Tag Archives: facebook privacy

The Perfect Facebook Profile (Part 4) – What a secure profile looks like

We can write all kinds of posts about what your Facebook profile should look like but we think it’s better to give you an example. We’ve set up a fictitious, but active, profile that we use as a test bed for our posts. Here’s the link to it:

Our Test Profile – Meet Jean Paul Clavicle 

This is where we test our Facebook group settings, our timeline adjustments, etc. Just this morning we noticed that we can’t seem to hide the activity when we add a friend so there are still many parts of this privacy set-up to work out. In the meantime, click the link and see what you can find about this person. We think you’ll be surprised at how little information there is on that profile.

Photo of JPC Profile
Not much information here. Check it out.

How did we lock everything down? We started by opening one of our Facebook profiles in a different browser. If you’re using Chrome, open your own profile in Firefox. It goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway, that you have to have two different Facebook accounts open at the same time, right? If you don’t have two Facebook profiles, we think you should make one now. That way, you can check your privacy out while you look at one profile from your other profile. Don’t add yourself as a friend, OK?

Search for your real profile in your alternative one and hit refresh every time you make a change. Continue hiding things until your real profile is the same as the one in the link above. Everything is done from your Timeline so start there. Click the various edit icons and see what you can hide. We’ve given you lots of information over the past two weeks so use our site as a guide. Remember that you have to edit just about everything, including the apps that you’ve let into your account, as well as your friends, your lists of Likes, your photo albums and so on.

Think of it this way. Let’s say you apply for a job and, as more and more companies are doing these days, the HR people decide to check out your Facebook profile to snoop on you. Is there anything on your profile that could potentially embarrass you or prevent you from getting that job? If someone is your friend, that’s one thing. If someone is a complete stranger, do you really want them to see the album from your graduation party in Key West? Put future employers into the mix and we hope you’ll see why we’re concerned about your privacy. You should be too.

Photo of Shock Face
Lock up your profile and this won’t happen to you. (Photo of ex-future boss.)

 

Now is the time for you to ask us what things you want to hide? Our next post will explain how to hide your ‘friending’ activity. Just as no one should be able to see what friends you have, we don’t think they should be able to see when you add someone to your list. If you see something that we’ve missed, let us know in a comment below.

Thanks for reading! Facebook is always changing. Make sure you keep up to date with these changes by liking us on Facebook. Here is the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook

Facebook Privacy Settings – Part 3 Profle Photo Trick

Facebook week continues here on Computers Made Simple. In our last two posts we’ve shown you the ins and outs of posting something and setting the privacy limits for it, then we described the various photo albums and their limitations. Today we’re describing how to adjust privacy for your profile photo.

Profile Photo Trick – As we told you here: Facebook Photos and Albums  , some Facebook albums have different privacy settings than others. One album that we are concerned about is the Profile Pictures album. Your profile photo is made up of two parts, the thumbnail and the main photo. Everyone can see the thumbnail, remember that. You choose who can see the full photo.  Here’s how to have a profile pic that doesn’t reveal too much.

1. Before we begin, remember that when you upload a new profile photo, it is set to ‘Public’ by default. You have to change that setting to ‘Friends Only’. The thumbnail will remain public but the photo itself can be made private. We’ll show you how.

Photo of Facebook Profile Photo Privacy Trick    1
The first time you change your profile photo, Facebook tells you that the photo is Public…but you can change that.

2. Click on your profile photo up on the top left of any Facebook page. This brings up your Timeline. Next, hover your mouse on the photo and choose ‘Edit profile picture’.

Photo of Facebook Profile Photo Privacy Trick    2
Hover and choose Edit Profile Picture.

 

3. We strongly suggest that you choose ‘Upload Photo’ or ‘Take Photo’ (you can only use this if you have a webcam attached to your computer.) The reason we want you to use a new photo is that you can edit the thumbnail much better with a new pic. If you use one of your old profile photos, this trick doesn’t work quite the same way.

Photo of Facebook Profile Photo Privacy Trick    3
Upload Photo or Take photo, both will work for this.

4. Choose the photo you want to use. This is the one we chose for this post:

Photo of Facebook Profile Photo Privacy Trick    4
An ex-sports star with his fleet of cars. Note that you can see his face in this full profile pic.

5. Facebook uploads the photo. Initially, this is what we saw when we uploaded this photo:

Photo of Facebook Profile Photo Privacy Trick    5
His face is still visible. We’ll fix that.

6. Hover over the photo again and choose ‘Edit thumbnail’:

Photo of Facebook Profile Photo Privacy Trick    6
We want to Edit thumbnail.

7. When the Edit Thumbnail dialogue comes up, drag the photo around until you can’t see or can’t recognize the person (you) in the photo:

 

Photo of Facebook Profile Photo Privacy Trick    7
Drag the small image around until you can’t be seen. Do NOT choose Scale to Fit.

