Christopher Soghoian, a security researcher, announced Tuesday that there is a critical flaw in the privacy feature of Facebook pages. Although Facebook members have the option to mark their pages as ‘private,’ which restricts access only to specified users, these pages will not remain hidden if a blanket search is made based on religion, relationship status, or sexual orientation.
Unless the user’s privacy options are specifically changed under their page’s ‘search’ options, Facebook members who are also part of a group that user belongs to – such as a school, a location, etc. – will be able to find their hidden pages through the search option. Ryan Singel of Wired gives the following example:
For instance, if you are a Facebook member of your college, you could run a search to see all the people who are Christian women who are lesbians, all the women interested in women or all the Muslim men into other men. Your search results will likely include people who thought they marked their information as private, but didn’t also change their search settings. (These links all require a valid Facebook account.)
On Wednesday, a Facebook representative told Wired that the network had changed its privacy settings to solve the problem, so searches should no longer reveal private pages. It remains to be seen whether any further holes in Facebook’s privacy system will be discovered, but users should now have greater control over their visibility in searches.
(Source: Wired)
After preliminary reports, iPhone lives up to its high expectations
The first wave of iPhones has finally arrived, and despite the anticipation that has built up during months of waiting, Steve Jobs’s newest technological miracle doesn’t appear to be faltering. Early reviews from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek didn’t give the iPhone a perfect score, but all of the early reviews shared a sense of the iPhone’s impressiveness, especially in living up to the hype that six months advance marketing created.
Edward Baig of Newsweek had this to say about his experience with the new Apple creation:
The mania over Apple’s iPhone launch has created stratospheric expectations that are near impossible to live up to. Yet with a few exceptions, this expensive, glitzy wunderkind is indeed worth lusting after.
As distribution widens, will the iPhone manage to meet all of the expectations that have built up around it? Only time will tell. Yet the outlook is positive, and early reviews cement the possibility of a device that could really be everything it advertised.
(Source: Valleywag)
MySpace TV offers alternative to YouTube
Starting this Thursday, MySpace will expand the video-sharing capabilities of its social network to a whole new Web site, myspacetv.com. Viewing and sharing video will be open to everyone, regardless of whether they hold a MySpace account or not, and the site will also allow MySpace users to integrate videos more easily into their MySpace profiles.
According to Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and chief executive of MySpace, the change is meant to bring the current MySpace video-sharing system up to a higher level of quality.
We haven’t really freshened up our video offering since we launched it. We wanted to highlight the fact that we have a video destination on the Web with all this great content that we’ve acquired.
Unlike the user-generated videos that form the majority of content at most video-sharing sites, MySpace TV intends to focus on professional video. This professional content will include the Sony “Minisodes,” five-minute versions of sitcoms from the 1980s, of which MySpace last week became the exclusive hosting site.
(Source: NYTimes)
“The Price is Right” slated to join top soaps in on-demand streaming
In an effort to please viewers and advertisers alike, CBS has announced its intention to offer three of its highest-rated daytime shows – “As the World Turns,” “Guiding Light,” and “The Young and the Restless” and “The Price is Right”– free on demand for up to a week after their original broadcast date.
According to CBS head of daytime programming, Barbara Bloom the deal is a win-win for fans and the networks:
It establishes more opportunities for our rabid fans to watch their favorite shows, creates a new platform to recruit potential new viewers to our daytime programming, and it offers our advertisers another means to reach a valuable demographic audience.
(source: Variety)
Widening market keeps social network site moving
In an online era dominated by Facebook, veteran social networking site Friendster saw an unheard of 40% increase in page views in May. Although, the startup still ranks fourth in the social networking hierarchy Facebook, MySpace, and Hi5, Friendster is quickly gaining momentum.
Web 2.0 talking head Michael Arrington, attributes the dramatic rise to users’ unwillingness to give up their old profiles as well as a steady increase in broadband and social networking site use in highly populated countries like China and India.
Friendster growing is good for the entire Web 2.0 industry. There can be no downturn without a broad decline in user numbers across many sites. Friendster proves that despite strong, and some would argue superior competition, there’s still room for any Web 2.0 startup to grow, even in a crowded vertical marketplace.
(source: TechCrunch)
Removed fan video returns to YouTube with Fox approval
When New York-based comic rock band Guyz Nite posted their parody of the “Die Hard” movie trilogy on YouTube last August, Fox Studios legal department lost no time in requesting its removal. The video featuring a mashup of clips from all three original “Die Hard” movies set to the band’s music was immediately yanked from the site
Six months later, with another “Die Hard” sequel on the horizon, Fox contacted the band again, this time to offer them compensation for reposting the video and updating it with scenes from the movie to come. Now the once-rejected parody is back on YouTube and has earned over 90,000 hits.
For YouTube and other media hosting sites, movie studios seeking the censor of fan-pirated videos and copyright infringement is nothing new. On the other hand, a studio supporting fan material – and even paying for it – is a rarity. Perhaps the industry is ready to change its stripes?
(source: New York Times)
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