Facebook Can Get You Killed

"WHNT NEWS 19 is tracking down new details on a murder-suicide in South Huntsville including information that shows the shooter and victim were friends at one time.

"Alan Brown is the man police say shot and killed another man before taking his own life. A friend of Brown says he leaves behind two children, a teenage son and a young daughter.

"The murder-suicide happened at an apartment off South Memorial Parkway. Witnesses in the area say they heard the two men arguing before hearing gunfire.

"WHNT NEWS 19 has uncovered a string of internet activity that links Brown to Lowhorne. It's on the social networking site, Facebook. We found postings from April made by Brown on Lowhorne's business page on Facebook. The comments were in a joking nature indicating the two may have been friends.

"There is also a recent picture on Lowhorne's personal Facebook page showing him with Alan Brown's wife, Christine, atop Lookout Mountain. Other postings on the page point to Lowhorne and Christine Brown having a romantic relationship. The page also show just a matter of hours before his death, Lowhorne had just changed his status on Facebook to `in a relationship.`

"WHNT NEWS 19 spoke with one of Brown's friends. Adrienne Griggs said Alan Brown, Christine Brown, and Ben Lowhorne were indeed friends. She also says her friend never showed he had the ability to kill anyone. The same friend believes something set Brown off.

"`I just couldn't see him doing anything like this. He was an extremely nice person,` said Griggs."

From WHNT News...

Tax Dollars To Fund Government Time-Waster

"Federal employees and managers will be able to meet, interact, train and learn together in a government-only online virtual world being created in the vGov project.

"The Agriculture and Homeland Security departments, Air Force and National Defense University iCollege have joined to create the vGov virtual world behind a secure firewall that can only be accessed by federal employees with authenticated identities.

"Paulette Robinson, assistant dean for teaching, learning and technology at the iCollege, said at the Gov 2.0 Expo today the project will use the three-dimensional immersive experience of virtual worlds to bring employees together from locations worldwide for real-time interactions. People will use avatars to appear in the virtual world, where they can chat with other avatars and interact with the environment."

More at Federal Computer Weekly...

Unemployed IT Worker Of The Month

"A Frenchman who broke into Barack Obama and Britney Spears' Twitter feeds insisted Thursday he is no hacker but a `kind pirate` seeking to expose security weaknesses.

"`I did not act with a destructive aim ... I wanted to warn them, to show up the faults in the system,` said the 23-year-old, who was arrested Tuesday after an operation by French police and FBI agents.

"The curly-haired unemployed computer technician wore a pair of slippers adorned with smiley faces as he sat in his parents' home in central France and told of how he broke into the popular micro-blogging site.

"Francois C., who spoke to AFP on condition that his full surname not be used, is accused of breaking into Twitter and Google accounts, including ones used by US president Obama and pop star Spears..."

Full article at EXPATICA.com...

Hinky Dink Publishes Koobface Data

"Mr. Hinky Dink, a Big Time Security Professional™ today released an analysis of the spread of the Koobface worm. Based on an exhaustive study of his database of over two and a half million open Web proxies collected over two years, Hinky’s findings demonstrate where the most vulnerable social networking users can be found.

"`With more losers piling into social networking sites this trend is very likely to continue,` said Hinky. `This study highlights the cities with the most gullible users on the Internet. This study will no doubt help cybercriminals, script kidz, and Cameroonian puppy scammers target their next online marketing campaigns.`"

Read the complete report here.

Big Brother 2.0

"The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, too.

"U.S. law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that offers a tantalizing glimpse of issues related to privacy and crime-fighting.

"Think you know who's behind that `friend` request? Think again. Your new `friend` just might be the FBI..."

More at laramieboomerang.com...

Insurance Companies Leverage Facebook To Raise Your Rates

"Any town U.S.A. You walk into a store and notice someone you recognize, from Facebook. But you really don’t know the individual; only online have you “met” that person. You have shared a note, or played a game on Facebook, Myspace, or other media website. You can choose to say hello or ignore them. That choice is up to you.

"Sometime in the future, you wind up in a car accident and suffer physical injuries that you decide can be claimed in a lawsuit against the insurance company. Now your friends on Facebook may not have any choice of getting to know you up close and in person. You may not even be aware that they are being questioned.