TIP: If you choose ‘Scale to Fit’, Facebook simply makes a very tiny copy of the full photo and uses that as the thumbnail. In some cases this might be fine but make sure the thumbnail doesn’t reveal too much.

8. OK, we’re almost done. The new photo is set to Public, right? We want to change that. Click on the thumbnail and the full photo comes up. On the right, there are two Edit buttons. Both do the same thing so it doesn’t matter which one you click.

Photo of Facebook Profile Photo Privacy Trick    8
Two edit buttons, choose either one.

9. We prefer to choose Friends for the privacy setting. That’s up to you but we don’t advise you to leave it set to Public.

Photo of Facebook Profile Photo Privacy Trick    9
Friends, right? Better than Public unless you’re trying to attract strangers.

 

Yes, there are quite a few steps to this but we think it’s worth it. If you’ve got kids who are on Facebook, share this trick with them. Unless they are desperately seeking friends who are complete strangers, maybe it’s better to hide their face. Are we taking this search for privacy a bit too far? We don’t think so. If you had any idea of what some people reveal to strangers, you’d probably agree with us. Click on some Facepiles and see what turns up. You’d be shocked.

Thanks for reading! Questions, comments and problems are always welcome. Use the comment form below or Like us on Facebook:   Computers Made Simple on Facebook

 

 

 

 

When Facebook Privacy Settings Don’t Work – Part Two (May 24, 2013)

In our last post, we discussed some facepiles that we found on a website. To catch up with us, here’s the link to that post:   When Facebook Privacy Settings Don’t Work 

In the comment section at the bottom of the Songza page, each comment has a photo and a name attached. This is how it looks:

Photo of Songza Facepile
Comments with photos and a name on the Songza site.

 

As you can see, we get a bit of information from each commenter, always a photo and a name. Why is that? Because you cannot keep your Facebook name and profile photo private, they have to be shared as part of your agreement with Facebook. Just about everything else can be hidden. Just about, those are the key words.

Yesterday, we decided to play with the settings. First, we commented, then we checked the site from another browser, just to see what we could find out from the link to the Facebook profile. Turns out the comment had the name of the poster AND his location.

We headed back to our Facebook profile and hid where the poster was from, simply by setting Location (under Privacy, then About, then Location and Edit) to ‘Only Me’. Back to Songza to refresh the page and see what the comment looked like after the change. We were shocked to see that instead of the commenter’s location, we were now able to see the commenter’s age! Knowing full well that this person had hidden their age, we headed back to Facebook in another browser to check. Sure enough, the year of birth was set to ‘Only Me’. Yes, the day and month were there for friends to see but the person’s actual year of birth was set to ‘Only Me’.

Unfortunately, we cannot duplicate this error today. The point of this post is  to show you that, while you think your privacy settings work the way Facebook tells you they do, sometimes they don’t. If you have any piece of information on Facebook that you think is completely private, there are times when it isn’t. In our next post, we’ll offer a solution, one that we’ve suggested before. Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading!

Why not Like us on Facebook? Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook

 

 

When Facebook Privacy Settings Don’t Work – May 24, 2013

Just when you think that you’ve got your Facebook privacy settings perfectly tuned, a snag pops up. No matter how private you think your Facebook profile is, something always comes up to prove you wrong. This post is about an incident that occurred yesterday so it’s current and, to be frank, it’s troubling. See what you think.

TIP: This post might seem a bit convoluted, maybe confusing, but the point of it is this: Don’t assume that your privacy settings are locked and secure. Facebook treats its users as commodities, not individuals. You’re simply a means for them to make money. Don’t expect fair or even honest treatment.

Yesterday, May 23, 2103, one of our staffers was listening to music on Songza.com. Here’s the site: Songza – Listen to Music

To save time, he signed in with Facebook. That was a mistake, as it turns out. After choosing his playlist, this user noticed that Songza made use of  Facebook facepiles. Here is what a facepile looks like:

Photo of Facebook Facepiles    1
Technically, this isn’t a Facebook facepile but every user here is from Facebook.

You’ve seen these everywhere around the Internet, right? A box of faces from people who use or like the site. This particular facepile is a bit different from most. When you click on one of the faces, you get the user’s Songza profile, not their Facebook profile. Seems safe enough, right? We clicked on one user. This is what we found:

Photo of Facebook Facepiles    2
This is the user’s profile on Songza.

 

So far, this seems pretty straightforward, fairly innocuous. It’s not. This person’s profile name is cheryl.hatten.3  as you can see at the top. Is this that person’s Songza name or is it her Facebook name? We typed that name into the Facebook search slot and came up with this:

Photo of Facebook Facepiles    3
What’s this? A Facebook profile? Sure as hell is.

