The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

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The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Stuart »

It seems that every time Facebook adds a new feature some newsworthy bug or intentional security concern comes with it. Rather than starting a new thread each time, let's try to keep these all together. (In fact, feel fre to keep any Facebook newsworthy posts here.) Here's one from yesterday:
ReadWriteWeb wrote:Deleted Status Updates Appearing in Facebook's "Memorable Stories" Feature

On Wednesday, Facebook began testing a new feature called "Memorable Stories" that shows users a number of their old status updates in the sidebar. According to Inside Facebook, the feature "pulls a random assortment of old status updates" to increase interaction and time-on-site. While the feature seems harmless, it has revealed an interesting bug: Your deleted status updates may not really be deleted.

We received a tip from a rather privacy-conscious reader that the feature was showing them updates from 2008 and 2009...even though they've made it a habit of deleting each and every update older than a day old for years now. According to Facebook, however, this was just a bug that affected a small percentage of users.

Renowned privacy researcher danah boyd recently discussed this method of "whitewashing" one's wall, wherein every comment and wall post was deleted by the user after it was no longer relevant. In boyd's example, the method was used by a teen who was trying to avoid drama with her friends. While this method may work to help avoid drama and keep some semblance of online privacy, it looks like once you send a piece of information to Facebook, it might be forever accessible in some way.

"Every single last thing has been removed from my wall except for the past 24 hours," our source told us. "Even for myself."

If you take a look at Twitter mentions of "memorable stories", you'll see a number of people complaining about the feature, saying that they don't necessarily want to be reminded of previous updates. It seems that even deleting updates does not protect you from being reminded of them.

"Some things I delete because they're private, some because they're boring," explained our source, "but some things I delete because I don't want to be reminded of them."

Now, it's not as if the feature itself is necessarily a huge privacy concern. We don't want to be the blog that cried wolf here. It only shows these "memories" to you, the person who posted the update in the first place. Deleted status updates appearing as memories, however, suggests that whatever you say on Facebook stays on Facebook.

We got in touch with Facebook and a spokesperson told us that it was a bug that affected a very small percentage of users:
This was in fact a bug that was to the 1% of people in the test for Memorable Stories. We turned it off when we discovered this and fixed it immediately. To be clear, we were only showing people their own status updates, meaning they were not visible to anyone's friends.

[O]ur focus is on immediately removing content from visibility and use on the site, and then initiating the deletion process. So, when a person deletes a post from Facebook, the post should immediately become unavailable for viewing in any context by any user (or use by Facebook). Thereafter, our deletion processes kick in and work their way through the complex databases, logs and backups, with actual deletion times varying by type of content.

The feature we were testing incorrectly accessed a small data depository--which only included a subset of data for a small number of people--that was set for destruction. We are investigating why that data had not yet been destroyed.
It's not as if this is the first time claims have been made that Facebook keeps deleted data available and online. There's an article that appears every couple months about how Facebook photos can stay on its servers for months and even years. It looks like the same may be true for status updates. Facebook does not, however, make the same mistake with its "data download" feature - that provided only the latest, non-deleted content.
It actually not surprising that this bug only affected 1% of users who tested the feature. I mean, how many people actually delete old status updates?
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by hamin_aus »

Facebook keeps everything you put on it forever.
Everyone knows this.
You pretty much agree to let them in the EULA.
Don't like it? Don't create an account.
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Stuart »

^^ I know this. Evidently not everyone does. Won't really matter after 15 March though. ;)
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by PureFire »

Stuart wrote:^^ I know this. Evidently not everyone does. Won't really matter after 15 March though. ;)
Why 15 march??

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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by KatrynKat »

it was rumored that FB will close on the 15 March..... but that is not gonna happen.....
some people are so gullible.....
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by lancelot »

Julius Ceaser will be assassinated on the 15th March

Check his facebook page
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Tribble »

Rofl
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by doo_much »

"he Ides of March"?

You a Shakespeare afficionado?
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Tribble »

Yes :D
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by DAE_JA_VOO »

Great idea for a thread. There's lots going on in the facebook world that's worth talking about.
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Stuart »

The Atlantic wrote:The Next Facebook Privacy Scandal: Sharing Phone Numbers, Addresses

You know the Request for Permission window well. It pops up almost every time that you attempt to access a new application or feature from your Facebook page -- or from one of the millions of sites that now uses Facebook Platform. But something is different about it. Instead of just showing 'Access my basic information,' as it has for some time, it now includes 'Access my contact information,' a feature that, should you select 'Allow' will pass your current address and mobile phone number to whichever application is trying to gain access to them.

