BBC Writes Facebook Virus “To Prove A Point”
May 2, 2008 7 Comments
I saw an article that was Twittered by oilman this morning, about the BBC creating a facebook application that stole information from other users accounts. I know that it may be a good idea to get this issue fixed, but this information could EASILY be abused very rapidly,
We wrote an evil data mining application called Miner, which, if we wanted, could masquerade as a game, a test, or a joke of the day. It took us less than three hours.
This just reminds me of local TV stunts where they say “Look how easily we gained access to this nuclear silo. At 3:00 am the guard changes, and someone with 1.4 lbs. of c4 could kill 1 million people.”
I think it’s pretty irresponsible, but I don’t know…Am I over Reacting?
Don’t you think it was blown out of all proportion. The Facebook apps clearly state you have to share information – and most people leave their profiles in search results anyway. Was obviously a slow news day.
Irresponsible? Anyone with knowledge enough to write a FB app would find it quite obvious you can mine the data.
I think something like this should have been discussed with facebook and fixed before it was talked about. I am sure there are millions of hackers working at this right now trying to find out how to do it. Ah well, as the internet turns I guess
I’m glad that I’m not the only one who thinks it’s crazy to point out vulnerabilities in the public sphere, for others to actually make it a reality
Mark,
on one level I do agree that if you had enough chops to write a facebook app, you could see the potential for a virus. What I am uncomfortable with is when news venues(like the bbc) do an publication of that vulnerability, inviting people who wouldn’t have thought about abusing facebook an idea they may not have had.
When Ford started coming out with multiple colors for their vehicles everyone else had to adapt to the same model and then one up Ford. It is in this competitive and ever changing environment that newer and better things come about.
If it wasn’t BBC who did this then it would have been someone else somewhere else down the road. I’d actually prefer it if a respected non anarchist organization demonstrated a loop hole in my websites.
Mark is right that anyone with enough brains could do what BBC did and probably much more. Let me ask you this though… how do you know that they haven’t already?
Another great analogy to consider is that the Government has all kinds of high tech gadgets that the local consumers cannot get their hands on. Eventually though as they get better toys to play with the older stuff will be released to the public in some measure or another.
The above analogy is me simply stating that there is no doubt many people already collecting data from FB; they simply keep their technologies to themselves until it is no longer useful to them or they have something better.
The world evolves around people breaking things or improving things which in return makes people strive to fix and do better.
John Jones
– 10 minutes of SEO, SEM & Internet Marketing
We all know the responsible thing to do would be just to email the tech support team at Facebook and inform them, but the BBC are out for a quick buck hence this fearmongering.
I wouldn’t expect mainstream media to give a damn about moral and ethical values. Shame on BBC.
Thank you for your very relevant feedback, it’s quick refreshing after all of the spam comments I usually see.