TECH TALK: Facebook not all fun and games - know the risks
By Donovan Hoggan
I’m going to stray, this week, from my “free software” series to talk about Facebook. It’s great to stay in touch with old friends, and there are some really entertaining games … but Facebook has its dark side, too.
Two issues have put the Facebook in the news lately. The first is privacy. There has been a decent backlash from both government and non-government privacy advocates all over the world about Facebook changes that have exposed user’s private information without their consent.
I’m not sure what the uproar is about, since Facebook information has NEVER been private. You need to assume that anything you put on Facebook is available to the world, regardless of the settings you use.
The other issue that’s come up recently is clickjacking. There have been a couple of scams in which people have been enticed to click on exciting pictures or links. When they do, they find out that the only way to get to the “cool stuff” is to give the application access to all of their friends. Then, and this part kills me, THEY DO!!!
The next step, and this shouldn’t be too big a surprise to anyone, is that all of your friends start getting ads from you.
Two Facebook rules to remember. First, be careful what you click on. There are bad people out there of whom you need to beware.
Second, you should assume that nothing you say, do or post on Facebook is genuinely private. Funny pictures get passed around, security settings get changed and stuff happens. At the same time, more and more human
resources departments are making a Facebook/MySpace/Linkedin check a
standard step in the hiring process.
At the end of the day, Facebook is a fun way to stay in touch with friends
and waste away a few hours here and there. Like any other recreational
activity, though, it’s got some hazards. Know them and avoid them!
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