BBC in Facebook, state the obvious, and comma, shocker
May 1st, 2008 by handolio
Hi, it’s 2008.
Just wanted to remind you, because BBC News thinks it’s discovered a security flaw in Facebook applications. Yes, apparently they can gain access to your and your friends’ profile information, so a malicious application could pose as a legitimate one and harvest profile details, even if they’re not public.
I had to double-check the article’s date, but it’s definitely today, so I guess when I thought that EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE ENTIRE WORLD ALREADY KNEW THIS I was mistaken.
Worse, possibly, than erroneously claiming to have “discovered a way to steal the personal details of you and all your Facebook friends without you knowing” is the article’s use of commas. I expect them to clean this up pretty soon, so I’ll quote a couple of my favourite bits:
While we could not get all details, what we did get, included his name, hometown, school, interests and photograph, would certainly help us to steal someone’s identity.
and particularly
But whatever it looks like, in the background, it is collecting personal details, and those of the users’ friends, and e-mailing them out of Facebook, to our inbox.
which is funnier still if you read it in a Jeremy Clarkson voice.
So there you have it. I leave you with the earth-shattering conclusion:
In fact, the only way we can see of completely protecting yourself from applications skimming information about you and your friends is to erase all the applications on your profile and opt to not use any applications in the future.
You think?
