February 9, 2013
Completely Hack Facebook News Feed Appearance
Are you the type that's not scared of trying out new stuffs? Do you think Facebook design is becoming too boring and not challenging the likes of Google Plus or Pinterest? Roll up your sleeves. Wonderful designers at Thinktek Studio just rolled out a new extension that alters some significant part of facebook. It's tagged NewGenBook 'Facebook the way it should've been'.
Once you have the extension installed and visit Facebook, you'll notice a considerable amount of change in the newsfeed. The top right menu where you have access to logout, change privacy settings and advertise have been moved to the left hand side close to the logo but the layout still maintains the same 3 column.
This extension is available for all major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari & Opera) except Internet Explorer and plan to release Iphone version is on the way, according to the developer.
You must note that this extension adds nothing to Facebook's functionality. It only re-arranges certain items and changed the overall look, the chat box design was also altered. The only part of the site that remains untouched so far is the fan page and timeline i.e. profile.
NB: If you noticed any discomfort after installing this extension while browsing you can remove and restore previous experience.
Categories:
Facebook,
Facebook Design,
Thinqtek
January 6, 2012
Worm compromises 45,000+ Facebook logins
Most of those affected by the worm--called Ramnit--are from France and the United Kingdom, according to a bulletin issued by security researchers at Securlet. It is capable of infecting Windows executables, Microsoft Office, and HTML files, according to McAfee.
"We suspect that the attackers behind Ramnit are using the stolen credentials to log-in to victims' Facebook accounts and to transmit malicious links to their friends, thereby magnifying the malware's spread even further," Securlet said in its bulletin. "In addition, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the fact that users tend to use the same password in various web-based services (Facebook, Gmail, Corporate SSL VPN, Outlook Web Access, etc.) to gain remote access to corporate networks."
The worm was first discovered in April 2010 stealing sensitive information such as stored FTP credentials and browser cookies. In August 2011, after malware developers borrowed source code from the Zeus botnet, Ramnit "went financial." With that added strength, Ramnit was able to "gain remote access to financial institutions, compromise online banking sessions and penetrate several corporate networks." Approximately 800,000 machines were infected between September 2011 and the end of the year.
The security researcher has notified Facebook and provided the social-networking giant with all the stolen credentials found on Ramnit's server.
October 18, 2011
Facebook Scam: FREE Starbucks $50 / $25 Tim Hortons Gift Card
This version says something along the lines of “FREE Starbucks $50 Gift Card” or “FREE $25 Tim Hortons Gift Card” followed by a link to a fraudulent website. It also has one of the following descriptions: “To celebrate our 40th Anniversary, we are giving away thousands of $50 Gift Vouchers FREE” or “To celebrate our birthday, we are giving away thousands of $25 Gift Vouchers FREE.”
I saw this scam start spreading over the weekend: some of my fellow Canadian friends were eager to get a free gift card to Tim Hortons (sometimes affectionately referred to as Timmies). Then the scam expanded to include Starbucks, which has locations both in Canada and the US.
Similar to previous Facebook scams, you need to share the link with your Facebook friends before proceeding. The webpage in question tells you this is necessary to get the free voucher.
The scammers’ goal is to drive more traffic towards certain sites. This is how the scammer earns his or her money: a commission for every survey completed, every product purchased, and/or every account compromised. They also use them to spread malware and obtain personal information.
As I've always said, if you see a scam like this one, report it. Then go check your own Wall to make sure you’re not spreading the scam; the sooner you clean it up and unlike the page, the better. You can even contact Facebook Security if you’d like to.
Categories:
Facebook,
Facebook scam,
Scammers,
Spam
October 14, 2011
Norton blocks Facebook as Phishing Site
The snafu meant that users of Norton Internet Security were blocked from accessing the social networking site and were told a "fraudulent web page" had been blocked, as illustrated in a discussion thread on Symantec's support forums here.
While wags might joke that Facebook is all about persuading punters to supply personal information to a website that ought not to be trusted, it's a bit of a stretch to even compare Zuckerberg's Reservation to a fraudulent banking site. Symantec responded to the problem within hours. From the looks of support forum postings affected users were left dazed and confused rather than seriously inconvenienced or aggrieved by the screw-up.
Security firms update their signature definition files to detect either rogue applications or questionable websites at increasing frequency in order to keep up with malware production rates. Plenty of effort is put into the quality assurance process across the industry but even so mistakes sometimes occur. False positives are a cross-industry problem that affects all vendors.
September 26, 2011
We don't track logged-out users, says Facebook
Nik Cubrilovic, concerned about Facebook's approach to privacy, said that logging out doesn’t make a blind bit of difference, adding that Facebook still has ways to potentially track your behavior.
Cubrilovic’s conclusion after examining the behavior of Facebook’s cookies is simple: “Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit.”
