Tuesday, December 23, 2008

careful with the application of facebook

Click the BBC team has found a way to steal personal data Facebook users.

Source: BBC

BBC profile team to make fraudulent Bob Smith. He save and keep the most personal details about the profile of people who are not friends on Facebook. Although the team can not get all the details, details of which actually obtained, including name, hometown, school, interests and photos, certainly help us to steal someone's identity.

By using a pair of laptop and the assistance of the application code, the BBC team created a special application for Facebook users or Facebookers. One of the reasons for Facebook to become popular so quickly is a collection of applications that can be added by users to their profile. There are thousands of games, a short quiz based, and simple IQ test available for them. And, once a user adds an application, his friends will be pushed to add. Anyone who has a basic understanding of programming can write a web application.

BBC team to design the application data collector (come Mining) with the name of an evil miner, which, if desired, can masquerade as games, test intelligence, banter and such. The program can be made in less than three hours. However, it seems like any program, in the background, the application can raise the details of personal data users, and send the details-details through e-mail from Facebook to the team.

When you add an application, unless you choose restricting, the program is given access to most of the information in your profile. And, it includes the information you have about your friends even if they think they have chosen the strict security settings.

Currently, many applications that require access to the details so you can function properly. However, the BBC said the team did not know that mishandle applications detailed information Facebook users, in addition to the program that created the team.

However, the fact that the team can easily create applications with many people worrying. People do not need to have such programs for victims. People can become victims if he has friends who have such programs.

Given the application is running on the servers of third parties, not by Facebook, it difficult for companies to check what happened, whether that program has changed, and how long the applications that store data. Although the terms and conditions that apply to load Facebook warning that the situation that may happen in theory, and offer options to prevent the application to access your data, many games and quizzes will not work if this option is used.