I’m normally not one who wants to post his thoughts on Raymond.cc, or anywhere else for that matter. If I am to explain my deepest thoughts, usually I like speaking face to face, which is why this is most likely going to be the first and the last time you see me coming so wildly off topic today, although it is still technology related.
About two nights ago, a security firm decided to do what most of us would deem as unthinkable and uploaded a 2.8 gig torrent of the personal data that was found on Facebook. At this time, that is about one in five users who had their privacy lost because the ‘security firm’ wanted to bring to attention how large of a hole it was for someone to see your personal information on Facebook without changing the default settings of your Facebook privacy. As of this time, that torrent has had about 1000 downloads and will no doubt be clocking in it’s millionth download by tomorrow, so this isn’t so much about free press but a rant against what they did in terms of ethics.
I admit, before I continue, I have to say that Facebook is the worst spot on the internet if you’d like to have privacy. Friends requests, applications, ads that are using your name by default, you name it and Facebook’s pre-approved all this for you without you even clicking anything more then the ‘I agree to the Terms of Service’. For those that are counting, the Facebook Privacy Policy has gotten longer with ever revision as well as eroding more and more privacy. It’s gotten so bad that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has post on their policy! So don’t get me wrong, this isn’t just a fail on the head of that security firm, but it is a horrible taste in your mouth because it already sets the wrong example on the internet in terms of privacy.
And now to top it all off, Facebook has now officially suffered the worst security breech ever: one in five users had their personal details lifted off their account and uploaded by a ‘security company’. Now I use this term very loosely because I feel that if it was a real company, it should have contacted the users that it was able to, rather then risk being sued by Facebook and the 100 million users who have officially lost their privacy permanently due to this ‘firm’. But instead, being completely irresponsible, has uploaded the information to a torrent.
It’s impossible to reverse this hole in your security now, but there is one major saving grace in how they chose to present this problem. The ‘firm’ leaked only names, and not any other information they could have leaked. This is literally the only saving grace. This is the one time when you should be listening, and you should take this warning right away: change your privacy settings. Right now, and make sure they are set to be as secure as Friends Only or Only Me. This is the tipping point of the iceberg, folks, and this should be the wake up call for those that keep saying “Well, I’m not going to post anything no one will not need to read…”
In fact, this is the reason why Raymond doesn’t use Facebook, and why my settings are so restricted that I must add you for you to see me. Otherwise, I am completely invisible. Because there are some people out there in the world that are insane enough that will find a way to destroy your life. Consider if this was one of the black hat hackers, the evil ones that destroy computers for fun. Your entire life at this point, as you know it, would be completely and utterly destroyed. We should be thankful it’s just the first and last names only, and of those that didn’t set their privacy settings beyond the default. However, as I said above: this is the tip of the iceburg. And it’s only going to get worse as time goes on if your settings haven’t been changed yet.