Facebook security

[Adrian]

What a lovely oxymoron in the thread title – Facebook Security.

Well Kerry, it didn’t take you long to discover that security cannot be high on your priorities if you want to embrace the facebook experience.
I too am shocked by the connections it makes between my “family friendly” profile and my friends in the transgender community.
I also know that Facebook, in its wisdom, regularly offers girls an opportunity to be a friend with my more boring family persona. Like you i can’t think of anything explicit I have done that would link us together.. other than friends of friends of friends, profiles viewed and so on.

Quote:

Hi Girls

I am not paranoid, yet, but it makes me wonder about big brother and privacy.

Kerry – only just on FB ( for now)

Well I think there are two big issues TG people should worry about big facelessbook.

Firstly, as you have discovered is its voracious appetite for connecting people together. Great if you are out there… no secrets… no stealth… but for the rest of us its just a connection waiting to be made.

Secondly, it is a fact that facebook doesn’t delete any knowledge it acquires, even if you decide to change who you are.
Everything on your journey to the present including pictures and postings is remembered forever – even if you “delete” it.

If anyone thinks I am a facebook hater, let me say that I find the communication through my family profile invaluable – I even found a long lost relative that way. But for my life as Amanda I would trash my facebook profile instantly… if it wasn’t for some friends who I can only keep in contact with that way.

[June]

I must say I find it amusing that my CD personna is often suggested to my drab Facebook account as a suggested friend, perhaps it is suggested to my daughters too. I wonder if this will finally out me to the world.

I have restricted access to my photos to friends so I imagine I am reasonably safe, but you never know.

It must certainly be a worry to some of the girls out there with dual facebook accounts for their male and female identities and who have no wish to be outed.

June

[Lisa_W]

Hi all
There was an interesting article in SMH recently – stating that FB monitors what you are doing on the web even when you are not on FB. You have to get rid of their cookies everytime you go on.

Big brother is really watching!!

I ask myself – is the extra contact really worth it? Surely if friends can can keep in touch via FB then surely they can send you an email. Better still write a letter!!

My paranoia & age is definitely showing.

Lisa

[Anonymous]

Hi. I wouldnt touch Facebook with a ten foot barge pole.

Connie.

[Anonymous]

Not just FB, but Google, Yahoo etc … Do you notice how many websites advertise heels & dresses??!! The amazing thing about FB & similar phenomena is that the whole world was suddenly prepared to surrender decades worth of work & experience on privacy issues & hand our information to private operators we didn’t know.

In places like here data is generally used by companies annoying us with targeted advertising. But it is worth noting how some of the well known search engines & social networking companies engage with the Chinese Govt for example. Vodafone recently ran advertising in Africa claiming its technology played a vital role in the overthrow of the Egyptian regime. Then it turned out that VF was first to shut down service in Cairo as the Govt tried to stop people communicating.

Regulation is running way behind the technology. Current is to use one browser for networking & another for all your other stuff.

Debbie

[Anonymous]

Thanks girls, the thought of family, friends, clients being offered “friendship” with Kerry is just too scary.

My life on fb has finished, it was a small insignificant life, didn’t upset anyone or achieve much. And in 14 days FB promises to delete me permanently.

What say I just stay at TGR?

Kerry

[Anonymous]

My drab face book finds everyone I have ever replied to on Hotmail, I do this to test customers email and it appears their email is in that contact list. I never use the web interface otherwise as all my accounts go to windows mail. Once they have an address you cant get it back but there does not seem to be any fear Yet that the suggested contacts get a “you may know” you as well.

I did remove any persons that were on both my Hotmail contacts lists and friends on all other web pages as well.
Don’t forget any browsing you do leaves tracks and FB can pick them up if you don’t regulary clean out your browser caches.

Also a point to think about is make sure your face is hidden Profile pic or at least big sunnies and blur the pic and make it as small as you can.

Quote:

I must say I find it amusing that my CD personna is often suggested to my drab Facebook account as a suggested friend, perhaps it is suggested to my daughters too. I wonder if this will finally out me to the world.

I have restricted access to my photos to friends so I imagine I am reasonably safe, but you never know.

It must certainly be a worry to some of the girls out there with dual facebook accounts for their male and female identities and who have no wish to be outed.

June

[Anonymous]

To stay secure on the web there are various levels and things you can do…

First always logout of sites like FB when you leave them (all social networking sites.)

Second delete cookies all the time.

Clear your browser cache (this can be done automatically by editing your settings)

Clear your browser history (again can be done automatically)

… better yet get ‘web washer’ – which will do these things for you.

Personally I use 2 browsers.. Firefox and Safari. Safari for public, firefox for private (though it could be the other way around, it’s just what is convenient for me).. using 2 *different* browsers keeps all the tracking information to it’s own browser and therefore you don’t get this cross pollution…

Best security though is don’t put it there if you don’t want it….

Regards,

Michelle

PS: I track people on the internet as part of my job (and not just via facebook etc) … its very hard to completely ‘hide’ … if you have something to hide and you put it online, it will be found.. so don’t…

[Anonymous]

For many of us out there Face Book is a wider connection to others with same issues. We find many sisters across the globe. But how many of us connect and chat with say a fellow sister in the US or UK?
The relation is not the same as local issues like night clubs and such but we share the same issues in many ways. But after so many years of review and thinking you become tired of what use to affect you and you just get on with it!

Face book has pushed many girls at me and so has MSN chat but I not excepted all and most times they do not even talk or send me a message so why the hell have me as a friend????

[Anonymous]

I’ve always maintained seperate accounts for my male mode and my female mode and i’ve had no problems so far.