This is because instead of telling browsers to remove cookies when users log out, Facebook merely "alters" the state of those little parcels of data – including the cookie that stores your account number.
As a result, if you happen to pass by a page with a Facebook “like” button, "share" button, “or any other widget”, your information – including your account number – will be sent back to Facebook. And if you log into Facebook from a public terminal, those cookies could be left behind.
However, Facebook doesn’t agree. Whether or not Cubrilovic’s claim that he notified Facebook without response during 2010 is accurate, he certainly got a hair-trigger response from Facebook this time.
In a comment on Cubrilovic's blog, a Facebook engineer – identifying himself as staffer Gregg Stefancik – said that “our cookies aren’t used for tracking”, and that “most of the cookies you highlight have benign names and values”.
"Generally, unlike other major internet companies, we have no interest in tracking people," the insider added.
Categories:
Cookies,
Facebook,
Facebook privacy,
Privacy
September 23, 2011
How to remove the Facebook ticker
If you have checked Facebook recently, you have probably noticed a sidebar ticker has been added to the right-hand column of the newly redesigned News Feed, along with complaints and snarky comments about the new News Feed and this ticker. About the ticker, Facebook says:
Ticker, on the right-hand side of your account, lets you see all your friends' activity in real-time. When you hover over an item on ticker, you can see the full story and join the conversation as it happens. Ticker updates itself as stories happen. This gives you a more complete picture of what your friends are doing, right now.To my eye, this ticker needlessly busies the News Feed page. It's a Facebook news feed inside a Facebook news feed. It reminds me of the joke about there being so many Starbucks that the coffee giant started opening new Starbucks stores inside existing Starbucks stores.
Facebook doesn't allow you to close the ticker, stating:
You can't close ticker, but you can make it smaller by moving the horizontal bar between ticker and chat. Slide the bar up to hide ticker and make your chat list longer. Pull the bar down to show more of the ticker and hide chat.Thankfully, there are quick and easy ways in both Firefox and Chrome to get rid of the ticker.
In Chrome, simply install the Hide Facebook SideBar Ticker extension and the ticker will vanish.
In Firefox, you will need to install a user script. To do so, first install the Greasemonkey add-on and then install this user script. When prompted, restart Firefox and the ticker will be gone. Do note that this user script removes the entire right column of Facebook, including the ticker, event invitations, ads, sponsored stories, friends' photos, and so on.
Categories:
Facebook,
Facebook Ticker,
Facebook Tips,
Ticker
How To Enable Facebook Timeline Right Now
If you are impatient and want to experience the Facebook Timeline, you can turn it through the developer section of Facebook. The process is simple, takes a few minutes, and will require some patience as Facebook tidies up any lingering issues and bugs. Read on.
1. Visit the Facebook Developer page, and enable it for your account. If you aren't currently logged in, you will be required to do so.
2. The button to create a new app can be found in the top right corner of the Apps page. Make sure to give your app a display name and name space when requested (it doesn't matter what you enter here, no one will see this app, just make something up and continue). Accept the Platform Privacy agreement by checking the box. You will have to have a verified Facebook account, meaning you have either a credit card or phone number on file.
3. After the app has been named and terms accepted, you will then be taken to your shiny new apps' settings screen. You will see an Open Graph option on the left-hand side. Click on it.
4. You will need to define an action for your new app. You can enter whatever you like; no one is going to see this app when all is said and done, so don't fret too much over the details. (We entered "People can 'high five' a 'video'" as our action). Click on Get Started once you have entered your action.
5. Once you are presented with the screen above, you don't actually have to do anything, just scroll to the bottom and select Save Changes. You may have to do this on a couple different screens; just remember to scroll to the bottom and select Save Changes.
6. After you are taken back to the Dashboard for Open Graph, you have completed the setup process. Give it a few minutes, then go back to your Facebook home page. You should then see a big invite to enable Timeline. If you don't see it right away, give it a few minutes
That's it. Once you click on Get It Now, you will then be redirected to your new Timeline. Your Timeline is private, by default, for the time being. You can either edit it until you are ready to publish it, or you can ride it out and let Facebook publish it for you on September 29.
One more note: if you access your Facebook account from another computer, your Timeline is turned off. To get it back, enter the follow URL into your browser: http:www.facebook.com/[yourusername]?sk=timeline. Make sure to replace [yourusername] with your actual Facebook username.
Categories:
Developer,
F8,
Facebook,
Facebook Developer,
Facebook Timeline,
Timeline
September 15, 2011
Facebook Unveils Subscribe Button
Until now, users could only “friend” one another on Facebook. Starting today, they'll also be able to "subscribe" to each other thanks to a new setting that allows individual profiles to behave more like Facebook fan pages.
A user will have the option of adding a "subscribe" button to her profile to enable people who are not her friends to see her public updates in their News Feeds, rather than having to visit her profile page directly. She will receive a notification when someone has signed up to see her updates, and will have the option of controlling who can comment on and "like" her posts.
