The undead pics from the vaults of the underweb!

that if I post stuff on t'interwebtubess, it might escape my control?? No, surely not, that's just implausible....!

Even if one takes what the Facebook spokesman told the BBC at face value, he's still admitting Facebook taking a sloppy approach to user privacy. It's pretty trivial for the "delete" process to do a standard 1-pass random wipe of the image file.

If you have the opportunity to keep a "careful record of the URL associated with the photos" you may as well keep the photos.

As anyone who has viewed the photos might.

Ergo, once you published something (to the web or not) its no longer private...you can't delete it.

Besides, as facebook state, eventually the space freed up by the deleted photo is reused and this it is deleted.

This is pretty much the way every disk drive based operating system has "not actually" deleted files since day 1...except, of course, stick the word twitter / facebook and security or privacy and you think you've got a story...

People, not wanting to sound old and crusty, but if you just study the history of Facebook and do some (deep) research, you will clearly discover that this is not a company founded on good will, but like an oil company, it will do anything to make money. (It's very origins are dubious.) Just as Google got burned with their Street View feature, these companies are run by people who while very savvy, are too young to be aware of their station. Meaning, they don't know the difference between right and wrong. Microsoft, for all their flaws, are run by wiser people who probably shudder at the blatent missuse of public trust by their younger competitors or partners. (Microsoft's service was proven to be the most reliable at deleting files.)

The decade of appalling (and embarassing) voyouristic celeb culure, 'reality' TV and worse has sadly created a generation of self serving people (and politicians, in particular here in the UK) who should not be in any position of power.

Wasn't the issue of deleted, but not really deleted, files one of the things which caused considerable consternation during the Iran-Contra affair over 20 years ago? Will humanity never learn?

Dave

Consider yourself reported to the analogy police.

Any file system since the year dot has removed or marked as unavailable the link between the filename and the bucket of bits it represents. No matter how careful you are to record the filename it won't do you a bit of good. Even before the bits have been replaced.

Facebook are apparently failing to perform even this basic step, which would be enough really. I also fail to see how it would be infeasible for them if it is feasible for other Web 2.0 soilpipes like Flickr. Possibly beyond them, but not infeasible.

Some arse is doing a PHD in social networking sites, thats akin to a PHD in brothels.

McDonalds for him

> Meaning, they don't know the difference between right and wrong

Right, whereas you believe in the old and crusty morals of innuendo and hand waving bollocks.

A company that wants to make money? Well shag my old boots, grandpa. Isn't that precisely what all companies are for? Well done for sussing out capitalism after only 90 years. I wonder how facebook sussed out that when they were so young? They must be evil geniuses! No, hang on it's because of Big Brother and X Factor. They watched them and Simon Cowell had recorded subliminal economics lessons hidden in the songs.

And they're dubious of course, knudge, knudge wink wink.. If you google you'll find grandpa's page of the history (well the DEEP history mind), so it must be true, because he wrote it on the internet.

It's easy to see from your post how much better things must have been back in your day, Grandpa. Clearly you never had the savvy to have a station, let alone be aware of it...which probably has a lot more to do with your ranting about youngsters that have done well for themselves, than any factual base.

"You should never expect anything that is put on the internet to remain anonymous for long, or that it will go away after time. This is why I have never set up a 'Blog' or a social networking account, and never will."

The same could be said for posting under your own name in "comments" - then again maybe Christopher Ahrens is a pseudonym

How do *you* know about the hot dog pic?

'The decade of appalling (and embarassing) voyouristic celeb culure, 'reality' TV and worse has sadly created a generation of self serving people (and politicians, in particular here in the UK) who should not be in any position of power.'

Excellent! do you want to form a political party?

@ Michael

Your 14 aren't you?

Proof of the adage that an infinte number of monkeys banging on a typewriter will one day output Shakespeare...

Your the monkey sadly that one the face of it is banging out something intelligent and coherent... Wait... I lied..

Your orginal post about the way disks store images and the way the links worked in the story is complete and utter twaddle, I'm downright surprised that you poke your head back in to the same set of comments with yet another poorly conceived set of ideas..

Well, opinions and arseholes and all that.