Pro Hack

Easily Search Facebook status updates – another Facebook privacy panic

With over 150 options available for locking down privacy, the process of making yourself really anonymous on Facebook is like programming a VCR – truly a pain in the ass. While it was not enough, a new loophole was manipulated by folks at YourOpenbook which allows to search for status updates containing some really embarrassing stuff. Mind it, you could be there too, and someone else could be enjoying your share of fun just because of some stupid configuration in the privacy portal of Facebook. YourOpenbook even provides customized searches of freely viewable status updates with search results even returning the name and profile picture of those commenting naughty out there. On an earlier note, FourSquare community was manipulated easily by a similar site PleaseRobMe which allowed to track locations.

YourOpenBook automates a type of security loophole which allows users to search for posts containing the word sex, or any other “ curious “ search term.As the spokeswoman for Facebook cleared

This is the search feature of the Graph API, documented

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api#search

Obviously, the same is applicable on Facebook too.She added

"Only posts (status updates, notes) which are Everyone and Page names are available unless you authenticate with an app (e.g. the TweetDeck app is a desktop client you can use to search over your own status updates),"

A lot of privacy invasion practices and loopholes have recently caught up with us,with Google found guilty over sniffing out data and Facebook being recently dunked for disabling its chat due to a serious bug . In all, Facebook has been deteriorating its privacy settings and shifting control from users by auto-approving many websites and applications to share there data. In Mark Zuckerberg’s own words

They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks.

Be Wary..

The solution ? The simplest one a common man would find would be to delete its Facebook account making "Delete Facebook account" ninth most search term on Google. Social networking is getting increasingly insecure..

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This post was written by: Rishabh Dangwal

Rishabh Dangwal is a no-nonsense network geek who likes to play retro games and emulators in free time. Follow him on Twitter