“Some people who post publicly have a public presence and want to interact with people beyond their friends,” Naomi Gleit, director of product at Facebook, said. “This allows them to reach people beyond their friends.”In a blog post, Facebook suggested that "journalists, artists and political figures" might take advantage of the new tool. “If you see a Subscribe button on your favorite blogger’s profile, this means you can subscribe. Just click the button to get their public updates right in your News Feed,” Facebook wrote.
Though it remains to be seen how -- and if -- users will take to this feature, the subscribe button appears to have the potential to shift the social dynamic on Facebook by changing how people connect and how they communicate.
Facebook etiquette may redefined as people are forced to decide whether it’s more appropriate to “friend” someone they just met or merely "subscribe" to him. Is it too forward to "friend" a boss instead of "subscribing" to her? Is it creepy to "subscribe" to a girl you just met? Will you be offended if a colleague chooses not to "subscribe" to you after you "subscribe" to her?
Facebook’s new feature marks yet another effort to encourage people to share more on the social networking site, this time by carving out a new space for individuals to post information to a far broader audience than their friends. It enables Facebook to function more like Twitter and suggests an effort to encourage public figures to update Facebook the same way they tweet -- frequently, publicly, with breaking news or short musings. If "subscriptions" catch on, could it change the nature of what people share on Facebook? Rather than primarily viewing it as a platform for communication among friends, some users that had seen Facebook as a place for personal updates could transition from sharing to broadcasting.
The subscribe button is also an attempt to improve the relevance of what Facebook users see in their News Feeds. Not only can it be used to sign up to see posts by non-friends, but it will also enable users to fine-tune what information appears about their friends.
The tab, which will be visible at the top of all friends’ profile pages under the heading "subscribed," lets users tell Facebook to show more, less, or the same amount of information about a person.
"Until now, it hasn’t been easy to choose exactly what you see in your News Feed. Maybe you don’t want to see every time your brother plays a game on Facebook, for example. Or maybe you’d like to see more stories from your best friends, and fewer from your coworkers," Facebook wrote. "With the Subscribed button, you can choose how much you see from them."Facebook wants the status updates it displays to be interesting -- people will not return to the site as frequently if they’re shown posts from people they care little about -- and the subscriber tool enables Facebook to receive feedback on whose updates it should or should not include. Selecting "all updates" from a dropdown menu will tell Facebook you are interested in “everything" a friend posts; choosing "most updates" indicates you’re pleased with the status quo; and picking “only important” will limit the updates you view to major events.
“We want to give people more control over what people see in their News Feeds,” Gleit said. “Facebook is growing quickly and people have more and more friends, but they care about different people more or less, and different stories more or less.”
Categories:
Facebook,
Facebook privacy,
Facebook sharing,
Facebook subscribe
September 5, 2011
Facebook deletes hacked Pages, ruins years of hard work
Businesses and individuals using Facebook Pages are getting booted off their fanpage with no way back on, and it's costing some of them money.
Typically, the administrator tries to access the Page, only to discover that someone else has managed to get admin privileges and then deleted their admin status.
Because they are no longer an admin of the Page, they have no standing with Facebook and no way of getting rid of the usurper and are usually told by the social network that the only option they have is to report it as "infringing or violating their rights" so that it will be deleted. But for many users, this is a difficult option to swallow after months, or even years, spent building up their fanbase.
Ali Naqvi, owner and director of 123vouchercodes.co.uk, lost his Page around three months ago at great cost to his business. He had 6,000
"We had 6,000 fans who were genuine followers interested in our updates and clicking away. The clicks brought in about 10 to 15 per cent traffic every month," he said. "My webpage does about 50,000 unique visits a month – it's not huge, but at the same time, whatever traffic is there, 10 to 15 per cent is a big chunk of that."
After months of trying to get help from Facebook, Naqvi has resorted to starting a new Page, but it's not a solution he's happy with.
"I've actually started a new Page already, but the take-up is slow," he said. "I spent two years building the 6,000 fan base and I've just started now so it's only a couple of hundred on there. It's not the same, it's not going to bring the same amount of traffic."
Many users believed that the original creator of the Page could never be removed as administrator, as stated in its own help pages, but Facebook denies this.
A Facebook spokesperson said that original administrators could be removed, adding that this had benefits for businesses because they could delete people who had left the company.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos Security, said this presented serious risks for businesses using Pages.
"I'm sure there are many people who run Facebook Pages who take the help page's word [on original creators] at face value, and believed it to be a safety net should anything ever go wrong. I certainly believed it to be true, which is why I was so surprised when I tested it for myself to find how simple it was to kick out the original admin," he said.
Without that safety net, someone outside the company could convince an administrator to give them access for marketing purposes or some other service and then take control of the Page, or any legitimate additional admins could have their computer hacked, resulting in everyone getting kicked off the Page, Cluley added.
