JupiterSunsation
02-04-2010, 09:40 AM
Think of FB as a voluntary "Big Brother".....I have a very limited page with a single picture (group shot with me in the center). I only signed up for it this summer for a high school reunion and currently have about 30 friends. I was shocked to see how much info people put on there, pictures, kid's pictures, etc. Needless to say privacy was a concern long before I read this article.
Privacy still a nagging concern on Facebook
By Hiawatha Bray
February 4, 2010
I’ve acquired hundreds of Facebook friends over the past couple of years. Chester Wisniewski isn’t one of them, and probably never will be.
Nothing against the guy. But as an analyst with Sophos Inc., the network security company with US headquarters in Burlington, Wisniewski knows a lot about Facebook security and privacy issues. So he stopped using it.
“To me, it’s way too difficult to protect your privacy on Facebook the way it’s configured now,’’ he told me the old-fashioned way, by phone from his home in Vancouver, Canada.
If Facebook were a country, it would be the third-largest. But it’s not exactly a democracy. So when the social-networking service changed its privacy policies in December, its 350 million members didn’t get to vote.
Some of the changes make it easier to control the personal information you share with the rest of the world. But other changes make it difficult, or even impossible, to keep certain facts to yourself.
Nobody wants total Facebook privacy; the whole point of the service is to share some personal data. But how much, and with whom? It makes sense for Facebook to let you look up any member by name. But the member might want to share his photograph or his hometown only with his Facebook friends, while denying it to the rest of the world.
Facebook now reveals all this data to everybody. If you post a picture of yourself, every Internet user can see it. They can also see your gender, the city you live in, a list of your Facebook friends, and even a list of your favorite Facebook pages, which reveal your tastes and interests.
Do you want everybody to know you’re a Barack Obama supporter or a Sarah Palin fan? They will, if you subscribe to their pages, because Facebook doesn’t give you a way to keep these subscriptions private.
You can conceal the identities of friends by clicking a pencil-like icon on the friends section of your Facebook profile page. But other personal details can’t be blocked. You must share them with everyone, or no one. Wisniewski solved the problem by abandoning Facebook. Short of that, you can delete your photo, favorite pages, and other private data from your profile.
Mind you, it could still be too late. Your Facebook page is probably listed with Internet search services, so Google, Bing, and others have copies of your picture, friends list, favorite pages, and such. Luckily, Facebook lets you shut down future indexing. To find the off switch, click the Settings menu, then Privacy Settings, then Search.
Facebook is a bit more careful with other personal data, such as birthdays or religious faith. By default, these tidbits are provided to your online friends, but also to “friends of friends.’’ That means your buddies can share the information with their buddies. This is a bit too liberal for my tastes. What if one of my friends hangs out with bad companions? Knowing someone’s birth date makes life easier for identity thieves. It’s safer not to enter these details, or to share them only with friends. Facebook allows that with a couple of clicks on the privacy settings page.
Watch out for Facebook applications - the thousands of programs and services made available through the site. If you play a Facebook game like the popular Mafia Wars, you’re providing a lot of basic personal data to Zynga Game Network Inc., which runs the game. In addition, if a friend uses an application, he shares information about all his friends, including you. Click on “Applications and Websites’’ to block friends from passing data to strangers.
Of course, many of my “friends’’ are indeed strangers, techies, and business folk I barely know. I’m probably telling them too much about myself. Too late, I’ve discovered a solution - Facebook’s “limited profile’’ feature. This lets you create a special category of friends who get much less access to your information. You set it up on the main Friends page, then go to Privacy to pick out which bits of data to conceal.
Wisniewski’s got a point. Facebook gives away too much. Still, I would never quit Facebook; it’s far too useful. And while defending your privacy takes a bit of work, give the company credit for providing a pretty good tool kit.
Protect yourself on Facebook
■Be careful about linking to pages that reveal your political or religious views. You can’t conceal these page links.
■Share your personal data only with friends, when possible. Or don’t post it on Facebook at all.
■Don’t “friend’’ just anybody. Be selective. If you have doubts about someone, create a “limited profile’’ for friends who will get restricted access to your data.
