06/28/2012
Not So Private
New information is recently out that those little details you put into your facebook account, aren't really staying within your account even if you think you've changed your security settings to lock your profile down. There was a group of three computer guys in San Francisco who developed a project called Openbook. And with a name like that I'm sure you know exactly where this is going. Ya, that's right, with this openbook, you can literally open up a facebook as though most security features are there and explore all kinds of private topics that people otherwise might not want to get out. So there have been recent talks of employers that browse facebook before considering a job application, so can you imagine what things they might find if they had access to this? And the scary truth is that they do. Anyone can access openbook and search the facebook network for all kinds of fun facts like who has skipped school lately, or who snuck out to parties on the weekend, or who faked sick to skip work for a beach day. And its all at the click of a mouse for them to find. So if you realize that any information that you put on facebook can probably be accessed by anyone at any given time, and you're completely hunkey-dorey with that, then all the power to ya, and I say good job for keeping your facebook clean. But if there are even a couple little things here and there that you would prefer to keep under wraps, such as a friends secret that you may have even discussed with someone over a private wall post. You may want to reconsider what the word "private" really means in the facebook world now.
Is There A Solution?
Nope, absolutely not... haha, just kidding. Of course there is a solution, nobody is bound in chains to facebook are they? there is this handy little feature that comes with your facebook account, it could be referred to as the "abort" feature. You can simply shut down your facebook and never have to worry about that one ever again. As crazy as this technology is, believe it or not your information is safe if it isn't there in the first place. But I suppose some may find that to be a bit of a rash solution and would prefer to keep their facebook up and running. Ya you know who you are, in fact we also know who you are. And with openbook, oh boy do we ever know who you are. Just kidding, but I guess I'm not really. So anyways, if you want to secure your profile properly you can get this free tool at zesty.ca. All you have to do is input your account number that appears in the URL of you facebook account, or input your user ID. This will provide you with all the information about yourself that just isn't quite as secure as you might have hoped. And after seeing that information you can just shut down your facebook account and forget about it. You can even cry about it a little if you feel that's really necessary. Or I suppose if you really wanted to you could then go back into your facebook settings and change them to make it more secure, and maybe delete some of the information that you can't seem to be able to hide. You can keep checking your account and trying to hide or delete stuff until the only stuff that comes up is the stuff you don't mind sharing. Then you can happily go about using the facebook community again. Although will you ever really go about it happily? With a security breach like this you can only imagine how many more people are going to look into cracking the security and before you know it there won't be much you can do at all. Unless of course this is a wake up call for facebook as much as it is for you, and maybe, just maybe they'll do something about their security. But you never know, and you also never know when the next breach may come out, and people may know things you didn't want them to know and you'll have to deal with all of that then. But I guess that isn't really a big deal when you think of the bigger picture. That being google. If google can provide free maps and images that give you a street view of most developed cities, then imagine what they can find on the internet, cause when you think about it, the internet is what they specialize in not maps and photography. And on that same note, if google maps and google earth is free, imagine what the non-free stuff can do. Imagine what the government has access to, I bet they have like google earth x-ray version where they can see through walls and stuff. I guess that is probably a bit of a stretch, if that was the case it would have been easy to find bin laden. But anyways all google jokes aside, facebook's lack of true security is real, check it out for yourself.
This Hub was last updated on May 18, 2010
