Friday, January 16, 2009

Social Media's Fail(?) of the Day

I waffle between security v. convenience all the time; especially online. It is more secure to have a variety of passwords over all accounts, but much more convenient to have 1. In this case, this potential security v. convenience fail comes from Facebook.

For the first time today I got this:

While trying to update my status so my friends can have the link to this very cool article about our own Yaybia! But, today, instead of updating immediately I got a Security Check, and if I don't want to get this every time I try to update something, I have to have Facebook verify that I am a real person by sending a confirmation code to my mobile phone (standard rates and other fees may apply). Well, I did it. And still got the security things.

The point of this is to verify your existence, and they reason that if you are on Facebook you must have a mobile phone. Also, I could still have my old fake account (RIP Thunder Girl) and still send the message to my phone. Also, what if I don't want Facebook to have my phone number?

This might make Facebook a tiny bit more secure, but right now I'm voting for convenience.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have just received a "Facebook Mobile confirmation Code" text message on my personal mobile phone. I have never supplied personal details to Facebook as a private individual and absolutely don't want to - I regard it as an information paradise for hackers, social engineers and lurkers. To add insult to injury, the message says "standard rates/other charges may apply", suggesting that I have been charged for another party's intrusion into my privacy. How can I deal with this? Facebook is a blocked site where I use a computer, so I have no way to contact Facebook to tell them that someone else has contacted them supplying my telephone details. I am worried I am being impersonated. What can I do?

Libby Issendorf said...

That sucks! I Googled around a little and found this email address you could try contacting:

privacy@facebook.com

I can't promise it will work but it's worth a try. Good luck!

 
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