“Social” Networking

Recently I deleted all my scraps on Orkut. All picture albums and all videos. I have currently retained my account though. I have never used Facebook and will probably never register on MySpace either. Why? No reason. But then I started to wonder why social networking sites were started in the first place? Or is it worth using social networking sites to substitute reality?

Today there are literally hundreds of social networking sites. The theme of the site might range from, business to classmates to medicine to photo-sharing (yes, Flickr and YouTube are social networks), to whatever you can imagine. Flickr has about 9.6 million users, Orkut 40 million, Friendster 58 million, hi5 70 million, Facebook 75 million, MySpace 110 million… just to cite a few statistics. Although it is next to impossible to discuss each and every site in detail, lets just stick to the most popular ones – Facebook and Orkut.

Facebook

Lets see what happens when we sign up for an online service, something as simple as an email account. We input our name, username, password as the bare minimum information. We check that box saying “I agree to the terms and conditions…” and we’re done. Do we actually read the terms and conditions?

If we read the terms and conditions of creating an account on Facebook, the privacy policy states that…

“…also collects information about you from other sources, such as newspapers and instant messaging services. This information is gathered regardless of your use of the website.“

and

“When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.“

No other social networking site has a policy similar to Facebook’s. All said and done, Facebook might use your email, phone number, address, sexual orientation, pictures, groups, communities, videos, music, friends’ profiles for any purpose, store information and archive it even after you have deleted your account. This information might have been gathered from your use of Facebook or linking your information with your offline-life, newspapers, companies, friends, tastes etc. Doing all this Facebook will not be violating any of its policies. To remove that irritating captcha, Facebook asks you your mobile number. Your information might be sold to third parties and be exploited by marketing groups using sensitive statistics. Your pictures might be circulated in markets of countries for purposes which you might never have heard of. Privacy is dead. Period.

So what? You might ask. There is a difference between policies and actually doing some harm, isn’t there? Read on.

So what do you need to set up a service like Facebook? Lots of online space. Lots and lots of it. Which means lots of terastations, a lot of hardware, a lot of… money. For a service that is provided as free.

12.7 million dollars worth of venture capital was given to facebook by James Breyer, the manager of ACCEL, a VC firm, and the former chair of National Vanture Capital Association. Breyer served on the board of NVCA, with Gilman Louie, CEO of INQTEL, a venture capital firm specifically established by the Central Intelligence Agency. Breyer has also served on the board of BBN Technologies, an R&D firm, which spearheaded what we now know as the internet.

Coincidence? A social networking site funded and manged by people who have headed Defense positions?

In October 2004, Gilman Louie and Dr. Anita Jones joined the board of BBN Technologies. Dr. Jones previously served on the board of INQTEL and was the Director of Defense Research and Engineering for the US Deptt. of Defence. Dr. Jones’ primary responsibility was to oversee the operations of Defense Administrative Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

So what?

In 2002, the existence of IAO (Information Awareness Office) came to light. It was an offshoot of the DARPA. The IAOs primary motive was to gather as much information about everyone, in a consolidated place, for free use by the US government, including but not limited to internet browsing history, credit card history, medical records, personal tastes, educational transcripts, psychology and general behaviour, pictures (of course), any other information that served as an individual’s thumb print.

So what? Let’s get back to reality. Maybe my research is a hoax. A figment of my imagination. Even if the US government has our data, what are they going to do with it anyway, as long as we continue to lead our own simple lives.

Let’s see what a normal user like you and me can do in facebook. Assume that you have a facebook account. Among the innumerable features in facebook, any user can protect his/her albums/pictures by setting privacy settings. Or can they?

On 25th March 2008, full article.

FACEBOOK has been left red-faced after a simple trick with a web address exposed private photographs of socialite Paris Hilton and Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg.After the security update last week, computer technician Byron Ng proved that the technique still worked by accessing Paris Hilton’s private photos, including snaps of the socialite at the Emmy awards. This is a major embarrassment for Facebook after it launched new group security features last week. Despite Facebook’s precautions, the technique used to gain access to private photos was quite simple. Any user could gain access to someone’s private photos by manipulating a web address to appear as a friend of that person…

One of the most popular web browsers is Firefox. Install Firefox. Then install a plugin called Greasemonkey. This plugin is used to run API or developer scripts on a webpage. You just ought to have login rights, i.e. a registered account. After that, as an example, a script to view private photos of any individual on Facebook is here, if that fails, another method is here, and another one here.

There are a lot many junkies out there who have no other passtime than to sit in front of their computer and try to pry over others’ private lives. They won’t stop.

Once Greasemonkey is installed as a plugin by any user, facebook privacy goes haywire. On the net one can find *n* number of scripts which greasemonkey can install and run, to compromise a users privacy. Not friends with the person? View his/her profile. Album protected? View all pictures whether private or public or tagged or not. Besides all this has already been made a copy of on some serves in the US of A. If a layman user of facebook can get such techniques and simple and small free software to hack into a website, imagine what a seasoned veteran hacker could do. Another Conspiracy Theory? Maybe. But again, maybe not.

The bottomline as I see it? If you want your pictures and or/data to be private, just don’t upload it anywhere. A little security might be provided if you have your own domain space with ftp rights to it. But I’m not so sure of that too anymore. Call me a sceptic. I couldn’t care less if someone could use all my online data against me, but again…in a world where a copy of Windows Longhorn is available for free, an year before it is officially launched, where a hollywood movie is ripped online even before it is officially released, do you think a common users’ private data is really private? Think again. Posting your information for the world to read is dangerous.

Orkut

Not to delve too deep into Orkut, but again, in this social networking site too, there are plenty of hacks, workarounds, security loopholes, which, once php scripts like greasemonkey are installed, are compromised.

Google Search works on profiling people. What a particular ip searches for? At what time? How many times? What results are clicked on? They were involved in a conspiracy of aledgedly providing gaming companies with profiles of people who play online games. What language the gamers use, or what time they play, or what is likely to make them angry or amused. Oh, and Google owns Orkut and Youtube.

When online, just be very very careful with your personal information. Unless and until you understand the dynamics of how your personal/sensitive information can be processed/misused, it is best to refrain from uploading it. There are people out there for whom the internet is elixir, and they just want to own it, no matter what.

Information these days, is free. In case you have doubts about this article, (cliché coming up) just Google.