On Friday night at exactly 9:00 p.m. Jeff Bowen posted a new entry on the Facebook Developer blog, a virtual space where the social network updates outside developers that use the services provided by Facebook Platform, that highlighted the new feature. It provided step-by-step instructions for developers to get your most coveted information. "We are now making a user's address and mobile phone number accessible as part of the User Graph object," Bowen wrote. "Because this is sensitive information, we have created the new user_address and user_mobile_phone permissions. These permissions must be explicitly granted to your application by the user via our standard permissions dialogs."

Bowen -- and Facebook -- admitted that the information is sensitive. Within hours, regular Facebook users who would, presumably, stay away from a blog for developers under most circumstances, were attacking the blog post. "Before you even consider implementing this very intrusive feature, Facebook needs to stop the scammers from making rogue applications and scamming people," one user wrote. Another followed: "We, as users do NOT condone allowing third party application being allowed access ot our physical addresses nor telephone numbers (sic)."

As is to be expected, other users came to Facebook's defense. To be fair, some applications could use this information in positive ways: delivering purchased merchandise without having to ask repeatedly for an address, for example. But, with history as our guide, we know that opening up new options for sharing information will lead to a quick and ugly backlash against Facebook. Some, including Sophos' Graham Cluley, have already called for users to remove their phone numbers and home addresses from their profiles immediately. Allowing rogue developers access to home addresses, he wrote, is just opening up more possibilities for identity theft.

If you're seriously concerned about this and other changes to Facebook's privacy settings, there's only one way around them: Remove yourself from the network entirely. It's not a move I advocate as I believe the site does more good than harm and that you're only cutting yourself off from a large -- and growing -- part of our lives, but it is an option to consider.
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Siemens »

I dont know if you get emails from Rid1.
There is a new hidden feature where you can download your entire facebook account info.(all the photos and info) I tried it yesterday.
I never knew about it.
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by lancelot »

Share?
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Siemens »

alexjg42@gmail.com
email me and I'll send it to you. I'm not going to upload all those pics
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Stuart »

ReadWriteWeb wrote:Just before the weekend, Facebook announced that it would begin allowing third-party applications and websites to request that users share both their mobile phone number and address. Now, the company has said that it will be putting the new feature on hold while it makes changes to make sure that Facebook users are aware of the potential for data sharing.

Douglas Purdy, director of developer relations, just posted on the Facebook developer blog to explain that Facebook agrees with its critics that the feature could be better implemented and the company will be pulling it until changes are made.
"Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data. We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so. We'll be working to launch these updates as soon as possible, and will be temporarily disabling this feature until those changes are ready. We look forward to re-enabling this improved feature in the next few weeks."
Purdy was just hired last November to "improve Facebook's relationship with the community." This move will not only help with Facebook's developer community, but potentially its user community too.

A primary complaint of many commenters, developers and members of the data portability community was that the permissions dialog design did little to convey to users that they were now sharing information that had previously been kept for use on Facebook, not third-party applications. Take a look at the permission dialog:

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While the request for new information seems apparent here, when it becomes part of a much longer list of permissions, it may easily slip past without users noticing. Purdy was not specific in what changes would be made, but we hope that it has to do with at very least the design of the dialog, if not even allowing users to have granular control over what they share with who at the time of sharing, not in a separate settings page.

For an in-depth look at the new feature, give "Facebook & Identity: The Continued Push Toward Becoming Your One True Login" a read.
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Siemens »

Why is Facebook so scaly?
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by KALSTER »

Siemens wrote:Why is Facebook so scaly?
Watch "The Social Network", starring Stoffel Germishuis, Frikkie van der Westhuizen and Lodewijk Papenfus.
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Stuart »

ReadWriteWeb wrote:Facebook's 3rd Biggest Advertiser is a Bing Affiliate Scam

Matt Cutts is the head of Google's anti-webspam team and tonight he came across what looks like a huge trove of scammy, spammy spam - on Facebook. And it involves Microsoft. Advertising publication AdAge reported tonight on findings from advertising analysts that Facebook sold an estimated $1.86 billion in worldwide advertising for 2010, an amazing sum. Who's spending all that money on Facebook ads? A long, long tail of self-serve advertisers for sure - but near the head of the tail is someone that should have raised a whole lot of red flags.