"If you run a Page with a lot of fans that's a big problem – both for the fans (who might receive spam, malicious messages etc) and for your firm's brand," he said.
Other users who have lost their Pages have taken to the forums to vent their frustration at the lack of help from Facebook, and at the oft-quoted phrase from company that Pages "cannot be hacked".
The spokesperson also said that Facebook Pages could not be hacked and said the only way they could be taken over was if the email and password login were found out somehow, for example through phishing – which might be a little too much like splitting hairs for a lot of users.
"As long as the current administrators of a group keep their login details secure, keep their account enabled, and do not allow any suspicious people to become admins, then the group or Page will remain secure," Facebook said.
Naqvi said he had little interest in how his Page was hacked, but he wondered why, if a hacker had his Facebook login details, they hadn't taken over his profile along with his Page.
Facebook's spokesperson also said the site had a "host" of advanced tools to help people stay in control of their accounts, including login notifications, which let you save the devices you use to access your account, and "recent activity", where you can look at your recent activity and remotely close open sessions.
"Unfortunately, Facebook is not able to reinstate people as an admin for any group or page so, as always, we advise people to practice good online security," they said.
But Cluley said he didn't understand why it should be difficult for Facebook to reinstate original admins.
"After all, they presumably have a log of who originally created a page," he said. "Even if they aren't prepared to put in a system to do that – why can't they code Facebook to do what its help pages say it will do? Either block attempts to remove the original admin, or send a request to the original admin asking if they agree to be removed from their administrator role."That would surely help prevent hijacks like this one taking place.
Categories:
Administrator,
Facebook,
Facebook page hack,
Hacking,
Security
August 30, 2011
Facebook Introduces five new Privacy Tweaks
We've rounded up the most important new privacy options, including a few that Facebook had buried until now.
1. Approve tags before they're published.
Facebook finally lets you approve tagged photos and posts of you before they land on your profile. How many times has a friend tagged you in an unflattering photo? It's time to end these actions.
Go to Account > Privacy Settings and select Edit settings next to "How tags work." Then hit Edit next to Profile Review and you'll be prompted to turn on the settings. Now, every time someone tags you in a status, photo, or place, the post will appear in the Pending approval section on your profile (in the left sidebar).
2. Decide who gets to see your posts.
Facebook reintroduced selective posting in this privacy update. Once you write your status, click on the small triangle next to the Post button to make the post visible to: friends, public (anyone on the Internet), or custom (exclude individuals or lists).
To change the visibility after you've posted, head back to the post on your wall, hover over it, and click the drop-down menu in the upper-right to change the visibility.
3. Change privacy for any profile item.
It's now much easier to change the privacy for every element of your profile. For example, you can share your hometown with everyone, but your birthday to just your friends. Or, make it so that only close friends can see who you're in a relationship with.
Go to your profile and select Edit profile at the upper-right corner of the page. Then head to one of the categories (on the left) and change the privacy of its elements using the drop-down menu next to each field.
4. Select the default privacy setting for posts.
Head to your privacy settings, and scroll down to "Control your Default Privacy." Here, you can select the default audience for all your posts--Public (everyone on the Internet), Friends (all your friends), or Custom (exclude certain friends or lists).
Tip: If you frequently post content you'd rather keep private from a certain group of people (like your colleagues), create a list of all those people and exclude them by default using the Custom option in this privacy setting.
5. Preview your public profile.
Once you make all the privacy tweaks, see how your profile appears to certain friends or anyone on the Web. Go to your profile and select "View profile as..." in the upper-right corner. Enter a friends name or select the public link in the instructions above the field to see what it looks like to everyone.
Want to be your friend on Facebook? A Fake Facebook Request
Malicious spam messages generated by the infamous Cutwail botnet are targeting Facebook users as potential banking Trojan victims.
The messages arrive in the guise of a Facebook friend invite notification. The emails look genuine enough on casual inspection, thanks to the malware-spinners' apparent use of a genuine Facebook template. But where a genuine Facebook invite contains links to the real social networking site, the malicious emails feature custom links to malware sites. In addition, the emails differ from the genuine article because they do not feature Facebook profile photos. The recipient's email address is also absent from the fine print at the bottom of the bogus invites.
Users tricked into clicking on the malicious link are exposed to a double-barrelled malware based attack. Firstly they are offered a bogus Adobe Flash update. In addition, clicking on the link opens a hidden iFrame, which then loads data from a remote server hosting the Blackhole Exploit Kit. The exploit kit attempts to exploit browser security holes, most notably involving insecure Java installations.
Both techniques attempt to download a variant of the infamous ZeuS banking Trojan onto compromised systems. Impersonating email notifications from Facebook is a common enough technique among spammers and purveyors of survey scams, but I've never seen it applied to punt banking Trojans before.
A full write-up of the scam can be found in a blog post by M86 Security here.
