Facebook Photo Sync: Nine things you should know

Facebook Photo Sync: Nine things you should know: Facebook has introduced a new feature for iPhone, iPad and Android users which means you can automatically sync any photos you take on your mobile device with your Facebook account.

Here's what you should know before you enable the feature.

by Graham Cluley on December 3, 2012

Facebook has introduced a new feature for iPhone, iPad and Android users which means you can automatically sync any photos you take on your mobile device with your Facebook account.

This removes the nuisance of having to manually choose which photos to upload.

Here are nine things you should know about Facebook Photo Syncing:

1. You have to opt-in to Facebook Photo Sync. Facebook hasn't turned it on by default. Chances are that your first knowledge of it will be when you access Facebook on your iOS or Android device, and are encouraged to "Get started".
   
   It's good that Facebook has decided to make users consciously opt-in to this service. There would have been a loud out-cry if they hadn't.
2. If you enable the feature, your last 20 photographs and every subsequent photo you take, will be automatically uploaded in the background to a private Facebook album. So you may want to check what photos you have already taken first.
3. The photos that you have synced from your phone are not visible to any other Facebook users. When you view your synced photos, you can choose then to share them on your Facebook timeline or send them as a message to a friend.
4. If you're worried that Facebook Photo Sync will eat into your data plan, you can tell Facebook to only sync when you are on Wi-Fi rather than via your cellular network.
   
   (Note that Facebook says it will sync photos at a smaller size - approximately 100KB - when you use a 3G or 4G network)
5. Facebook says it won't sync your photos when battery levels are "low".
6. Automatic uploading of every photo you take means every photo you take. Yes, including the ones you took for that guy you're flirting with, or the one you snapped of that part of your body you can't quite see properly with a mirror.
   
   Furthermore, if someone takes a photograph of you without your permission it will be automatically uploaded to Facebook - you may demand that they delete the photo off their phone, but will it also have been removed from their private Facebook album?
7. Every photograph synced from your phone will be able to be mined for information by Facebook.
   Photos taken on mobile devices can include meta data such as the location where the photo was taken - and this could be used to determine where you are, and help Facebook display localised advertising.
   Furthermore, Facebook could integrate its facial recognition technology with Photo Sync, analyse your photos to see whose faces it recognises and automatically tag their names.
   Over time a comprehensive database of where you have been, and who with, is built up.
8. If you opt-in to Facebook Photo Sync, you are no longer in charge of what photos you upload to Facebook. In the past, you could decide what images you uploaded to the social network, and which pictures it could analyse for its own purposes.
   Now, all photos - good and bad - will be available to Facebook. That doesn't mean anyone apart from you and Facebook's servers will be able to see them, but there's clearly a reduction in your level of control.
9. You can disable Facebook Photo Sync by following these instructions.

You can learn more about Facebook's new Photo Sync feature by visiting its official help pages.

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South Carolina Got Hacked: FACED WITH ANOTHER SECURITY BREACH, GOV. NIKKI HALEY SAYS SHE WANTS PERPETRATOR “BRUTALIZED” Computer systems at the S.C. Department of Revenue were hacked on repeated occasions beginning two months ago – coughing up as many as 3.6 million Social Security numbers and nearly 400,000 credit and debit card numbers.

South Carolina Got Hacked

By fitsnews • on October 26, 2012

FACED WITH ANOTHER SECURITY BREACH, GOV. NIKKI HALEY SAYS SHE WANTS PERPETRATOR “BRUTALIZED”

Computer systems at the S.C. Department of Revenue were hacked on repeated occasions beginning two months ago – coughing up as many as 3.6 million Social Security numbers and nearly 400,000 credit and debit card numbers.

Individual tax returns may have also been accessed by the assailant – identified only as an “international hacker.”

“This is not a good day for South Carolina,” S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley said, adding that she wanted the person responsible for the cyber attack found and “brutalized.”

Astoundingly, SCDOR didn’t even know it had been hacked until October 10 when it was informed of the breach by state information technology officials.  The “vulnerability in the system” was not resolved until October 20 – two months after the hacking attempts first began.

Unreal … it took these people two months to secure our data?

Nikki Haley: “I want that man brutalized.”

How broad is the damage from this unprecedented breach?

Well, anyone who has filed a tax return in South Carolina since 1998 has been asked to call 1-866-578-5422 and then visit this website, where they are to enter the activation code they received during the toll free phone call.

Of course the line was totally unaccessible, with recorded messages referring to “higher than normal calls.”

And assuming you get through … why would youever trust these people with your personal information again?