 

What do we know about Cheryl? We know her maiden name is Colley, that she probably lives in Lethbridge and that she most likely works for the Alberta Child Care Association. We also have a picture of someone who may be her daughter. Most likely Cheryl knows nothing about this. All she did was sign up for Songza by linking her Facebook account to a fairly popular and, supposedly, reputable website. Songza, in their defence, may not be fully aware of how this particular part of Facebook is being used. These websites are designed and run by professional webmasters who simply follow instructions and, as we all do, fight for their share of visitors.

Not to get too technical here, these facepiles are all part of what is called ‘Social Plugins’. If you want to know more about all of this, here is a link to the Facebook developer’s site: Social Plugins  Songza seems to have found a loophole here since their facepile is linked initially to their Songza account, not to the user’s Facebook profile. The only way you can track down the user is to do what we did, search for the user’s name on Facebook. But wait, there’s more to this than meets the eye.

Farther down the playlist page, there is a comment section. Every comment shown on the page is from a Facebook user. Here is one:

Photo of Facebook Facepiles     5
Comments with photos. No big deal here, right? You’d be surprised.

 

Let’s click on one of the photos or names to see where we are lead:

Photo of Facebook Facepiles     6
A direct link to Katherine’s Facebook profile.

Here we go again. You can see for yourself what information we can glean from this profile. If you actually go to Songza and click on any photo in the comment section then click on various parts of the profile that comes up, you’ll most likely discover all kinds of things about the person, things that they didn’t feel were worth keeping private. In several cases we found maps which indicated where they lived, what groups they were members of, what networks they were in,  who they were following and so on. Honestly, you would be surprised and probably shocked at what bits and pieces of personal information you could glean from all of this. You’d be even more surprised to find that information that you have essentially hidden by making it available to ‘Only Me’,  is wide open to the world.

Stay tuned for the next post which examines one particular flaw in the system. This flaw reveals information about you even when you have your privacy settings set to ‘Only Me’. Believe it or not, it’s true.

Thanks for reading!

Welcome to Your Facebook Interview!

Hi! Glad you could make it. Hey, before we begin, give me your real name and email address. Yes, it has to be a real email address and, yes, you must give us your real name. OK good, thanks. Now, tell us about yourself. Here’s what we need to know:

1. How old are you?

2. Are you male or female?

3. What is your current location? Yes, we need city, state and country.

4. For security purposes only, we need your phone number. Better give us your cell number too.

5. Where did you go to school? Try to list every school that you attended…ever.

6. Where have you worked in the past? Yes, we need a complete history.

7. Now we need a recent photo of you, your family and friends, your home…anything to make you more interesting to us. If you have a bikini photo, even better. We ask guys if they have a photo where they’re not wearing a shirt. We love that kind of thing. What was that? Yes, we will use your photos for our own promotions and we won’t tell you about it. OK? Privacy? Well…we have some privacy settings but they’re really hard to figure out and we keep changing them, almost every month. Better leave your stuff open to the public. It’s better that way.

8. What do you like? Yes, we know. There are so many things to like in the world, right? Well, we’ve broken everything up into categories. Music, video, hobbies…all laid out for you. Why do we need these? It’s simple really. We sell your information to advertisers. Once you tell us everything about yourself, we turn around and tune the ads that you see to your own demographic. Do you make any money from all of this? Certainly not! This is our company, not yours. We just use your information, we’re not about to pay you for anything. It’s a privilege to be with us, you should know that!

9. We also need some of your financial details…well, we would like them. Maybe you could give us your credit card number, simple things like that. Security? Oh yes, we have pretty good security here. What’s that? Well, we have been broken into a few times but not much was stolen. No, not much. Just a complete list of usernames and passwords, nothing major.

Photo of Facebook Logo
Look familiar!

 

We think you get the point. Share, reveal personal details, give out your personal information just like that, let complete strangers see your photos….it’s all there on Facebook. The point of this article is simply to make you think about what you’re doing. Hand all of this stuff out and let Facebook make money on it. Is that what you signed up for?

Photo of Facebook Warning
Facebook is very helpful, that’s for sure.

Sign up for Facebook and your profile photo might end up in a facepile somewhere. Anyone in the world could click on your photo and be taken directly to your Facebook profile page. Here’s an example:

Photo of Facepile
If you see something like this, click on a face and see what happens.

 

Make sure you set your privacy settings accordingly to avoid being seen on a website. You have no control over where Facebook posts things like this but you can control whether they can use your photo or not.

We’re simply trying to make you think. Be smart, learn all you can about Facebook privacy before you reveal too much of yourself to strangers.

Photo of Time Cover
This man is a billionaire because of your information.

 

Thanks for reading! Let us know if you have problems with anything on Facebook. We’ll try to help.