What seemed like a rite of passage with every hugely successful Internet phenomenon is just getting ridiculous. Yet another security breach has been revealed about Facebook and this time there's evidence even you can see.Facebook engineers have come under fire regarding how pictures are stored or rather NOT stored in the not so pretty server level. Say a user, lets call them Sheepy, uploads all their latest holiday snaps to their new Facebook album, but oops, they accidentally included that one of you know, with the you know shoved up their you know.
Does anyone know what actually happens now? Sure Sheepy can 'delete' the pic but is it gone? Remember when you created the album you uploaded all your pics to their servers, yeah? That took a few seconds per pic didn't it? Deleting on the other hand seems VERY efficient, click - GONE. There's a simple explanation for that, you see, its NOT deleted.
When you click delete, all that happens is the link is severed between your account and the picture including tags etc but, if you know the full web address to it (eg: www.fb.com/sheepy/images/farmerfuck.jpg) then you and everyone else can still see it clear as day.
Sheepy isn't alone, users all over the world have sprung up saying they have noticed this and emailed Facebook over and over to have their pics actually deleted off their servers. 2.5 years later and the pics are still there. FAIL
Facebook are standing behind one big 'if': You will only know the URL if you opened the pic when it was linked to a user.
To that I say "thwpppt" if I accidentally upload something it is immediately posted to my wall - viewable to all my friends. EVERYone has at least one of those friends who will click stuff straight away. As soon as they see something a little odd, they may save that URL for later use. Now all they need is some sort of electronic mailing media for sending that address to everyone they know, then everyone THEY know - oh yeah EMAIL
Yes I do have a Facebook account and I don't think this will have me diving for the Close Account link but it does send alot of alarm bells up. In light of this I have however deleted all of my pics and will be staying with Picasa for Cam pics from now on.
Happy Facebooking
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1 comment:
meh
If someone saw a pic before you delete it they are far more likely to save the actual picture rather than the URL.
Can then attach picture to email and sent to friends.
Facebook deleting it from their servers doesn't erase everyone's copy they saved locally.
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