Facebook speed spy and ‘friend’ farce?
p2pnet news view Advertising | Kids & Kartels:- My daughter, Emma, 13, and a lot of her friends talk on Facebook. They’re 21st digital century kids and the net and net technologies are an integral part of their lives.
It’s particularly relevant to Emma and her friends because they’re homeschooled and they use the Internet to keep in touch with what’s happening, and to scoop up knowledge about whatever’s interesting them.
Were it not for the fact Fa$ebook siphons up private user data like an alcoholic in a brewery, that she spends time on Fa$ebook probably wouldn’t be a problem. Nor would there be a problem that it’s an advertising, not social, network.
The problem is what it does with all the information it gathers and because I’m not overjoyed with the fact Emma is a Fa$ebook regular, I try to keep her informed about what’s happening.
For example, she used to be among the hundreds of thousands of kids who indulge in the inane Fa$ebook quizes —-
—- until she read my recent story on Fa$ebook quizes in which the ACLU asks, “Ever whiled away five minutes on a Facebook quiz, finding out what cartoon character is your look-alike or how your IQ stacks up? These quizzes may seem like a perfectly harmless way to spend a few spare minutes. But have you stopped to think about what these quizzes are learning about you and how that info could be used?
Scary. And so it goes …
Then yesterday, Emma pointed out Fa$ebook seems to have some kind of weird speed censorship programme running.
She’s fast on the keyboard and when she was chatting with one of her friends yesterday, the notice in the pic on the right popped up, and kept on popping up.
It said »»»
Warning! You are engaging in behavior that may be considered annoying or abusive by other users.
Facebook’s systems determined that you were going too fast when sending web addresses (URLs) though [sic] chat messages. You must significantly slow down. Further misuse of site features may result in a temporary block or your account being permanently disabled. For further information, please visit our FAQ page.
And No. I promise this is NOT a spoof or a joke.
Nor is Emma the only one to have received a Fa$ebook ’slow-down’ warning.
So what’s it really all about, Fa$ebook?
And there’s more.
Are some Fa$ebook ‘friend’ requests fake?
Emma, “recently became friends with XXX and thinks you may know XXX too,” said an email to me from ‘The Facebook Team”.
It went on »»»
To view this friend suggestion and request XXX as a friend, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/xxxxxxxx
The trouble is: Emma doesn’t remember suggesting anything of the kind.
So was this was purely and solely a Fa$ebook ‘initiative’?
And has anyone else had ‘friend requests’ from people who didn’t send them?
Said a post on Security Management last year »»»
Shawn Moyer, chief information security officer for Agura Digital Security, and Nathan Hamiel, senior consultant for Idea Information Security, created fake profiles of prominent computer security professionals, posted them to various social networking sites, and then sent out plenty of friend requests to other security experts.
They were so astounded by the results they presented to the Black Hat hacking conference yesterday in Las Vegas, according to the Associated Press:
Moyer and Hamiel said they did it three times, each time impersonating a different person. Each time they lured in more than 50 new friends within 24 hours. Some of those people were chief security officers for major corporations and defense industry workers, they said. They declined to identify any of those people.
According to the AP, security professionals are known for their skepticism, some say paranoia, but even these knowledgeable denizens of the net fell for the same scams they warn the average Web surfer to avoid, especially on social networking sites.
Accepting friends on social networking sites you haven’t authenticated as real is dangerous, says the AP. Cybercriminals and hackers masquerading as friends can then post malicious code on a person’s profile page or simply post links to malicious Web sites.
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Fa$ebook quizes – Facebook Quiz quiz, August 28, 2009
the information it gathers – Facebook privacy promises: what are they worth?, August 28, 2009
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August 29th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
While I’m not a facebook regular, I would guess the warning is to deter spammers who post advertising urls everywhere they can find.
August 29th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
@ EE:
Good thought. But if that’s the case, it shouldn’t actively interfere with what users are doing by blocking them. Should it?
Cheers!
August 29th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Fake friend requests are already out there.
I finally received my first one last night.