This is the second scandal involving the unauthorized release of confidential information to befall Haley’s administration this year.  Back in April, nearly a quarter of a million confidential Medicare and Medicaid records were improperly releasedto a private email address by an employee at the S.C. Department of Health and Human Services (SCDHHS).

An angry Haley told reporters on Friday that “I want this person slammed against the wall.”

Really?

The person who needs to be “slammed against the wall” in this case is Haley.  After all, it’s her administration that dropped the ball on securing this information … mere months after a major lapse at another one of her cabinet agencies.

The worst part of all this?  We’re all on the hook for her administration’s incompetence.

“We are going to pay for the fact that we have to give everyone credit protection,” Haley told reporters.  ”We’re going to cover the cost behind that.  This is the responsibility of the state to protect the taxpayers.”

Actually the state is the taxpayers … which means Haley’s not paying for this, we are.  Oh … and if it was the state’s responsibility to protect its taxpayers, then why in the hell did it take two friggin’ months to close this security breach?

Depending on how much this winds up costing the state we could be looking at the biggest disaster of the Haley administration – bigger than even the “Savannah River Sellout.”

Haley wasn’t ready to provide a damage estimate on Friday, but acknowledged that “this is not going to be inexpensive.”

Meanwhile Democrats assailed the governor for her ongoing lack of focus on state issues.

“Maybe if she spent more time doing her job in South Carolina rather than traveling around the country raising money and playing politics, someone would have been paying attention and not let more than a third of our state’s personal information be compromised,” S.C. Democratic Party chairman Dick Harpootlian said. “If she were the CEO of a company that had a third of its data hacked especially after all the public warnings of the danger of hackers, she would be fired.  Too bad she has two more years on her contract.”

UPDATE: Here’s more info on the hack straight from the SCDOR website.  

UPDATE II: Haley has a conference call scheduled for Monday morning with state lawmakers to discuss the situation.

***

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Your phone number may not be as private on Facebook as you think - and how to fix it

Your phone number may not be as private on Facebook as you think - and how to fix it: If you use Facebook, your phone number may not be as private as you think.

A way in which Facebook privacy can be abused has come to light that will shock many users, but that the social network itself seems to consider a deliberate feature.

by Graham Cluley on October 10, 2012

If you use Facebook, your phone number may not be as private as you think.

A way in which Facebook privacy can be abused has come to light that will shock many users, but that the social network itself seems to consider a deliberate feature.

If you enter someone's phone number into the search box on Facebook, the site can perform a reverse look-up and tell you who the phone number belongs to.

You can see in the screenshot how I entered the mobile phone number of someone I am not Facebook friends with, and instantly was offered their name, photograph and a link to their profile.

When I spoke to the Facebook user in question, she was shocked and surprised that I had been able to find her profile simply by entering her mobile phone number.

She confirmed that her privacy settings werecorrectly locked down to such an extent that her phone number should only be accessible to her.

In her opinion, a privacy setting that says "Only me" attached to her phone number meant it shouldn't be shared with any of her Facebook friends - and certainly should not accessible by me, as I'm not even one of her online friends.

And yet, if I entered her phone number into Facebook it would instantly tell me that she owned the number.

Is this a problem? Well, yes. I think it is.

Imagine, for instance, if a company knew the telephone numbers of people calling it - they would now be able to determine your name too, and possibly use it for more aggressive marketing.

Or picture meeting someone at a party and giving them your phone number - and not realising that you were also potentially sharing your full name and other contact information.

You can probably dream up other privacy concerns of your own about this Facebook "feature".

It should be your choice as to whether your phone number is connected with your Facebook profile, and whether someone can use one to find the other.

Even if you altered your privacy settings to ensure that your phone number is only visible to you, other people can still use it to look you up.

How to make your phone number more private on Facebook

The solution is to enter another section of Facebook's privacy settings called "How you connect".

You will find the default Facebook chooses for "Who can look you up using the email address or phone number you provided?" is "Everybody".

Once again, Facebook chose the least private default for your information.

To have tighter control over your phone number, and limit those who can perform a reverse look-up against your number, you will need to change that setting to "Friend of friends" or "Friends only".

Of course, this will also mean that the same privacy settings apply to the email address you use on Facebook.

Facebook wants your mobile phone number

Facebook is becoming more and more aggressive in its pursuit of users' phone numbers.

Remember, Facebook has been wanting your mobile phone number for some time and hasn't been above using scare tactics to get you to hand it over.