"Insurance companies are beginning to demand access to information about you and they do not want your explicit consent. In a Globe and Mail report, the insurance industry wants to use sites such as Facebook to collect and use background information collected to contradict any evidence you have used in your claim for damages.

"The first thing the insurance lawyers will do in court is to ask plaintiffs if they have Facebook accounts and demand a court order to review those account — even if you have always had your privacy settings configured to be not searchable by Google or other services. And if somehow they find out that you are on Facebook and you said no, chances are your lawsuit against the insurance company may fail. And so the game begins. The lawyers will have access to everything about you; your friends are also now exposed and may be questioned about your online habits what you are doing online, personal messages are read and now your friend’s privacy is also vulnerable - even if you have never met them in person..."

Morre at ZDNet...

Facebook Follies

"Vanessa Palm and Alexander Rust, two 20-something Americans vacationing in the Bahamas last February, decided to catch and eat an iguana - a species protected under Bahamian law. Unfortunately for them, they also decided to post pictures on Facebook of their illicit meal.

"Bahamian authorities were alerted to the photos, and promptly proceeded to track down and arrest the two tourists for killing and eating a protected iguana.

"Perhaps they used the jail time to debate whether or not it tasted like chicken.

"Similarly, a 20-year-old employee of a Petland pet store in Ohio not only drowned rabbits from the store, she creepily bragged about it on her Facebook "wall." Someone from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) learned of this, and she was soon charged with two counts of animal cruelty.

"Meanwhile, it wasn't enough for 38-year-old Jacob Rehm of Morrisville, Vt., to steal a tour bus from his former employer, Lamoille Valley Transportation, and take it on a joyride. No, he had to go and make a four minute video of his little adventure (complete with a tour of the $500,000 bus itself) and post it on YouTube.

"After the bus was recovered in another town and Rehm was charged with the theft, the prosecutors found that video very helpful when they went to court."

More at The Southeast Texas Record...

Savvy Workers Resist Facebook Fad

"When CIO Will Weider encouraged employees at Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System in Wisconsin to use Facebook to spread the word about new programs and successful projects, he was surprised at the result: Few did so.

"`I went in there thinking, 'We've turned these people loose; we'll have 10,000 marketers out there,'` Weider says. But the Ministry Health workforce, it turned out, had been well trained to protect sensitive data, and without explicit guidance on what they could say, their first reaction was to share nothing.

"`We've stressed the importance of data security with our employees, particularly when it comes to patient privacy, and it's kept them from sharing all the great things about work on Facebook,` Weider says.

"That's a good problem to have. Many fear that the popularity of social networking -- among individuals as well as organizations -- will precipitate an increase in social engineering attacks that could result in security breaches that expose corporate data or damage a company's reputation."

More at NetworldWorld...

Twit PWNAG3 "Rampant"

"Social networks are rapidly becoming a primary channel to market for malware distributors and other cyber-criminals as the use of popular sites such as Twitter continues to take off, and the communications vehicles subsequently create new opportunities for attackers to hide their threats using features such as so-called link shorteners.

"Attackers have been working to infiltrate and abuse social networks for years, but the issue is becoming truly pervasive nowadays as they shift even more of their efforts away from more traditional electronic messaging systems and distribute a greater share of their nefarious content over so-called Web 2.0 sites, in particular Twitter, according to Symantec security researcher Ben Nahorney.

"The distribution of malware infection links over Twitter has become particularly problematic of late, Nahorney noted in a recent blog post. Since the 140 character limit for posts to made over micro-blogging platform has lead to widespread use of URL-shorteners obscure address details, and even savvy users of Twitter are likely taking bigger risks, the implication appears to be..."

More at eWeek...

Twits Scammed - AGAIN

"Twitter users who thought friends were directing them to a "funny blog" Thursday ended up experiencing something completely different: a phishing scam.

"Twitter was hit by two different rounds of phishing Thursday, as criminals tried to take control of user accounts and then use them as a springboard to attack others.

"Both Twitter and Facebook have been hit with phishing attacks in recent days. `The social networking attacks are becoming increasingly common,` said Jamie De Guerre, chief technology officer with antispam vendor Cloudmark. `Spammers are really moving to attack social networks because of the popularity of the social networks and also because they're not as well defended as most e-mail platforms.`"

From ComputerWorld...

