Outside Facebook HQ, Palo Alto, CA
Many Facebook users awoke to find an inaccessible chat this morning with the notorious "down for maintenance" pop-up. The real culprit? A chat function privacy breach. Reports of a chat bug have circulated the web this morning following a TechCrunch article in which contributor Steve O'Hear found an exploit.
The security flaw enabled users to access their friends' live chat histories in a remarkably quick, uncomplicated manner by previewing a friend's view of a user's profile information.
As the bug appears to be relatively new to the chat function, it has been suggested that it might have resulted from Facebook's latest privacy setting revamp. However, allowing users to view their profile from the eyes of their friends is a feature that has been available for some time now (included in this 2008 preview). Until more information is gleamed from Palo Alto, little more can be discerned.
Today's bug is the latest in a string of security concerns stemming from the social networking giant. Facebook has been in the limelight following global outcry of its privacy settings in recent months. Last week, Seantor Charles Schumer (D-NY) raised concerns over Facebook's latest venture to share user information with third party websites and called on the FTC to provide privacy guidelines for social networks.
Ultimately, any such FTC guidelines would be voluntary barring Congressional intervention. Nonetheless, the debate is brewing. "No company likes to hear about unhappy senators, " Larry Downes, author of Laws of Disruption and Fellow at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, explained to me via email.
While this particular bug seems relatively small, no exploit can ever be completely harmless. Facebook clearly has their work cut out for them and today's glitch is one more arrow pointing in that direction. Summarizing it best, Downes succinctly says, "Facebook's problem is public relations, not privacy."
Comments
thanks for heads up!
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!