At the end of the AdAge article is a passing mention that the 3rd largest advertiser across all of Facebook, after AT&T and Match.com, is a mysterious company listed as Make-my-baby.com. That site bought an estimated 1.75 million ad impressions in the third quarter alone. It doesn't seem like a very nice company. (Update: That word million doesn't seem right, in order for this company to be the third largest advertiser on Facebook, that's got to be a typo. It's possible that AdAge mistyped this, that's the simplest explanation. I've asked the reporter for clarification and apologize for not getting it prior. Thanks as always to our eagle eyed commenters.)

Matt Cutts did something anyone could have done. He visited Make-my-baby.com - but be careful if you do the same.

What is it? It's a paper-doll-type site that lets you put eyeglasses and mustaches on top of a funny looking baby's face. At least that appears to be what it is; before you can do anything the site says you have to install "a browser plug-in to present an enhanced experience." If you do so, according to the fine print, your browser's default search and home page will be switched to Bing. Once you do so, the affiliate company behind the toolbar, called Zugo, will capture a slice of the revenue whenever you click on a search ad.

Apparently the whole thing is working out pretty well for everyone involved. Zugo, or whatever company in a chain of affiliates it is that's behind this, has found a toolbar promotion strategy that converts very well. Enough people install this plug-in, and it captures enough downstream revenue, that it pays off for the company to buy more Facebook ads than any company on earth, except for AT&T and Match.com.

Cutts writes on Google Buzz tonight,
The "terms and conditions" link [on Make-my-baby.com] takes you to http://mmb.bingstart.com/terms/ which has phrases like "If Chrome ("CR") is installed on your PC we may change the default setting of your home page on CR to Bingstart.com."

I also noticed this phrase in the Zugo toolbar section: "To uninstall the Toolbar, please visit the Toolbar FAQ ( http://www.zugo.com/toolbar/faq/ )." Sadly, that url is a broken link. It looks like a few people have had trouble uninstalling the Bing/Zugo toolbar, according to pages like http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/746034 or http://mymountain.blogspot.com/2010/03/ ... ijack.html

If make-my-baby.com is Facebook's 3rd biggest advertiser, I wonder how many people are installing this software without reading the fine print that says "Installing the toolbar includes managing the browser default search settings and setting your homepage to bing.com" ?
Some might say that all is fair in love, war and affiliate marketing - that this is just smart work by whoever is behind it. Of course these are 3rd party analysts reporting on the advertisers, too. Make-My-Dumb-Baby might only be the 4th or 5th largest advertiser in reality. It may be spending only a few hundred thousand dollars a year, we can't know from the outside. ComScore, the firm cited for the advertising analysis, does make its very good global name from doing these kinds of estimates well, though.

Either way, I think that prompting people to give access to their browser's settings under false pretense, and then changing their search provider and home page, is unethical.

It's pretty remarkable that even at the top of this giant success story of Facebook advertising, and perhaps near the top of the story of Bing's steady rise as a search engine, is a Web 1.0-style pulling the wool over the eyes of gullible internet users. Is that a sustainable monetization strategy? Maybe it is. There is, as they say, a sucker born every minute. There may well be a sucker found every minute too who wants to customize a baby picture on the internet.

Between the incredible growth of casual games that arguably do little for the collective human experience but consume a growing amount of it each day, and monetization like this, it's hard sometimes to take Facebook seriously when it says it wants to bring people together and make the world a better place.

Is no one minding the store? Or are they just minding the cash register and turning away from what the customers are up to? It's in the short-term economic interests of both Facebook and Microsoft to ignore what affiliates are doing. "It's entirely possible, even likely, that Facebook and Microsoft didn't realize this was going on," Cutts said tonight. "I wouldn't assume they were aware of what was going on."

It's notable that this came to light just hours after Facebook posted a late-night retraction of its controversial new feature that allowed 3rd party apps on the site to request the home addresses and phone numbers of users.

To be fair, it must be very, very challenging to run, grow and innovate with a company that serves 600 million people around the world with a radically new kind of technology (social networking).

I emailed press@facebook.com and press@microsoft.com to request comment. The press email to Facebook generally gets routed to the right person to answer a question, though it is after midnight West Coast time right now. The email to Microsoft's press account bounced.