Moderator

Quote:

Unfortunately many of us (including me) have done exactly the same and found the accounts being coupled. So the fact that all is well so far is not a reason to assume that facebook will forever respect your separation of personas.

The other insidious thing is that may be you can only tell if your accounts are connected when one of your friends tells you about the “friend” suggestion they received. This is in fact the way I found out. So I’m not sure you can ever be sure there aren’t problems – Amanda

[Anonymous]

Hell to all TGR’ers,

I am not on ANY social media sites and I would not trust them any further than I could throw a 50kg rock. (which in my case is 0 cm).

I’ve had attempts from “corporate ones”, eg linked in and a very old and very tenous contact has “asked” me to be a Facebook Friend.

The person who asked me to join them on Linked In had no prior knowledge of that request and I dare say neither wouuld the other other tenuos contact.

So I join with AA and say unless they are an important part of your life, dont touch them.

Caty

PS The other bad side effect is that the amount of spam I received whilst on Linked in skyrocketed. Had I “taken all the opportunities” eg “British National Lottery” I would be a sterling millionaire several times over. Would have been able to “invest” these funds in all the “opportunities” I received from Nigeria as well.

I screamed blue murder at Linked in and they took me off. The spam dropped immediately and has now returned to “normal” levels.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your insight on this Amanda, the information i have put up is minimal and i’ve been careful as to the photos i have posted but anything is possible, i may have to make some adjustments in the future even if it means closing the FB account and again thank you for your reply, its much appreciated.

[Anonymous]

I think another way to do it (it has worked well for me to date) is to use a separate browser for en femme dealings & Facebook.[/i]

Moderator

Quote:

Sorry – I always used two browsers….as accessing two accounts on one browser is just asking for facebook to recognise what is going on. But even with two browsers I got the accounts coupled.

[Anonymous]

I have technical knowledge in computer and internet security.

Even if you use a different browser for your ‘m’ or ‘f’ personality there are a number of methods that can relatively easily be used by facebook, google, yahoo, gmail et al to link them and all of your contacts – and almost all previous contacts.

If you really want to keep your m and f personalities separate you must use a different PC for each, (i.e. two computers) and for the best ‘seperation’ and privacy you should use a different internet connection. (- Although your IP address may change each time you turn your modem off, many modems are left on for weeks or months at a time and this is a simple and obvious way to link messages from the same location/box/person.)

In the simplest terms you should assume that anything (and everything) you send to a web-based service is PUBLIC and will be kept forever. Note that Apple do not even make a secret of this. If you create an iTunes account it cannot ever be deleted – they state this more or less openly in the ‘fine print’.

In short, if you want to maintain your privacy and confidentiality (it could be important one day when applying for a job) do not use web-sites. Correspond with others you know with similar interests with a dedicated email account (ie. not a web-based mail service like hotmail, gmail, yahoo, msn et al). And even then private email is not completely secure and private but it is orders of magnitude better. Note that google are quite open about the fact that they scan (“read”) and index the contents of every message on gmail and target advertising to you accordingly. Ie There is a Permanent (everlasting) Record of any message you ever send on gmail. Use at your own risk. You should also assume that there is a permant everlasting record of anything you ever send to Facebook and that you are easily identified (and linked to other information about you) by embedded information in your computer irrespective of the details you may enter manually.

Best regards,
Chris

[Alice]

Facebook uses many different methods of connecting accounts and suggesting people you might know.

One of these is that if someone uses “friend finder” to check their email contact list (yahoo, etc) for friends on facebook, facebook keeps the list of email addresses as people that that person may know, even if the email addresses don’t exist on any facebook profiles. They may also collect the name associated with that email address in the address book.

Similarly, it is possible to type (or paste) an email address into the facebook search box in the top bar and if there is a profile connected to that email address, find that profile. I’ve done this numerous times to find people I know. If there is no match, facebook retains the fact that a user searched for that email address as a possible person that they might know.

It was also possible to send an email facebook friend request to someone who wasn’t on facebook and invite them to join. I’m not sure if that’s still possible or not, but I think that it is.

If you later create a facebook profile using an email address, or add an extra email address to an existing profile, facebook will look for any existing connections to that email address. This can literally take a few days of database trawling on facebook’s part.

It will automatically send you friend requests from any previous emailed requests unless the sender withdrew the request, and there doesn’t appear to be any time limit on that. I added a yahoo email address to my facebook profile a while ago and it generated a friend request from someone I had added and subsequently been unfriended by during the 2 years between getting the email friend request and adding that email address to my profile!

Similarly, all the possible connections to your email address translate into friend suggestions.

Also, if you view another person’s profile that increases the chance that you will be shown to them as someone they may know.

There are rumours (including from some former facebook staff) that there are “shadow profiles” of people who have not created facebook profiles but are connected to other people by their email address being extracted from multiple address books, the name being cross-referenced from multiple address books to increase the likelihood that it is accurate, data matching such as being referred to in facebook posts, family connections, text associated with photos, etc. Once that shadow profile has several people that they are likely to know, facebook then considers it likely that people who know the shadowed person might know each other. If a shadowed person joins facebook, they will never know that they were shadowed but all of the friend suggestions etc will fall into line very quickly.

It has been suggested that facebook would like to enable facial recognition for photo tagging, and the initial implementation would be to suggest tags for photos. With shadow profiles, those suggestions could already exist and joining facebook could trigger an avalanche of tag suggestions, particularly if you add a profile photo that is a good clear face shot.

Having said all of that, I’m comfortable that my identical twin brother and I are both on facebook and have around 67 friends in common including neighbours, friends, family, work clients, etc. I’m really not hiding any more, particularly with having long brightly painted nails all the time since early last year.