MEPIS Community Forum

Indeed.. do not post online, whether protected or not, what you don't want others to see. DO. NOT. Period.

Have you forgotten the brief time where EVERYTHING on facebook was shown as public, even the most privately set up accounts. Quite a bit of fun that was! (not)

I've never had a Facebook account (and can't imagine ever getting one) so I only have a general idea of how it works.

What freaks me out is the permissions/access that get "chainloaded" through the friend of friend of friend thing. Sounds almost like how STDs are spread.

That can all be controlled in your privacy settings to avoid that chainloading. I do use Facebook and am prudent in what I post. My only concern is someone hijacking my account, but that can happen with regular email as well.

and because they're being monitored, fb has stated that privacy changes will default to the strictest and will require opt-in from now on if a user wants to lessen their privacy.

i have to admit to staying off facebook for a long, long time, but finally gave in. partly because i manage the web presence for a number of non-profits, but also because i, well to be honest, wanted to waste some time instead of reading up on organismal regeneration. it is a great time waster, but i have also found it an incredibly useful tool to stay in touch and reconnect with friends, who i may otherwise never be able to.

my profile isn't searchable, i have ad blocking software that helps cut down unwanted crap, and i'm careful about the stuff i click on and post. i know many folks that have their birthdays enabled on fb. please turn them off - even if the year isn't being displayed, i'm almost certain that you've posted enough to have someone determine the year you were born. in the US, knowing someone's birthday and state of birth provides an 80%+ chance for a hacker to guess your social security number... just turn it off, your real close friends will know your birthday.

i don't recommend everyone run out and get a fb account. if person is a tech neophyte and is "naive" enough to click on anything that appears to be posted from a friend that person needs to stay away because they're only asking for problems.

And there's more:

Stolen Facebook Names, Passwords Mostly Old Data

http://www.pcworld.com/article/247380/s ... _data.html

I haven't had a Facebook account. I'm probably going to have to since my son and daughter-in-law are moving out of town. But I wouldn't even consider it if the government hadn't intervened.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, this article came out just yesterday: http://facecrooks.com/Internet-Safety-P ... o-far.html

The root of the problem is that Facebook is practically ubiquitous; as of September 2011 it had 800 million users. That alone makes it an inviting target for cyber criminals. Put a platform that is poorly-designed from a security standpoint in the hands of almost a billion people, most of whom don't have a clue about security, and this is what you get.

On what basis is this statement made. Many privacy changes have been rolled out in recent weeks. May have been very true earlier. Having said that I have to agree that it certainly is a rich target.

the perception will remain that fb doesn't do privacy well. it's such a huge target that it's worth an insane amount of a hacking group's time. the old adage about terrorism holds true here... terrorists only have to be lucky, once... to prevent attacks you have to be 100%.

any fb breach will be huge news just because of the potential threat.

just like addons for browsers, or unauthenticated software for your system... don't use, or severely limit the fb apps that are authorized to access your account. tighten down all security settings in fb to prevent the spread of your info, spread the word about these settings to your technology challenged friends...