Attention facebook folks

[Barbary]

What if you deactivate your account?

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[UnklFungus]

I doubt it shows but maybe things you posted on other's pages would.

The fun continues...
BBC News - Facebook fixes embarrassing security flaw

Facebook fixes embarrassing security flaw

Page last updated at 16:40 GMT, Wednesday, 5 May 2010 17:40 UK

Facebook has fixed a security flaw that allowed users to eavesdrop on the live chats of their friends and see their pending friend requests.

The exploit used the site's privacy features - intended to protect a user - to expose the personal information.

With just a few clicks users could spy on their friends' personal chat messages and see who had requested to join their network.

Facebook has temporarily removed its chat facility while it fixes the flaw.

The exploit - originally reported by the blog TechCrunch - worked via an option in privacy settings that allows people to preview their profiles as it would appear to their friends.
Prompt fix

But it was never intended to show others what their friends were actually doing.

"For a limited period of time, a bug permitted some users' chat messages and pending friend requests to be made visible to their friends by manipulating the 'preview my profile' feature of Facebook privacy settings," Facebook said in a statement.

"When we received reports of the problem, our engineers promptly diagnosed it and temporarily disabled the chat function. We also pushed out a fix to take care of the visible friend requests which is now complete," it added.

The chat function will be turned back on "shortly" it said.

"For any organisation, whether you are a social networking site or not, privacy breaches are worrying," said Candid Wueest, security expert at Symantec.

"Unfortunately, this isn't the first privacy breach of its kind to plague a social networking site - other high-profile sites have also been affected with similar problems."

He praised Facebook's quick response to the issue.

"Facebook has acted quickly in fixing the alleged flaw, whereas some social networking sites have been known to take days to fix issues reported," he said.

[MSteve]

You might want to go to a website called spokeo.com also. Type your name in the search box and see how much information about you pops up there. It has a privacy opt out feature at the bottom of the page also.

I had never heard of it until a friend told me. Apparently, it scours the internet and compiles data from every available source.

One thing to remember though, is that Spokeo is basically a glorified google search that targets specific references to you. By using their privacy "opt-out" you are only making it so Spokeo will not show your info. All of the source info that they use is still out there on the net, people will just not have the benefit of the one-stop-shop that they get with Spokeo.
The best thing you can do is regularly review the security settings of any sites you use to ensure that your information is as secure as possible. It is also helpful to request sites that you no longer use (e.g. if you quit using facebook) to delete, or at least deactivate your account. That way, when they change their security settings again, you have no data floating out there in cyber space.

[mr.stuart]

I believe the best advice is do not put anything on FB you do not want known. I enjoy it myself. Funny thing,a couple of wealthy lawyers are on my friends list. These guys put their entire birthdate on there! I go for month and day,but that is it. Maybe they know something we don't.

[bsnow]

Guess I'm out of the loop. I don't do FB, scary stuff in my B!

[jumpwing]

I believe the best advice is do not put anything on FB you do not want known.

Bingo.

[mathewsman]

Thanks just chanded them

[Sky Pilot]

When you do try to un-check that box, understand this trick they're using:
The box is checked by default.
When you click on it to un-check, the check in the box will either get darker (boldface) or remain unchanged; it will have a little pop up asking if you really want to do this.
They want you to think that you're confirming the box is checked.
Go ahead and hit the box, then click "Yes, I really do want to do this," and it'll work.