Many users are forced to enter a mobile number for authentication when they create an account, or to be used as a security check if suspicious activity is detected.

My advice is always to be careful what phone numbers you share with websites.

There may be a case for keeping an old phone in a drawer, with a pay-as-you-go SIM. That throwaway number can be used for websites that demand a phone contact, but you don't feel they really need it. Keep your real, regular phone number closer to your chest - and only share it with websites which you believe have a genuine requirement for it.

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Facebook friend added a new photo of you? Beware spammed-out malware attack

Facebook friend added a new photo of you? Beware spammed-out malware attack: Be wary of opening unsolicited email attachments - a malicious Trojan horse has been spammed out posing as a Facebook notification that you are featured in a newly uploaded photograph.

by Graham Cluley on August 28, 2012

Computer users are being warned to be careful about opening unsolicited email attachments, after a malicious Trojan horse was spammed out posing as a Facebook notification that the recipient is featured in a newly uploaded photograph.

The emails, which pretend to come from Facebook, look like the following (click here for a larger version of the image).

Subject: Your friend added a new photo with you to the album

Attached file:New_Photo_With_You_on_Facebook_PHOTOID[random].zip

Message body:

Greetings,

One of Your Friends added a new photo with you to the album.

You are receiving this email because you've been listed as a close friend.

[View photo with you in the attachment]

Of course, the emails don't really come from Facebook.

But there are surely many people who could be duped into believing that they have been tagged by one of their friends in a photograph, and want to see if they look overweight, unattractive or simply fabulous (delete as applicable).

Unfortunately, the attached ZIP file contains malware, designed to allow hackers to gain control over your Windows computer.

Sophos products intercept the malware asTroj/Agent-XNN.

Last month, experts at SophosLabs saw another malware campaign posing as a Facebook photo tag notification. On that occasion, the emails did not contain attachments but instead linked to compromised websites which aimed to attack visiting computers with the Blackhole exploit kit.

About the author

Graham Cluley is senior technology consultant at Sophos. The readers of Computer Weekly voted him security blogger of the year in 2009 and 2010, and he pipped Stephen Fry to the title of "Twitter user of the year" too. Which was nice. He was also named "Best Security Blogger" by the readers of SC Magazine in 2011. You can email Graham, subscribe to his updates on Facebook, follow him on Twitter and circle him on Google Plus for regular updates.

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How to Protect Your Social Network Accounts from Hackers

A tech journalist learned a tough lesson recently. But using two-factor log-ons help guard your Google, Facebook, and Twitter accounts from being hijacked.

   Aug 12, 2012 3:41 pm

If you haven’t read about Wired reporter Mat Honan’s ordeal at the hands of malicious hackers, take some time and read it now. (I’ll wait.) His story about how a passel of juvenile hackers managed toget into his Apple account and wipe all the data off his iPhone, iPad, and Mac-- as well as hijack his Google, Twitter, and Amazon accounts – should be required reading for anyone who uses those services, and especially those of us who’ve blithely linked our social media accounts together using the same e-mail address.

Honan didn’t do anything to tick those hackers off. He was targeted simply because they coveted his@mat Twitter handle. Which means that the same thing could happen to you or me just as easily, and we wouldn’t know we’d been jobbed until far too late. (See also "Apple Temporarily Suspends Phone Password Resets."

One thing Honan notes with regret is his failure to turn on two-factor authentication for his Gmail account. If he’d done that, anyone who tried to access his e-mail would have also had to enter a six-digit PIN, which is randomly generated and sent via text message to his phone.

So your first order of business for today: Setting up two-factor authentication for Google. To do that, you’ll need to go into your Gmail Settings (it’s the icon that looks like a little gear in the upper right corner of your inbox). From there:

1. Select Settings, then Accounts and Import.
2. Under Change account settings select “Other Google Account settings”.
3. That will take you to a Web page for your Accounts. Select Security from the left-hand menu. You may be prompted for your password again.
4. Under “2-step verification” you’ll see “Status: OFF.” Click the Edit button next to that. That will take you to a Web page wizard that will walk you through the process of having a six-digit verification code sent to you via text or a robo-call.

Enter the code into the appropriate box, and you’re all set – for that device, anyway.

Admittedly, this is not as easy as simply using a password. You’ll have to do this for every device and every application that uses your Gmail logon, and every device and application doesn’t work exactly the same way. For example, I was able to log on to Gmail using a PIN on my desktop, laptop, and iPad, but not my Android tablet or Windows smartphone. For those, I had to set up separate one-time-use “subtokens” that look something like this: fztz dgpm oxfi uthb.

