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Inventor of the World Wide Web Tells People to Demand Facebook, Google, and Twitter for their Data

By Hazel Chua | April 24, 2012 @ 1:51 pm

Does Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited for inventing the Internet, have anything against Facebook, Google, and Twitter? I personally don't think he does, although Berners-Lee does have a lot to say about the data that these networks and online giants are keeping on their users.

As you probably already know, your data is valuable as it is personal. But this is the same data that you're using to make the ultimate trade off in order to use these supposedly free online services and social networks.

What Does Facebook Have On You? Find Out with Their Updated ‘Download Your Information’ Tool

By Hazel Chua | April 13, 2012 @ 11:02 am

Facebook, in itself, is a force to be reckoned with. It recorded 845 million monthly active users as of December 2011 and revealed that these users spent a collective 10.5 billion minutes online every day (see related story here.)

With that many users, you'd have to wonder what Facebook is doing with all that data. A number of IT security experts have a lot of nasty things to say about the social network's privacy policies, but most users are just pretty much clueless when it comes to this matter. Until now.

Facebook Malware Tricks Users Into Handing Over Their Credit Card Numbers

By Hazel Chua | April 6, 2012 @ 11:52 am

Scammers have had it a whole lot easier ever since Facebook came into the picture. Instead of having to come up with outrageous and creative schemes to gain access to personal data and account information, all they have to do now is create a fake Facebook page and let the social network do all the work.

You might have already heard about the fake Facebook Rollercoaster Accident, the "Do You Remember this Photo?" scam, and the Malicious Chrome Extensions issue that take advantage of the social network's users. Now here's another one to add to the list: the fake Facebook added security measure scam.

Facebook Stats: Users Spend 10.5 Billion Minutes Daily Checking Statuses and Posting Photos

By Hazel Chua | April 2, 2012 @ 10:49 am

It's no secret that hundreds of millions of people all over the world are addicted to Facebook. It's a wonder why so many people continue to log on to the site every day even though the majority are already aware of the privacy concerns and hazards that having an account on Facebook entails. (You can read about the Facebook Fake Rollercoaster Accident, the "Do You Remember this Photo?" scam, and the Malicious Chrome Extensionsissue for more information.)

And if you've ever wondered just how much time these users spend on the site, then you're about to find out.

Facebook Tells Bosses to Buzz Off and Stop Asking for Employees’ Passwords

By Hazel Chua | March 27, 2012 @ 1:11 pm

The subject of Facebook in the workplace has always been a touchy one. Employees have been known to bash their bosses and talk trash about the companies they're working for, while employers are, well, pretty pissed about the whole thing.

That said, it's not very surprising to hear that some employers have resorted to playing the Facebook police by asking employees for access to their social networking accounts. This is a clear violation of the employees' privacy, although I have to say that those who ranted about their bosses on such a pubic platform are huge douchebags themselves.

People With Lots of Facebook Friends Aren’t Popular–They’re Narcissists!

By Hazel Chua | March 22, 2012 @ 2:44 pm

So a group of researchers have recently confirmed something that most of us probably already knew, even though we never said it out loud: people in your network who have a lot of friends on Facebook are lonely and narcissistic people. And we used to think that was because they were popular, friendly, or huge flirts.

These findings were published by 30-year-old professor Christopher Carpenter in a study entitled Narcissism on Facebook: Self-promotional and Anti-social Behavior. In his paper, Carpenter defines narcissism as "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and an exaggerated sense of self-importance."

So the next time you see someone posting a barrage of status updates and pictures, then you know what they're doing. And no, it's not self promotion (unless they're some sort of celebrity, that is.)

Facebook Scam Spreads Non-existent Video of a Rollercoaster Accident in California

By Hazel Chua | March 16, 2012 @ 1:23 pm

A lot of hackers and scammers have taken advantage of Facebook by using the social network as a platform for some of their most ingenious (and sometimes downright stupid) scams. One such scam, dubbed as "Do You Remember This Photo?", tricks users into clicking a link by offering a partial image that they are said to have seen before. The photo doesn't exist and the people who click on the link get their accounts compromised in the process.

Another scam that's not so far off from the one described earlier is one I'd like to call the California Rollercoaster Accident Video scam. In this setup, scammers post links on the walls of Facebook users that supposedly lead to a video of an accident that happened at some theme park in California. As you might have already guessed, the accident never happened and there was no cover-up in the media.