Facebook security – the secret of Facebook
Facebook has
now become a global social networking website, with over 845 million users all
over the world. I barely know a person who doesn’t use facebook, for this
became a website inevitable to use as long as you want yourself to be connected
to the global community. Most people use facebook unconsciously, for the
purpose of communicating with their friends, getting to know them better, or
even making new friends online just like in the Catfish. You are probably one
of these facebook users who made it a habit of visiting facebook everyday. That
is exactly why you should read this, to be aware of what computer experts are
doing with YOUR personal information.
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You may
have already encountered this issue before you read this, but probably not as
severe as this. An Australian computer expert has raised first privacy concerns
of the facebook users. He discovered a website that is able to track exactly
where you go on the web even if you're not logged in to your Facebook accounts.
He claims that Facebook is following users beyond the social networking site.
His blog says Facebook does not delete tracking technology known as 'cookies'
even once you've logged out. This is not his opinion only; many other experts
say the exact same thing. Stephen Collins from the Electronic Frontiers
Australia says, “It's actually still tracking where you're going and there's
the potential for that information to be put on the facebook without your
explicit permission.” Why would they do this? Obviously, personal information
can be extremely useful for marketing or advertising, increasing the profits of
businesses in great amount. On-line security experts also say that information
could be sold to advertisers. They say that online tracking technology has been
benefiting for years. Actually, according to Nick Ellsmore, an Information
Security Expert, says, “For many internet businesses, there's a saying that
goes 'If you're not paying for the product, you're not the customer. You are
the product being sold.'”
The
security problem of Facebook is not a recent one; this has been a major problem
since the Facebook CEOs first launched this internet site. In Social Network,
the movie that deals with the behind story of first establishment of Facebook
in Harvard by a genius, founders of Facebook faced plenty of accusations about
the morality and legality of the world's most popular networking site. The
founder was sued by his best friend to the Federal Court, in which the Judge
declares, “You’re being accused of intentionally breaching security, violating
copyrights, violating individual privacy…”
On the
other hand, Facebook argues that they did not use the personal information of
users for their own profits. Facebook admits that it does gather personal
information, but says it is used only to enhance users' security, such as
detecting unauthorized log-in of facebook accounts. And in any case, the
information gathered is deleted after ninety days. Also, Facebook engineers put
these defenses on-line; an engineer Gregg Stefancik says, “Generally, unlike
other major Internet companies, we have no interest in tracking people. We
don't have an ad network and we don't sell people's information.”
Now being
aware of this critical issue, many people now claim that the government has to
step in. However, IT experts say common sense is a better protection than legal
intervention. One of them says, “It's happening, and we just need to be aware
of it, we need to be sensible, and if you're really concerned about it, don’t
do anything you don't want mom to know about.” I personally think the experts
are right. The Facebook engineers are probably one of the greatest technology
engineers in the whole world. To combat these people, it’s going to take great
amount of money and time, and of course, will not be easy once the Facebook get
to know that they started intervening.
