Facebook Flaw Means Anyone Can See Private Photos

A surprising security hole in Facebook allows almost anyone to see pictures marked as private, an online forum revealed late Monday.


Even pictures supposedly kept hidden from
uninvited eyes by Facebook’s privacy controls aren’t safe, reported one
user of a popular bodybuilding forum in a post entitled “I teach you how to view private Facebook photos.”


Facebook appears to have acted quickly to
eliminate the end-run around privacy controls, after word of the exploit
spread across the Internet. It wasn’t long before one online miscreant uploaded private pictures of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg himself -- evidence that the hack worked, he said.
A Facebook spokesman did not immediately return FoxNews.com requests for comment.


The issue stems from the site’s own reporting system, which Facebook has designed to give users power to police each other.


In this case, after a user reports another
for “nudity and pornography” in their profile picture, Facebook presents
them with the further option of “selecting additional photos to include
with your report.”


If a user chooses to continue, Facebook
provides them with an album of additional photos to discern. In
FoxNews.com tests, this function consistently revealed private pictures,
which the user can then resize and enlarge by adjusting bits of code.


Last week Facebook settled with the Federal
Trade Commission for allegedly exposing details about users' lives
without getting legally required consent. In some cases, the FTC
charged, Facebook allowed potentially sensitive details to be passed
along to advertisers and software developers prowling for customers.


To avoid further legal wrangling, Facebook
agreed to submit to government audits of its privacy practices every
other year for the next two decades. The company committed to getting
explicit approval from its users -- a process known as "opting in" --
before changing their privacy controls.


Source

fuck facebook

41OMaXiMuS wrote:fuck facebook

this. Gotta delete some photos now...

Nothing is private online.

Literally

King wrote:Nothing is private online.

Literally

true that.