We've emailed Microsoft's PR firm as well and will update this post with any comment we receive.
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by DeathStrike »

Siemens wrote:@gmail.com
email me and I'll send it to you. I'm not going to upload all those pics
is it safe for you to post your email address on a forum?? :roll:
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Anakha56 »

A good read:

http://developers.slashdot.org/story/11 ... e?from=rss
Developers: How Facebook Ships Code


programming
Hugh Pickens writes
"The two largest teams at Facebook are Engineering and Ops, with roughly 400-500 team members each, together making up about 50% of the company. All engineers go through 4 to 6 week "Boot Camp" training where they learn the Facebook system by fixing bugs. After boot camp, all engineers get access to live DB and any engineer can modify any part of Facebook's code base and check-in at-will so that engineers can modify specs mid-process, re-order work projects, and inject new feature ideas anytime. Then arguments about whether or not a feature idea is worth doing or not generally get resolved by spending a week implementing it and then testing it on a sample of users, e.g., 1% of Nevada users. "All changes are reviewed by at least one person, and the system is easy for anyone else to look at and review your code even if you don't invite them to," writes yeegay. "It would take intentionally malicious behavior to get un-reviewed code in." What is interesting for a compnay this size is that there is no official QA group at Facebook but almost every employee is dogfooding the product every day."
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by KatrynKat »

he says it is and does it all the time.....

not that i do it...
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by DAE_JA_VOO »

DeathStrike wrote:
Siemens wrote:@gmail.com
email me and I'll send it to you. I'm not going to upload all those pics
is it safe for you to post your email address on a forum?? :roll:
Why not? Especially a Gmail address. The worst that can happen is that you can get spammed, but with Gmail's spam filter, who cares?
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Siemens »

I need help. Before I explode.
My friends all have the habit to, when they throw a party, message everyone in their friendlist. The last one I got had about 300 receipients.
The problem comes in that most of them use their mobile phones to check their facebook thus there is only one option "reply to all".
Now when someone does reply to all their message comes up first giving the impression that , that message was the original.
The people who does this aren't the brightest and needless to say a lot of their friends arent either.
What happens is they open the reply thinking it is the actual message and then they reply to all "who are you" etc. And this goes on for weeks even after the actual party.

If you delete the message it just comes back as soon as there is a reply.

How on earth do you block this???

DeathStrike wrote:
Siemens wrote:@gmail.com
email me and I'll send it to you. I'm not going to upload all those pics
is it safe for you to post your email address on a forum?? :roll:
I've been over this a million times it is safe to do if if you have the best spam filter
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by Stuart »

ReadWriteWeb wrote:Nevermind CAPTCHA, Facebook Asks If You Know Your Friends

We're all familiar with the CAPTCHA tests - images full of squiggly letters and made up words - that are meant to tell apart humans and computers, but what if you want to tell apart one person from another? In the case of Facebook, you have the perfect dataset at hand - all of that person's friends.

Today, Facebook said that it had begun testing a new security feature it's calling "Social Authentication", which intends to make sure that the person signing into Facebook is indeed the account holder and not a hacker.

Facebook security engineer Alex Rice writes that Facebook strives to put people at the center of all experience and that "We also want to bring the benefits of social design to experiences where you wouldn't traditionally expect them, like account security."

"Instead of showing you a traditional captcha on Facebook, one of the ways we may help verify your identity is through social authentication," writes Rice. "We will show you a few pictures of your friends and ask you to name the person in those photos. Hackers halfway across the world might know your password, but they don't know who your friends are."

With traditional CAPTCHA tests, you can ask for a new image if the letters or words are unclear. We hope that Facebook offers the same, though most users are unlikely to ever see this feature. We don't know about you, but we have to wonder if we could visually identify each and every one of our Facebook friends, though we're sure they've thought of this fact. As the image above shows, it looks like the service uses facial recognition to at least assure that you aren't trying to identify your friend's cartoon character or otherwise inhuman avatars. It also looks like you get a number of "skips" per security check, accounting for the fact that yes, some of us can't properly identify all of our high school friends that we're now Facebook friends with (for some reason or another).

For you security-minded folks, make sure to read Audrey Watters' write-up of Facebook's other important security addition of the day, "always on" HTTPS.
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Re: The Facebook Features (and Other News) Thread

Post by DAE_JA_VOO »

Have you guys been reading all the new "Facebook Phone" rumours? Second time around, and it's really getting silly now.

The only point I can really see in a facebook phone is that it'll be a GREAT way for them to really push the new Messaging system they announced last year, and it'll be great for Facebook Deals too, but that's about it :|
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