on the site. Truly, it's the most misleading ads I've ever seen. Anyway, I clicked then it happened. I saw myself on a site I had never heard of. The site had my Facebook profile photo and my public details. I was horrified. How to remove myself from this site? HOW!!! I tried and tried and just wouldn't find anything. This site that I shall not name, wanted me to think that they had imported my Facebook details to it and created a profile for me. I'll call the site, the Site Without a Name, SWN for short.

After investigating a little I realized that in fact what happened is even scarier. This 'SWN' was 'reading' my Facebook information from my browser session. Don't ask me how I don't know, maybe it's some sort of spyware. What it does is as long as your logged into Facebook it shows your profile picture and any public info you have available. Which means, if you Log out of Facebook and go on SWN site, it no longer shows your so-called profile but tells you that the site is 'Not open to you'. And it shows you an add for a Facebook application (I wonder if I can report this application and have it banned from Facebook?). As soon as you click on the ad it sends you to what looks like a Facebook login page (you can never be 100% sure these days) so you can login and proceed to install the application.

In a moment of panic, I deleted my profile photo. Hoping that it would no longer show up on the SWN profile page. Since they take the information from Facebook that should certainly solve the problem since the photo is no longer there, right? Wrong! Remember what you read earlier about Facebook keeping your content indefinitely. You see, each photo you add has a unique address and it is that address that the SWN site uses. When you delete the photo from your profile, it simply does not show up in your profile but its address remains the same. Since the SWN site knows your photo's address, it can reuse it at will even when it does not show up in your profile.

But the horror doesn't stop here. As I was getting used to my faceless profile, looking at what my friends where doing and just browsing around on Facebook. The most horrifying thing that ever happened to me on a social network happened. Keep in ming that I've tried many social networks and I'm active in quite a few, Friendster, hi5, Orkut, Myspace, WAYN, Mash(R.I.P.), 360 and I'm probably forgetting a few. As I was browsing and went back to the home page it was there... The photo that I had deleted. How? Where? When? I have not idea. I hadn't reupload it but it was there starring at me. Facebook was asking me to crop it. I was so stunt that I just didn't do anything. What happened can anybody tell me?

For a moment I wanted to set it back as my profile picture, yet I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if I simply clicked 'close' (Close what? I have no idea. Facebook is one of the most confusing sites I've even used). So I did it, closed and was back to my picture-less profile.

So now it's official, I think Facebook is dangerous.

Read more of my experiences with Facebook:
Facebook, second impression
Facebook - First impression

Why I might be using Facebook more often

I recently found a long lost penpal on Facebook. When I say penfriend, I mean the traditional snail mail penfriend. Bahadir and I used to write letters to each other until the day when my letter was sent back to me. It's been nearly 10 years, and thanks to Facebook we are able to be in touch again. It's really amazing.

Facebook, second impression

Facebook - First impression

I know why so many people love Facebook so much, one word "applications". Think of Facebook as a computer with only the operating system. There isn't too much you can do with that but start installing programs, according to your needs, and there's a whole lot you can use your computer for. It's the same, almost, for Facebook. It offers basic social networking features. You can add your photo, have your very own profile page, invite your friends to join your network and send them messages but there's more. Facebook offers the possibility to build applications that will run on Facebook and will do whatever tasks they were designed for.

I didn't realize how big a deal Facebook applications were until I created my blueNile wish list and was offered the option to add it to Facebook. As long as you're logged into both sites, all you have to do is go through a few easy steps and voilà! Your shiny wish list shows up on your Facebook profile page. It might seem like no big deal for you but I would like to see you try and add that same wish list to your blog for instance, or to your profile on Orkut, hi5 or Friendster.

The last time I tried adding a wish list to Orkut, it allowed me to add the url but every time I tried viewing it from within Orkut it kept sending me to the store's homepage. If you are an online seller you probably should make a Facebook application that allows your customers not only to add their wish list to their profile, but also shows off the items they've purchased from you. By the way, did you know that Facebook used to be called theFacebook?

Facebook me!

Related Posts
Facebook - First impression
Friendster, Hi5 and Orkut+
The geography of social networking sites
Perfspot - Yet Another Social Networking Site
Meeting People Online part I

Facebook - First impression

Facebook, second impression

I've recieved a few Facebook invites from friends with whom I chat on msn. Facebook is the social networking site that everyone is talking about right now. You would think the process of joining the site would be easy. On contrary, they have not one but two captcha words that you have to try to read in spite of the heavy distortion - don't forget to wear your reading glasses -. It confuses the Education level field with the full name field. I type in my full name and complete the form but when I try to submit I'm told that I must enter my full name. I recheck and retype only to get the same message again only after the third attempt do I realize that it's not my full name I did not provide but rather my level of education. I select one and voila. Maybe someday I'll actually like Facebook but that day has not arrived yet.


Related Posts
Friendster, Hi5 and Orkut+
The geography of social networking sites
Perfspot - Yet Another Social Networking Site
Meeting People Online part I