by G.W. Schulz, The Bay Citizen
Not all of Facebook’s 900 million global users are pleased with the mega-site’s slow lurch toward what it calls Timeline, a new profile format that displays photos, updates, wall messages and more based on when the material was posted over the lifetime of the user.
Internet security experts say the complaints have created an opportunity for hackers – special apps or browser plugins that promise to turn off the Timeline feature while also possibly misusing your sensitive personal information, such as details about where else you’ve been on the Web.
Researchers at Campbell-based Barracuda Networks looked at six such plugins available through the Google Chrome Web store that offer to remove Timeline. Plugins are downloaded and added to your Web browser – Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox and Chrome – and can be used for everything from blocking pop-up ads to translating pages from a different language. Three of the plugins request permission to access your Facebook page, which is necessary to block Timeline in the first place. The other three, however, claim to block Timeline, but they also request permission to access data from your activity elsewhere on the Web, even if you’re not logged into Facebook, said Jason Ding, a research scientist at Barracuda. They can do so because the plugin is attached to your browser, which you use to crisscross the Internet, not just check your Facebook page. Internet users are notorious for clicking through permission requests without reading the fine print, and the desire of Facebook’s customers to dodge the implementation of Timeline means they could be trading convenience for cyber-victimhood.
“In this case, if you browse other websites – for example, when you purchase something – they can track your browser’s history and send it back to a server to know what you’re doing,” Ding said. “So if you fill out a form, or purchase something and put in your credit card information, they can access this information and send it back to the server.”