I didn’t immediately have any recollection of ever meeting someone with that name, but this same “person” was also supposedly a “mutual friend” of two of my known contacts.
With any requests I can’t immediately verify, I automatically just try send a FB message to this person, asking them to “remind me” of where we’ve ever been in contact. If the person is genuine, you’ll get a real reply.
Last night, I tried that with this new unknown “friend”, and couldn’t send the message.
A FB error kept popping up, telling me I needed a recipient in order to send a message. Since the reecipient field in the message box was already filled in with the name of this “person”, I would assume the profile didn’t exist, and that sending the expected friend confirmation would have invited something unwanted from a 3rd party.
August 30th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
the self absorbed, ego centric, narcissistic can keep facebook and twitter…i never joined and never will. im no leader, but im certainly no follower of what corporate america tells me is kvlt…i can think for myself. and i dont need 500 imaginary cyber friends/followers to boost my own over inflated ego to compensate for my own insecurities and low self esteem.
cheers to all you mindless facebookers out there.
August 30th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
I don’t use facebook, because of the privacy issues, but this does sound more like an attempt at controlling
spam posts.
People complain about spam, and piss and moan that something NEEDS to be done and RIGHT NOW,
then bitch when someone attempts to do something about it.
I am not a fan of facebook but in this case they’re damned if they do and damned of they don’t.
August 31st, 2009 at 11:55 am
Duh,
come to think of it, you have something like that here Jon, not trying to make waves or be an ass, it’s just not
‘real time’ , and it can be just as annoying.
Sometimes when I post I get a message saying ‘Your posting too quickly, Slow Down’ . Some days it seems
no matter how long I wait, I get that message. Sometimes the only way to get rid of it is to flush the cache.
It’s another way of catching bot posts, but it can be a nuisance.
I hate facebook just as much as most everyone here, but lets try to at least be more fair than Fox News.
August 31st, 2009 at 12:03 pm
@ Dredd:
“Sometimes when I post I get a message saying âYour posting too quickly, Slow Downâ. Some days it seems no matter how long I wait, I get that message. Sometimes the only way to get rid of it is to flush the cache.”
That’s WordPress, not me. And it has nothing to do with URLs in comment posts.
I have no idea why it sometimes hangs up like that, any more than I know why, on other comment post delays, Akismet sometimes lets spam through, and puts genuine posts in the spam box.
In my own defence, when I’m here, which is usually 8-10 hours a day (and I usually try to check in at other times) I do my best to keep an eye on comment posts so they’re not delayed for too long when Akismet puts them in a delete or moderate queue.
I doubt that Fa$ebook does that.
Cheers!
August 31st, 2009 at 12:29 pm
” In my own defence, when Iâm here, which is usually 8-10 hours a day (and I usually try to check in at other times) I do my best to keep an eye on comment posts so theyâre not delayed for too long when Akismet puts them in a delete or moderate queue. ”
I’m not trying to make you defend yourself.
We ALL know how hard you work on the site, and that anti-spam bot tools are a necessary evil.
My only point was that there are a lot of legitimate reasons to hate facebook, and to be fair, this
really isn’t one of them, so we don’t need to try to make reasons out of minutiae.
And you are right, I’m sure facebook doesn’t do that. This anti-spam effort is a band-aid, and it’s both
too small and too wide, if you get my meaning.
August 31st, 2009 at 12:38 pm
The only reason it exists is because of the ‘Mass of Stupid’.
Someone I know sent me an e-mail asking me to sign up for facebook a while ago.
I emailed her back that I would not because Facebook sells your info to advertisers.
She wrote back .’ No they don’t’ .
I sent her about a dozen links of proof that they do.
She never answered that mail.
She complains to me in some e-mails about all the spam she gets. ( duh )
A week ago I got another request .. from her .. to join facebook ..sigh ..
The mass of stupid is larger the the microbe of sense.
August 31st, 2009 at 1:17 pm
@ Dredd:
“we donât need to try to make reasons out of minutiae”
Tell that to Emma and her friends.
But I understand what you’re saying.
Cheers!