Facebook Presents A Serious Security Problem
A Web Exclusive from Windows IT Pro
February 20, 2009
Mark Joseph Edwards

Facebook did an aboutface this week after thousands of users protested the company's overzealous attempt at a gigantic intellectual property grab.

The company published new terms and conditions for being a Facebook user which included a perpetual retroactive license to use your content nearly anyway they see fit - even after you "delete" your account.

Thousands cried foul and EPIC even threatened to file a complaint with the FTC. Facebook has since backed down and reverted to its previous user agreement.

Nevertheless the issue points out the severe risks of using social networking services - especially Facebook. Some might say that the site operates in a fashion similar to a gigantic information gathering operation that lures people in by offering fancy tools that allow them to exercise the egos to various extremes. Others might just think it's "cool" and a "must-do" sort of thing because their peers expect them participate.

The bottom line here is that Facebook has demonstrated a clear intent to leverage you and your content to their own advantage. And they've demonstrated that they are not to be trusted.

So my advice is this: Don't uses Facebook. But if you can't resist then don't post anything on Facebook that the majority of people don't already know about you. In fact you might consider adopting as part of your company security policy a ban that prohibits employees from mentioning anything about your company in their Facebook profiles. One tiny data leak could be used against you and there'd probably be little if anything you can do about it.

What would be an example of a data leak that could be used against me?

That blog post is somewhat ridiculous. Here a tip: if you don't want anyone to know some piece of information about you, don't post it on the fscking internets. The information was already leaked when you shared it publicly.

Sure, some people like to be able to "retract" something they wrote, but it just doesn't work that way. Once it's past your firewall, it is liable to be indelibly etched in somebody's mind.

I don't know. I suppose it depends on who your employer is and what sort of things they employ you to do.
Loose lips, sink ships and all that sort of thing.

Recently though, there has been a wave of new TOS that social networking sites have tried to implement. Where they essentially take ownership of ANYTHING you post on your account.

Say for example, you write a poem and you post it to your blog, and you later try to publish it. If that social networking site really wanted to, they could claim a copyright on that poem you published to their website.

I don't understand why a social networking site would do this, other than if they went into the news business. And they started gleaning information from it's users for good stories, etc.

Could they claim copyright if the copyright wasn't yours to cede?

I think that's a question for a lawyer.

But the more I think about it, I'm sure the 'ownership' TOS has more to do with vital information about a person, place, or thing that the social networking site could be liable for. Say for example a user posts information about a well known politician that has dirty laundry. By claiming ownership of that published information, facebook could do what they like with it. Sell it, or delete it, etc.

its about selling information even after you've deleted your account

http://thedisgracebook.net/

^ this for example. If the guy that started disgracebook wanted to start selling advertising on his site, to earn some money. How conceivable is it that facebook could insist on getting their cut because the information originally came from their site?

Bingo.

Status: Farmer John is in a meeting debating whether to layoff Larry the Accountant, who will embezzle money, or Jeanie the HR Rep, who will claim sexual discrimination. Boooooring!

facebook just switched its TOS back i guess. now they're talking about including the users in the process.

Jerry Insider is recommends selling your XYZ stock NOW!

i heard about this and all I could think about was Facebook selling posters of my face.

Or a coffee table book full of everyone's faces.

My friend has a Dungeons and Dragons wiki for their world or whatever, and when he tried to edit his girlfriend's pages for grammar and spelling, she bitched that he was stealing her intellectual property.