NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] re F.C.C. Chairman Spams - and Facebook promptly violates own privacy policy disclosing it
----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> ----- Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:45:22 -0500 From: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> Subject: [IP] re F.C.C. Chairman Spams - and Facebook promptly violates own privacy policy disclosing it, Reply-To: dave@farber.net To: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com> Begin forwarded message: > From: Ethan Ackerman <eackerma@u.washington.edu> > Date: December 31, 2009 8:44:10 PM EST > To: dave@farber.net > Subject: Re: [IP] F.C.C. Chairman Spams - and Facebook promptly > violates own privacy policy disclosing it, > Reply-To: eackerma@u.washington.edu > > Greetings Dave, > > Facebook's actions in discussing this seems pretty clearly a violation > of its own privacy policy (http://www.facebook.com/policy.php " We > share your information with third parties when we believe the sharing > is permitted by you, reasonably necessary to offer our services, or > when legally required to do so." ) > > Unless I'm missing something and there's a setting in the facebook > privacy panel titled "disclose when your account is likely > compromised" that can be set to "everyone" or "the new york times" > this is an unauthorized sharing. > > > Sure, it's not a 100% secret as Mr. Genachowski’s friends may have > known about it, but say the NYT had run an article with a confirmation > statement from Facebook that yes, in fact Mr. Genachowski’s > relationship status had changed. > > > (To spread the blame, several Web companies lately seem to have played > fast and loose with their privacy policies in confirming 'celebrity' > compromises - see DynDNS's confirmation of Twitter's DNS account > breach - http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11569 ) > > > > > On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> wrote: >> >> >> >> >> Begin forwarded message: >> >> From: Simon Higgs <simon@higgs.com> >> Date: December 31, 2009 7:35:08 PM EST >> To: David Farber <dave@farber.net> >> Subject: Whoops! F.C.C. Chairman Spams Facebook Friends >> >> >> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/whoops-fcc-chairman-spams-facebook-friends/ >> >> December 31, 2009, 3:20 pm >> Whoops! F.C.C. Chairman Spams Facebook Friends >> By BRAD STONE >> >> Update | 3:27 p.m. Adding statement from Facebook at the end. >> >> Facebook scam artists have closed out 2009 by snagging a prominent >> victim: Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications >> Commission. >> >> On Friday morning at around 10:30 a.m., Mr. Genachowski sent his >> Facebook friends this puzzling message: “Adam got me started making >> money with this.” It was followed by a link to a Web page that is no >> longer active. The message blitz indicated that Mr. Genachowski’s >> account had been taken over by a malicious program that was using it >> to send out spam. >> >> As of Friday afternoon Mr. Genachowski’s Facebook profile was no l >> onger visible on the site. A Facebook spokesman, Larry Yu, said the >> company learned of the problem this morning and suspended the ac >> count, as it routinely does in such cases. An F.C.C. spokeswoman d >> eclined to comment. >> >> The chairman is by no means alone in getting inadvertently embroiled >> in social networking scams that can be embarrassing. I wrote about >> such scams earlier this month, noting that the humiliation sown by >> these attacks is usually just a byproduct of spammer efforts to get >> people to click on various links. >> >> It’s not clear how Mr. Genachowski’s Facebook account was >> compromised; perhaps he or a family member clicked on a malicious >> link, allowing his account to be taken over. >> >> The most important question: Who the heck is Adam? >> >> Update: Facebook sent this statement, which indicates that if Mr. >> Genachowski wants to continue to use Facebook, he will have to get >> some education about the safe use of this particular form of >> communication. >> >> We take security very seriously and have devoted significant >> resources towards helping our users protect their accounts. We’ve >> developed complex automated systems that detect and flag Facebook >> accounts that are likely to be compromised (based on anomalous ac >> tivity like lots of messages sent in a short period of time, or me >> ssages with links that are known to be bad). Because Facebook is a >> closed system, we have a tremendous advantage over email. That is, >> once we detect a phony message, we can delete that message in all >> inboxes across the site. >> >> We also block malicious links from being shared and work with >> third parties to get phishing and malware sites added to browser >> blacklists or taken down completely. Users whose accounts have been >> compromised are put through a remediation process, where they must >> take steps to re-secure their account and learn security best >> practices. This is what happened with Chairman Genachowski’s acco >> unt. >> >> To combat these threats, however, we need users’ help too. You can >> protect yourself by never clicking on strange links, even if they’ve >> been sent by friends, and by being wary of sites that ask you to >> download or upgrade software. >> >> We educate people about online security through our Facebook >> Security Page, which has well over one million fans. >> >> ### >> >> -- >> Best Regards, >> >> Simon Higgs >> >> Archives ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message -----