■Watch what you post. For example, revealing travel plans can make you a target for burglars.
■Be careful about using applications, which can collect data about you. And block your friends from giving your information to the applications they use.
Privacy still a nagging concern on Facebook
By Hiawatha Bray
February 4, 2010
I’ve acquired hundreds of Facebook friends over the past couple of years. Chester Wisniewski isn’t one of them, and probably never will be.
Nothing against the guy. But as an analyst with Sophos Inc., the network security company with US headquarters in Burlington, Wisniewski knows a lot about Facebook security and privacy issues. So he stopped using it.
“To me, it’s way too difficult to protect your privacy on Facebook the way it’s configured now,’’ he told me the old-fashioned way, by phone from his home in Vancouver, Canada.
If Facebook were a country, it would be the third-largest. But it’s not exactly a democracy. So when the social-networking service changed its privacy policies in December, its 350 million members didn’t get to vote.
Some of the changes make it easier to control the personal information you share with the rest of the world. But other changes make it difficult, or even impossible, to keep certain facts to yourself.
Nobody wants total Facebook privacy; the whole point of the service is to share some personal data. But how much, and with whom? It makes sense for Facebook to let you look up any member by name. But the member might want to share his photograph or his hometown only with his Facebook friends, while denying it to the rest of the world.
Facebook now reveals all this data to everybody. If you post a picture of yourself, every Internet user can see it. They can also see your gender, the city you live in, a list of your Facebook friends, and even a list of your favorite Facebook pages, which reveal your tastes and interests.
Do you want everybody to know you’re a Barack Obama supporter or a Sarah Palin fan? They will, if you subscribe to their pages, because Facebook doesn’t give you a way to keep these subscriptions private.
You can conceal the identities of friends by clicking a pencil-like icon on the friends section of your Facebook profile page. But other personal details can’t be blocked. You must share them with everyone, or no one. Wisniewski solved the problem by abandoning Facebook. Short of that, you can delete your photo, favorite pages, and other private data from your profile.
Mind you, it could still be too late. Your Facebook page is probably listed with Internet search services, so Google, Bing, and others have copies of your picture, friends list, favorite pages, and such. Luckily, Facebook lets you shut down future indexing. To find the off switch, click the Settings menu, then Privacy Settings, then Search.
Facebook is a bit more careful with other personal data, such as birthdays or religious faith. By default, these tidbits are provided to your online friends, but also to “friends of friends.’’ That means your buddies can share the information with their buddies. This is a bit too liberal for my tastes. What if one of my friends hangs out with bad companions? Knowing someone’s birth date makes life easier for identity thieves. It’s safer not to enter these details, or to share them only with friends. Facebook allows that with a couple of clicks on the privacy settings page.
Watch out for Facebook applications - the thousands of programs and services made available through the site. If you play a Facebook game like the popular Mafia Wars, you’re providing a lot of basic personal data to Zynga Game Network Inc., which runs the game. In addition, if a friend uses an application, he shares information about all his friends, including you. Click on “Applications and Websites’’ to block friends from passing data to strangers.
Of course, many of my “friends’’ are indeed strangers, techies, and business folk I barely know. I’m probably telling them too much about myself. Too late, I’ve discovered a solution - Facebook’s “limited profile’’ feature. This lets you create a special category of friends who get much less access to your information. You set it up on the main Friends page, then go to Privacy to pick out which bits of data to conceal.
Wisniewski’s got a point. Facebook gives away too much. Still, I would never quit Facebook; it’s far too useful. And while defending your privacy takes a bit of work, give the company credit for providing a pretty good tool kit.
Protect yourself on Facebook
■Be careful about linking to pages that reveal your political or religious views. You can’t conceal these page links.
■Share your personal data only with friends, when possible. Or don’t post it on Facebook at all.
■Don’t “friend’’ just anybody. Be selective. If you have doubts about someone, create a “limited profile’’ for friends who will get restricted access to your data.
■Watch what you post. For example, revealing travel plans can make you a target for burglars.
■Be careful about using applications, which can collect data about you. And block your friends from giving your information to the applications they use.