August 11, 2011
Hackivist Group Anonymous Claims not to Support Killing Facebook on November 5
Some Anonymous members are looking to take down Facebook, but the larger hacktivist group seems not to support their cause.
News broke yesterday that the hacktivist group Anonymous is vowing to destroy Facebook on November 5, 2011 (Guy Fawkes Day). Now there is speculation that it’s all just a hoax. After a little digging, I’ve found that the collective group Anonymous doesn’t support what a few of its members are reportedly up to.
Lets take a run down of how it all started
On July 16, 2011, someone created accounts for an “Operation Facebook” on YouTube (FacebookOp) and Twitter (OP_Facebook). These account names are a little odd: why not just use one of the many other mediums that Anonymous has used in the past? Furthermore, the released video, embedded above, is not of the usual computerized voice and visual production quality that we’re used to from Anonymous.
The dates are also questionable: why didn’t this news spread like wildfire three weeks ago? Whenever Anonymous or LulzSec declare a new target, the world definitely notices. Furthermore, while Guy Fawkes Day is a perfectly understandable choice, it’s very far away. There are 112 days between July 16, 2011 and November 5, 2011: Anonymous rarely gives more than a few days notice, if at all.
My suspicions were confirmed via a few Twitter accounts that Anonymous has previously used to talk to the media and the general public. They have given accurate information regarding the organization and its actions in the past, so I’m not as hesitant to believe what they are saying.
GroupAnon, which has some 26,000 followers, sent out these two tweets:
No one can speak for the whole of #Anonymous. There are some anons who support #OpFacebook whilst others do not. | #AnonOpsAnonOps, which has some 45,000 followers, sent out these four tweets:
@Anonymous_SA Exactly! #OpFacebook is just an Op, it’s not Anonymous…
We prefer to face the real power and not to face to the same medias that we use as tools. #OpFacebook #AnonymousBy contrast, here is the only message from the OP_Facebook account, which has some 3,000 followers:
#OpFacebook is being organised by some Anons. This does not necessarily mean that all of #Anonymous agrees with it.
Dont be silly. Important things are happening in the world to deal with quirks like #OpFacebook. Lets keep our style & moral #Anonymous
TO PRESS: MEDIAS OF THE WORLD… STOP LYING! #OpFacebook is just ANOTHER FAKE! WE DONT “KILL” THE MESSENGER. THAT’S NOT OUR STYLE #Anonymous
spread the new video like AIDS NOU!!! youtube.com/watch?v=SWQTS8…Also, here is the original “press release” from the YouTube video posted by FacebookOp:
Attention citizens of the world,If Facebook is indeed attacked on November 5, 2011, it does not appear that Anonymous as a whole will be supporting the hacks.
We wish to get your attention, hoping you heed the warnings as follows:
Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed. If you are a willing hacktivist or a guy who just wants to protect the freedom of information then join the cause and kill facebook for the sake of your own privacy.
Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria.
Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your “privacy” settings, and deleting your account is impossible, even if you “delete” your account, all your personal info stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time. Changing the privacy settings to make your Facebook account more “private” is also a delusion. Facebook knows more about you than your family. http://www.physorg.com/news170614271.html http://itgrunts.com/2010/10/07/facebook-steals-numbers-and-data-from-your-iph….
You cannot hide from the reality in which you, the people of the internet, live in. Facebook is the opposite of the Antisec cause. You are not safe from them nor from any government. One day you will look back on this and realise what we have done here is right, you will thank the rulers of the internet, we are not harming you but saving you.
The riots are underway. It is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It is a battle for choice and informed consent. It’s unfolding because people are being raped, tickled, molested, and confused into doing things where they don’t understand the consequences. Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely false. It gives users the illusion of and hides the details away from them “for their own good” while they then make millions off of you. When a service is “free,” it really means they’re making money off of you and your information.
Think for a while and prepare for a day that will go down in history. November 5 2011, #opfacebook . Engaged.
This is our world now. We exist without nationality, without religious bias. We have the right to not be surveilled, not be stalked, and not be used for profit. We have the right to not live as slaves.
We are anonymous
We are legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us
August 10, 2011
Anonymous Vows To Destroy Facebook On November 5
Citing privacy concerns and the difficulty involved in deleting a Facebook account, Anonymous hopes to "kill Facebook," the "medium of communication [we] all so dearly adore."
This isn't the first time Anonymous has spoken out against social networks.
After Google removed Anonymous' Gmail and Google+ accounts, Anonymous pledged to create its own social network, called AnonPlus.
Read Also: Anonymous Inventing a More Sophisticated DDos Tool
The statement of intent cites privacy issues for Facebook users as their main impetus for turning November 5 into a Facebook Gunpowder Plot:
Operation FacebookFacebook is widely known for its issues around user privacy - most notably, that they’re terrible with it.
DATE: November 5, 2011.
