Facebook bugs galore

I'm an enthusiastic Facebook user, unlike some in the security community. I find social networking rewarding on a personal level and as a musician and am prepared to go the extra mile to limit my exposure as a result.

I was therefore, fascinated to find The Month of Facebook Bugs - a series of reports on vulnerabilities in Facebook applications. Well worth a read, especially if your personal information on Facebook is genuine and you enjoy using lots of Facebook apps!

Le SPAM?

I've recently spent a good deal of time getting my head around French IT terms (including impenetrable phrases such as matrise d'ouvrage) in order to translate some IT security awareness material into English. A few days after I finished the first piece of work, imagine my surprise when I started receiving French SPAM. And, no, it's no more interesting than the English/US version IMHO!

A little head scratching and I realised that my pride had caused me to announce that I was translating French awareness material into English in my "what are you doing at the moment" thingy in Facebook. As far as I can see this is the only place on the web where my translation skills were on display. So - are the spammers monitoring all our Facebook accounts to refine their targets, or am I being paranoid again?

~{:-D

Exposing yourself for the summer

As you'd expect, like all Brits, I'm trying to convince myself that we're actually having a summer. This put me in mind of social events, and specifically social networking. Everyone and their dog (literally) is now on Facebook it seems.

Lately there's been a lot of news about Facebook using personal details for profit and now Canada's federal privacy commissioner has launched an investigation into Facebook. Apparently four students complained that the popular Web site violates Canadian law by disclosing personal information to advertisers without proper consent.

This in turn reminded me of a wonderful YouTube video - definitely worth watching and passing on to your less security-aware friends and family!