You’ll need to go back to the Accounts Security page and select the Edit button next to “Authorizing Applications and sites” to set up disposable passwords for each device and app. You can also use this tool to manage your list of trusted devices and applications, and revoke access to them at any time.

So that covers Google. What about Facebook? Here, too, you can beef up your security settings with two-factor authentication. This will prompt you to enter a similar SMS code whenever you log onto Facebook from a new device. The drill is remarkably similar:

1. Go to your Facebook Account Settings page (found under the down arrow next to the Home tab).
2. Select Security from the menu on the left.
3. Under “Login Approvals” click edit and put a check in the box that appears (see below). You may have to adjust your browser settings to accommodate the cookie that Facebook wants to deposit.

1. In the dialog box that appears, click “Set up now.” You may be prompted again for your Facebook password and to add your mobile phone number if you haven’t provided one already.
2. Click Continue. If you’ve done this correctly you should receive a six-character PIN. Enter that and the name of your device into the dialog boxes that appear.

Like Google, this won’t work with every device or application Facebook supports (like the Xbox or Skype). So again you’ll have to generate a disposable app password, which you can do via the same Security Settings dialog box. If you have an android device, you can download a free Code Generator app that can produce usable passcodes without having to send you a text.

Twitter does not offer two-factor authentication at this time. But you can make it harder for attackers to reset your password by changing a setting in your profile that requires you to provide additional info, such as an e-mail address or phone number, when requesting a new password.

From your Twitter profile page, click Edit your profile. Then go into your Account settings, scroll to the bottom, and put a checkmark in the box next to “Require personal information to reset my password.”

The flaw in all of these schemes: If the attackers manage to get hold of your phone as well as your log-ons. Then, my friend, you’re totally screwed.

Got a question about social media? TY4NS blogger Dan Tynan may have the answer (and if not, he’ll make something up). Visit his snarky, occasionally NSFW blog eSarcasm or follow him on Twitter: @tynanwrites. For the latest IT news, analysis and how-to’s, follow ITworld on Twitter andFacebook.

Now read this:

Facebook's 'man in the middle' attack on our data

Making Facebook private won't protect you

For more computing news, visit ITworld. Story copyright © 2011 ITworld Inc. All rights reserved.

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How to Clear Your Data off a Device

By Preston Gralla, Computerworld

If you're recycling your computer, smartphone or tablet, there's one significant problem you may have ignored: If you don't wipe them clear of data, you could become a victim of identity theft. Merely deleting files using normal system tools won't really do the trick --- you need to do a much deeper cleaning. Here's how to do it.

Cleaning up cell phones, smartphones and tablets

Smartphones and tablets essentially pack your entire life into a small package, including your contacts, emails, records of incoming and outgoing phone numbers, social media information...and more. So you want to make sure that someone else can't get access to all that information.

You could try deleting individual apps and contacts, but the odds of doing that effectively are close to zero. Instead, you want to do a complete reset of your phone to wipe out its data and restore it to its factory settings.

How you do this varies from operating system to operating system, and sometimes even device to device. These are general instructions that should work with most devices; however, it's best to check with your manual or manufacturer just to make sure.

Android: For versions before Android 4.0, press the Menu key from the Home screen and select Settings/Privacy/Factory data reset. You'll get a warning screen. Scroll toward the bottom and tap "Reset phone." If you also have an SD card in the phone (and don't want to use the data in your next phone), also make sure to check the box next to "Erase SD card."

Image Credit: iFixItFor Android 4.0 or later, go to Settings and look for "Backup and reset." Tap that, and then, on the next screen, tap "Factory data reset." You'll get a warning screen along with a list of all the accounts you are currently signed into.

iOS: Go to Settings/General/Reset and then tap "Erase all Content and Settings." (This is specifically for Version 5; the process may differ slightly for other versions.)

Windows Phone 7: Go to the Home screen, then tap the Application Menu Key and select Settings/ System/About/ and tap the "Reset your phone" button.

BlackBerry: Head to Options/Security options/General settings, and then tap menu. Then select Wipe Handheld.

Wiping computer hard drives

Deleting files, folders and applications -- and clearing the data from the Recycle Bin -- won't do the trick if you're going to recycle your computer. Anyone can easily recreate that data using commonly available tools. Even if you reformat your hard disk, if someone really puts their mind to it they can recreate the deleted data.

This can be a serious problem. Back in 2003, two graduate students at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science bought 158 used hard disks from eBay and other sources.