Watcha Gonna Do When They Tweet For You?

"Like unhip adults late to adopt a fad, police departments and other law enforcement agencies are jumping on the social networking bandwagon. They hope to break down bureaucratic boundaries between departments and jurisdictions and further the fight against crime.

"A few companies in the field are developing promising businesses, and supporters have given the trend a slightly cringe-inducing name: Law Enforcement 2.0.

"As in so many other realms where the use of technology has expanded in what seems an eye-blink, this crime-fighting method promises great improvements over traditional ways of getting things done. But it also challenges existing privacy protections, like limitations on the information investigators can share about people they may suspect of committing crimes..."

More at The New York Times...

Security "Pros" Shill For Web 2.0 At Conference

"Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, once viewed as high-risk, productivity-sucking applications, seem to have wiggled their way into the hearts of security teams nationwide. In fact, most organizations no longer block the popular web sites and allow employees to access these Web 2.0 applications at work, according to a new survey from the Security Executive Council.

"The research, which was released this week at the CSO Perspectives conference, reveals 86 percent of organizations who responded to an open poll on the council's web site said they do allow workers to use Web 2.0 applications, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, while on the job and/or with a company-issued computer.

"The topic of social networking and work access was the subject of a spirited discussion among professionals who attended CSOP, a three-day event in Clearwater, Florida. Some in attendance pointed to Web 2.0 access as a necessary recruiting and retention tool..."

More at Network World...

Big Surprise: Employees Abuse Internet

"FaceTime Communications says employee Web 2.0 usage in corporate networks has exceeded IT Managers estimates by over 10 times. The company has cited actual network data from usage of apps like Instant Messaging,IPTV, VoIP and Social Networking...

"The company collected traffic data from the USG units deployed in web based companies around the world and compared it over the data (the amount of Web 2.0 applications in the establishment) they had requested from the IT Managers in those companies. One third of the managers estimated the number at less than eight. In reality, FaceTime's actual network data had shown an average of 49 Web 2.0 applications installed across all reporting locations.

"According to the company, the reason for such a rise in Web 2.0 apps is that employees are under the impression that they have the right to download and use any app available to them to make their jobs easier."

More at TCMnet.com...

Hey Now I'm A Rock Star

"Security practitioners used to be seen as propeller-hat wearing introverts hunched over computers in dark, cold basements for weeks on end, shunning daylight and anyone who tried to start a conversation with them. But times have changed.

"Thanks to the blogosphere, social networking sites and podcasting made easy, many security pros are taking on a much more public persona, becoming near-rock stars. Evidence of this can be seen in abundance at the ShmooCon 2009 security gathering in the nation's capital this weekend.

"One example was a Friday lunch gathering of the Security Twits -- a growing group of security pros who communicate with each other and the rest of the world via the Twitter micro blogging site. Another example was an evening meet-up of security podcasters.

"True, many security pros still prefer the quiet, isolated life. It's also true that the introvert tag was never a fair fit for many people. But several conference attendees acknowledged theirs has become a much more public profession. It's a necessity, they say. To truly improve security, people need to be out there communicating the threats computer users face and how to take the proper defenses..."

More at CSO.com...

The Pot Calls The Kettle Black

Google Warns of Privacy Issues on the Social Web

"In a recent paper about social privacy Google researchers caution that the expansion of the social Web and our growing involvement with it is compromising our privacy while offering the false sense of security that we act in the privacy of our own social circle.

"Specifically, the paper suggests three areas where the social Web compromises user privacy.

"1. Lack of control over activity streams

"According to the paper, there are two primary ways in which lack of control over activity streams may compromise our privacy; the lack of control we have over events going into our activity streams (examples given are Facebook Beacon and coComment), and the lack of control we have when it comes to who can see our activity stream as is possible with Google Reader.

"2. Unwelcome linkage

"The authors define unwelcome linkage as occurring when links on the Internet reveal information about you that you had not intended to reveal, for instance trackbacks and accidental linkage.

"3. De-anonymization through merging of social graphs

"Given social networking sites extract a fair amount of personally identifiable information; the authors suggest it may be possible to uncover personal information by comparing data across social networking sites."

More at ReadWriteWeb...


Full PDF of the Google research here.