TARGET: https://facebook.com
Press:
Twitter : https://twitter.com/OP_Facebook
http://piratepad.net/YCPcpwrl09
Irc.Anonops.Li #OpFaceBook
Message:
Attention citizens of the world,
We wish to get your attention, hoping you heed the warnings as follows:
Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed. If you are a willing hacktivist or a guy who just wants to protect the freedom of information then join the cause and kill facebook for the sake of your own privacy.
Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria.
Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your "privacy" settings, and deleting your account is impossible, even if you "delete" your account, all your personal info stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time. Changing the privacy settings to make your Facebook account more "private" is also a delusion. Facebook knows more about you than your family. http://www.physorg.com/news170614271.htmlhttp://itgrunts.com/2010/10/07/facebook-steals-numbers-and-data-from-your-iph....
You cannot hide from the reality in which you, the people of the internet, live in. Facebook is the opposite of the Antisec cause. You are not safe from them nor from any government. One day you will look back on this and realise what we have done here is right, you will thank the rulers of the internet, we are not harming you but saving you.
The riots are underway. It is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It is a battle for choice and informed consent. It's unfolding because people are being raped, tickled, molested, and confused into doing things where they don't understand the consequences. Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely false. It gives users the illusion of and hides the details away from them "for their own good" while they then make millions off of you. When a service is "free," it really means they're making money off of you and your information.
Think for a while and prepare for a day that will go down in history. November 5 2011, #opfacebook . Engaged.
This is our world now. We exist without nationality, without religious bias. We have the right to not be surveilled, not be stalked, and not be used for profit. We have the right to not live as slaves.
We are anonymous
We are legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us
The list of Facebook’s privacy failures and transgressions is lengthy and probably not complete, including Danah Boyd’s Harvard/UC Berkeley paper Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck to frequent changes to user settings without notification, to new issues raised by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
Anonymous is known for launching distributed denial-of-service attacks which harms its target by getting a large group of people to access the site continually until the influx in traffic slows the site down so much that the servers can’t handle it.
Since Facebook is such a huge site–750 million users huge–it would take a lot for Anonymous to slow down Facebook’s servers. Anonymous tried to take down Amazon in the same way earlier this year, but Amazon’s huge amount of server power was too much for the group.
The group is giving us time to think and “prepare for a day that will go down in history” before they deploy the attack on the 5th of November.
August 1, 2011
Facebook Rewards Cash to Bug Researchers
The social network on Friday said it would pay $500 for the disclosure of most website flaws, such as XSS, or cross-site scripting errors. The company may pay more for specific bugs, which weren't elaborated on in Facebook's announcement. To qualify, the researcher must be the first person to privately report the bug and reside in a country not under any current US sanctions.
The move comes as good news to legions of researchers who spend considerable time and expertise finding and reporting serious vulnerabilities in the websites and software they use. More often than not, they receive little more than a public acknowledgement in return. Microsoft, Oracle and virtually every other software manufacturer and website steadfastly refuse to pay for private bug reports, even though their products also benefit from it.
Microsoft recently offered a $250,000 reward for information that leads to the conviction of the operators of Rustock, a recently dismantled botnet that in its heyday was one of the biggest sources of illegal spam. Although the software maker has rebuffed calls to offer cash rewards for bug reports, it has publicly pledged not to sue or press charges against hackers who responsibly find security flaws in its online services.
Mozilla was among the first software makers to offer a bug bounty program when, years ago, when it began offering $500 rewards. Google eventually followed suit. The two outfits have gradually increased the bounties, which Mozilla paying as much as $3,000 and Google paying $3,133.70 for the most serious bugs.
To date, Google has paid $300,000 under the program for bugs found in its its various web properties. That doesn't include bounties paid for vulnerabilities reported in Google's Chromium browser.
To qualify for the Facebook bounties, researchers must privately report them here and give the company's security team a reasonable time to respond before publicly disclosing the flaws. Denial-of-service vulnerabilities, spam and social engineering techniques, and bugs in third-party apps and websites and in Facebook's corporate infrastructure don't qualify.
July 9, 2011
Facebook Scammers Exploiting the Video Call Features to Send Virus
It's barely a week Facebook launched its Video calling features and scammers are already exploiting the avenue to send scam and viruses to Facebook Users.
According to Sophos' Naked Security blog, "This particular scam doesn't use the actual Facebook video service as Paul has predicted they will do, but it certainly is trying to ride the media coattails and attention Facebook's announcement generated this week.
What is clever about this one is that if it were true that Facebook Video Chat was an application, you might be more easily convinced to approve the application to have more liberal permissions.”
However, there are a few more noticeable problems with the permissions request if one actually takes the time to read. After all, why would an app that comes directly from Facebook ask to access your data at any time? Facebook can already do that. It could also be argued that a video calling app shouldn’t need to post to your wall and news feed, but Google Hangouts actually does something similar on Google+.