Only 12 of the drives had their data properly cleaned. Even though approximately 60% of the hard drives had been reformatted and about 45% had no files on them (the drives couldn't even be mounted on a computer), the students were still able to recover data from them, using a variety of special tools. They found over 5,000 credit card numbers, personal and corporate financial records, medical records and personal e-mails.

What can you do to keep your data safe? Get a disk-wiping program, preferably one that meets the U.S. Department of Defense's Media Sanitation Guidelines. These programs will overwrite your entire hard disk with data multiple times, ensuring that the original data can't be retrieved. If you use them, be patient, because it can take several hours to wipe the hard disk.

One well-known free application that meets the DoD's standards, according to Auburn University, is Darik's Boot and Nuke. The software creates a boot disk that wipes everything on the hard drive. It can also be used with floppy disks (remember those?), USB flash drives, CDs and DVDs.

Another free Windows utility that also meets the DoD's standards is Eraser.

If you've got a Mac, you can use Apple's built-in Disk Utility (it can be found in the Applications/Utility folder). You can also download a third-party application like Mireth Technology's ShredIt X ($25, free trial available), which lets you shred files (in other words, overwrite the contents of a file multiple times) as well as wipe your local hard drive, network hard drives and CD-RWs. (There's a Windows version as well.)

If you're truly nervous, there are hardware devices available that let you sanitize your drives such as Drive eRazer Ultra. Or you can pull the disk from your PC and send it to a hard drive shredding service that will physically destroy the drive.

(For a more tongue-in-cheek view of how to cleanse a hard drive, check out this old-but-still-good story: Removing hard drive data -- the YouTube way.)

Once you've wiped your device clean, it's safe to sell, donate or recycle your equipment. Find out how to do it in our article How to recycle your phone, PC and other tech gear.

Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld.com and the author of more than 35 books, including How the Internet Works (Que, 2006).

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How Can I Diagnose and Fix My Slow Computer?

Dear Lifehacker,
My computer's feeling a little sluggish lately and I want to boost its performance if possible. I see ads all the time for PC optimization programs, but they all look spammy. Are there any easy and reliable tools I can use to check my PC and tune it up?

Thanks,
Hoping for a Boost

Dear Hoping,
Getting top performance out of your computer is definitely a Lifehacker challenge. We've got some ideas for you that may help.

Perform Basic Maintenance

We guess that you're already doing basic maintenance for your computer. But just in case, here are our recommendations formaintaining your Windows PC, Mac, orLinux system. Performing those maintenance steps, such as keeping your operating system and applications up to date and cleaning out temporary files, should keep your system running well. Sometimes, just deleting bloatware can really make a big difference in your computer's performance (we recommend PC Decrapifier for the job). So definitely the first thing we'd recommend is to check the guide for your operating system.

Download and Run Diagnostic Tools Like Soluto to Identify Problems

If your computer is experiencing problems, however, like applications freezing or serious slowdowns, you can use computer diagnostic software to troubleshoot the problem.

Previously mentioned Soluto is a free Windows tool that shows you which applications may be slowing your system down. It's also a fantastic tool for magically solving application crashes before they happen and can report crash information based on other Soluto users' experiences.

For other diagnostic tools, you can find Lifehacker readers' five favorite diagnostic tools here. A tool that's not on that list but still may be a great option for you for its excellent interface and benchmarking tools is the previously mentioned free Windows program Fresh Diagnose.

Finally, if you're interested, doing a stress test of your hardware can help you troubleshoot any problems you're having.

Perform a Quick System Check Up Online with PC PitStop OverDrive

If you just want a quick PC health check, however, there's a free online tool calledOverDrive from PC PitStop you can use that will analyze your computer's hardware, software, security, and so on, and give you recommended fixes, if any. The site looks spammy, but the tool actually does a good job of analyzing your system and can also be used for benchmarking your computer. (Note: PC PitStop also offers PC Matic and other software downloads that can check your computer's performance, but you don'tneed to download and install any software to run the OverDrive tests.)

To use the Windows-only tool, you have to visit http://pcpitstop.com/betapit using Internet Explorer running in Administrator mode (right-click on IE and choose to run as Administrator). Allow the browser to install the Active-X object, and the site will start scanning your system.

When it's done scanning, OverDrive will suggest fixes like clearing your cache, updating any missing drivers, increasing security settings and so forth. Re-run the tests after making any suggested fixes and you should see your rank improve and your PC operating at least a bit better.

Good luck and have fun testing your system!

Sincerely,
Lifehacker

P.S. If you know of another great tool for this job, please let us know in the comments.

---

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