Facebook bug spills name and pic for all 500 million users A bug in Facebook's login system allows attackers to match unknown email addresses with users' first and last names, even when they've configured their accounts to make that information private. The information leak can be exploited by social-engineering scammers, phishers, or anyone who has ever been curious about the person …
thinking about it wouldn't the best way to get your account removed is to post pics and language that breaks FB policies, or have a number of friends send in "complaints" about you, that way the FB team themselves will lock and remove your account + details.
Just a thought, has anyone tried this?
Im not sure if some one has already pointed this out.. But to call this an exploit is a bit of a stretch.
FB has always done this (Well at least as long as I have been using it) and as far as I can tell its the designed functionality when you try to log in it shows you a picture and your name.
Its perhaps not very well thought out because it can be used in the way described in the article but its hardly an exploit.
You choose to join a social networking site.
Note the 'networking' bit, it's quite important.
You then decide to hide yourself away so nobody can find you.
How is this networking? Shame on Facebook for allowing a bug to reveal the hiders but for me they would do better to remove the option to hide.
You network, or you don't network - stop taking up dead bytes just so you can feel special.
had an absolute flurry of spammy friend requests last night to both my usual FB email account and a secondary one that seemed legit because they had my name as it appears on FB and even some "mutual friends" populated... (who, not surprisingly were not actually connected)
all these where from profiles that were just a link to a pornbook site.
luckily the profile picture was of someone I'm sure I would have remembered if we really were friends so I checked before confirming.
the tide of crap is rising and the internet will drown!
Remember FB was created by some daft student who wanted to arrange a piss up with other students, and swap pics of their debauchery but didn't want to spend the money sending texts / MMS.
From its initial inception, it was a tool to share information with all and sundry.
So if the point is to share and be open, the whole privacy issue is contradictory.
Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. I can speak to my mates using a phone, I can share anything via email / IM / file transfer, god pick a utility!
The point is, if you're stupid enough to live your life on FB, you deserve to be ripped off, chewed up and spat out. And it's only time before 100's millions of users are seriously affected by their need to use FB.
Watch me laugh, and laugh, and laugh..............
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