Apparently there will still be more scam targeting dudes, who will be taking advantage of the new Facebook features.
So next time you see a wall post on Facebook that says “Enable Video Calls,” don’t click on it. If you want to set up the valid and official version of Video Chat with Skype, check out Facebook’s authentic instructions. Never download any executables or other applications claiming to enable this service.
Categories:
Facebook,
Facebook Video Call,
Tech News,
Virus Attack
July 8, 2011
How to Use the Facebook Video Calling Features
Google + began beta-testing its own video chat feature, Google+ Hangouts, last week.
The only challenge Facebook have for now is, Facebook-Skype calls one person at a time while Google Hangouts has the capacity of calling 10 people at a time.
Although looking at the social graph of both giants, Facebook currently has 750 million active users which is by far the highest since Myspace packed up. Apprently Facebook dominates the social graph and Google + has not even launched theirs to the public yet.
Facebook also admits that the feature is user-friendly and even the less tech-savvy on Facebook should be able to master it's features.
Click here to see how to use
Categories:
Facebook,
Facebook Video Call,
How-tos
July 6, 2011
Facebook Unveils Video Calling Powered by Skype
"Video calling is the first example of what we think of as a great social app," Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said during a press event at the company's Palo Alto, California, headquarters. "The integration that we've done could not have been done without the great social infrastructure we've rolled out over the last five years," he said.
The group chat tool is based on Facebook's existing Groups setup, which is now used by about 50 per cent of all Facebookers, according to Zuckerberg. The new design includes a browser sidebar that provides quick access to those you chat with most, and it offers a "call" button that launches the video service.
The video service requires a plug-in, but you can place a call to your Facebook friends that will then send them a notice pointing them to the plug-in. The service does not offer group video calling, but Zuckerberg indicated that this will eventually be rolled into the service.
The service cannot be used to call existing off-Facebook Skype clients – or vice versa. But Skype product manager Mike Barnes said that the two companies will eventually provide such off-Facebook calling.
Zuckerberg unveils video calling on Facebook
Facebook has already started to roll the new tools across its site, and "millions" of users. Bates says that the video service will reach about one per cent of users on Wednesday. According to Skype CEO Tony Bates, the two companies have been working on the video service for the past six months.
In late June, Zuckerberg told a Seattle audience that Facebook would unveil something "awesome" today, and last week, Techcrunch reported that this would involve integrating the social network with the Skype VoIP service, which is now owned by Microsoft. Redmond is a Facebook investor and longtime Facebook partner. Microsoft's Bing underpins search on Facebook, and Facebook may be used to personalized your results on Bing. Microsoft announced in May it's buying Skype for $8.5bn.
Update: This story has been updated with additional information from Facebook's press event.
Categories:
Facebook,
Facebook Video Call,
Skype,
Social Media,
Tech News
June 28, 2011
Google + Project: Finally Arrives, threathens Social Giants, Facebook
The service, which will initially be available only to a select group of Google users who will soon be able to invite others, will let people share and discuss status updates, photos and links.
But the Google+ project will be different from Facebook in one significant way, which Google hopes will be enough to convince people to use yet another social networking service. It is designed for sharing with small groups — like colleagues, college roommates or hiking friends — instead of with all of a user’s friends or the entire Web. It also offers group text messaging and video chat.
“In real life, we have walls and windows and I can speak to you knowing who’s in the room, but in the online world, you get to a ‘Share’ box and you share with the whole world,” said Bradley Horowitz, a vice president of product management at Google who is leading the company’s social efforts with Vic Gundotra, a senior vice president of engineering.
The debut of Google+ will test whether Google can overcome its past flops in social networking, like Buzz and Orkut, and deal with one of the most pressing challenges facing the company.
At stake is Google’s status as the most popular entry point to the Web. When people post on Facebook, which is mostly off-limits to search engines, Google loses valuable information that could benefit its Web search, advertising and other products.
Google+ may already be too late.
In May, 180 million people visited Google sites, including YouTube, versus 157.2 million on Facebook, according to comScore. But Facebook users looked at 103 billion pages and spent an average of 375 minutes on the site, while Google users viewed 46.3 billion pages and spent 231 minutes.
Advertisers pay close attention to those numbers, and to the fact that people increasingly turn to Facebook and other social sites like Twitter to ask questions they used to ask Google, like a recommendation for a restaurant or doctor, because they want more personalized answers.
Mr. Gundotra and Mr. Horowitz said that knowing more about individual Google users will improve all Google products, including ads, search, YouTube and maps, because Google will learn what people like and eventually be able to personalize those products.
“To think we could achieve Google’s stated mission of organizing the world’s information absent people would be ludicrous,” Mr. Horowitz said.
But Google has been criticized for failing to understand the importance of social information on the Web until competitors like Facebook and Twitter had already leapt ahead. Part of the blame, analysts say, falls on Google’s engineering-heavy culture, which values quantitative data and algorithms over more nuanced, touchy-feely pursuits like socializing.
Exhibit A is Buzz, a social sharing tool for Gmail users. It automatically included users’ e-mail contacts in their Buzz network, setting off widespread criticism that Google invaded users’ privacy and failed to understand that people’s e-mail contacts are not necessarily their friends.
Google quickly changed the service so it did not automatically connect friends. In March, Google settled with the Federal Trade Commission over charges of deceptive privacy practices related to Buzz and agreed to 20 years of audits.
Mr. Gundotra and Mr. Horowitz, both of whom worked on Buzz, say they were chastened by the experience. They said Google+ grew out of those mistakes, because they realized how much people care about controlling the information they share.
And unlike its approach with Buzz, which was tested only by Google employees before its broad introduction to the public, Google is calling Google+ a project to emphasize that it is not a final product, saying it will undergo many changes to fix problems and introduce new features. Still, its new Web site, plus.google.com, is Google’s most fully formed social networking tool yet.
Mr. Gundotra and Mr. Horowitz said they took pains to mimic people’s relationships in real life and eliminate the social awkwardness that things like friend requests and oversharing can generate on other sites.
Google+ users will start by selecting people they know from their Gmail contacts (and from other services, once Google strikes deals with them). They can drag and drop friends’ names into different groups, or circles, and give the circles titles, like “sisters” or “book club.”
Unlike on Facebook, people do not have to agree to be friends with one another. They can receive someone’s updates without sharing their own. Users can also view their Google+ page the way their friends see it, to ensure their bosses do not see pictures from Saturday night, for instance.
Google+ users will see a toolbar on top of any Google site they use, where they can click to share something or see updates from friends. Eventually, the toolbar could appear on other Web sites. Google+ will also improve the usefulness of other Google products that have not gained traction, like Latitude for sharing your location and +1 for giving a thumbs-up to a particular site in search results, the executives said.
When users visit their Google+ homepage, they see three columns and a stream of status updates in the middle that looks remarkably like Facebook. But Google said that besides an easier way to share with select groups, Google+ has several other features that distinguish it from competitors.
It offers high-definition group video chat, called Hangouts, that other members of a group can join as it is happening. Users can search a section called Sparks to see articles and videos from across the Web on certain topics, like recipes or Alzheimer’s disease, and share them with relevant groups of friends.
And on the Google+ mobile app for Android phones and iPhones, people can chat with groups using a feature called Huddle. Photos and videos shot with cellphones are automatically uploaded to a private album, so Google+ users can quickly view and post them from their phones or later on a computer.
With these services, Google will compete with a host of start-ups, like Path for sharing with small groups, SocialEyes for video chat, Flipboard for articles on certain topics and GroupMe for group texting.
“The notion that online sharing is broken is not an insight that is unique to us,” Mr. Horowitz said. “We have a way to bring in millions of users in a way that is challenging for a start-up.”
Categories:
Facebook,
Google,
Social Media
June 24, 2011
Winklevoss Twins Sue Facebook In Boston Court
(Reuters) - Olympic rowing twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are pushing ahead with another suit against Facebook, a day after they decided not to appeal a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding their $65 million settlement with Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg.
In a status report filed on Thursday with the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, the twins and their business partner, Divya Narendra, said they would move the court for discovery on whether Facebook "intentionally or inadvertently suppressed evidence" during settlement proceedings over claims that Zuckerberg stole their idea for a college social networking website.
The claim in the Massachusetts Court relates to documents and communications that would have thrown light on the exact relationship between the twins and Zuckerberg at the time of Facebook's founding and says that Facebook should have disclosed those documents during the original settlement discussions.
After agreeing to the cash-and-stock accord, the Winklevosses sought to undo it, saying it was fraudulent because Facebook hid information from them, and that they deserved more money.
Tyler Meade, counsel for the Winklevoss twins and Narendra, declined to comment.
In a statement, Facebook's outside counsel Neel Chatterjee said, "These are old and baseless allegations that have been considered and rejected previously by the courts."
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions
Categories:
Facebook,
Facebook Lawsuit,
Tech News
June 16, 2011
Facebook Is Launching the iPad App In “Coming Weeks”
According to The New York Times, unnamed sources who have seen the new app say it has a “slick design that has been tailored for the iPad and its touchscreen interface.”
The sources also mentioned how Facebook Chat and Groups have been overhauled for the iPad, adding that the app will go beyond what the Facebook website can do, allowing users to take photos from the iPad and place them directly on Facebook. Those who’ve seen the app called the photo and video uploading capabilities “amazing, offering full-resolution and full-screen images.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apparently has changed his tune about the iPad. When asked if his company was developing an iPad app, he replied:
Categories:
Apps,
Facebook,
iPad,
Social Media,
Tech News
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