Users Can't Distinguish Scams From Facebook's Features 116
Anyone who's seen social media sites like Facebook has probably also seen scam ads that promise new features or insider access to the sites themselves. rudy_wayne writes Zdnet reports that a new whitepaper from antivirus company Bitdefender, which examined 850,000 Facebook scams over two years, shows that Facebook's own user experience enables these scams to flourish. The researchers found that scammers have infected millions of users with the same tricks over and over again — just repackaged. The most common tricks, such as 'Guess who viewed your profile (45.5 percent)' and 'change your background color' (29.53 percent) rely on a combination of the obsessions encouraged by the Facebook experience, and a general lack of understanding about Facebook's functionality — which, as most users know, is a constantly moving target. Users would be none the wiser that a given scam isn't just a new "feature" or another of Facebook's psychological experiments being done on users.
Facebook is the scam (Score:4, Insightful)
The others are just playing catch-up
Re:Facebook is the scam (Score:5, Interesting)
Advertisements should always be marked as such. I do not trust any service that does otherwise. (Not that this was the only thing keeping me from trusting Facebook.)
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Advertisements themselves are a scam that we have come to accept.
The very fact that one needs to disclose that they are advertisements shows the problem.
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Launch your own business. I guarantee your attitude towards advertisement will change.
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Its a little more complicated than that. Third party aps can display ads and ad servers can get manipulated/hacked.
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Facebook does mark advertisements as such and always has, as far as I know.
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Nah, Facebook is a self-updating contacts list that allows you to be able to contact your old acquaintances even when they move, change their phone number and email, and get married and change their name. And if you don't have an account, Facebook makes a shadow account for you; your old friends can't see it but advertisers can. It doesn't hurt any to make an account, if you take the right precautions against being tracked (see all those websites where it shows your facebook picture and lets you post "witho
The only way to win the game... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The only way to win the game... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, that's all well and good, except for the fact that Facebook has reached a critical mass; resistance may not be futile but it's damn hard:
1) I have friends all over the world; literally, on every continent. Is there a better centralized method of communicating with them? Should I send out a broadcast e-mail to all of them every time something noteworthy happens in my life? (Noteworthy actually means noteworthy in my world, I'm not logging check-ins every time I go to the grocery store....)
2) I have friends that only communicate via Facebook. They won't talk on the phone, they don't text, and they rarely check/answer e-mail.
3) Ever tried dating in the modern world without Facebook? It's instantly assumed that you're hiding something, which to be fair is frequently the case for people that refuse to share Facebook with would-be mates.
4) There's an ever growing list of companies and events that decline to maintain a webpage or otherwise keep it updated. If you want to stay abreast of their developments the only way is via FB or Twitter. This ties back into the critical mass comment from earlier.
Facebook is a necessary evil. It would be nice to see G+ displace them, because the G+ interface is light years ahead of FB's crappy software, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards does it?
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Is there a better centralized method of communicating with them?
Second Life? [secondlife.com]
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Re: The only way to win the game... (Score:4, Informative)
1) They don't care.
2) To hell with them.
3) Not the kind of person worth dating.
4) To hell with them.
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The best system would be smaller, interconnected social networks. That way, someone on one social network could see what another person is doing. Add a bit of crypto to the mix (a wall post is only visible to these private key holders in a list), and it would be a decently secure design.
I wouldn't mind G+ winding up more popular, if only to have an alternative option available. Maybe VK, although that is mainly centered around Russia and Eastern Europe.
Re:The only way to win the game... (Score:5, Interesting)
) I have friends all over the world; literally, on every continent. Is there a better centralized method of communicating with them? Should I send out a broadcast e-mail to all of them every time something noteworthy happens in my life?...
Anything a friend broadcasts me is rarely worth reading. And a broadcast email etc for something like a baby being born etc ... is fine.
2) I have friends that only communicate via Facebook. They won't talk on the phone, they don't text, and they rarely check/answer e-mail.
Easy. Those aren't friends. :) Seriously... they WON'T communicate with you except on facebook, so therefore you MUST be on facebook?
3) Ever tried dating in the modern world without Facebook? It's instantly assumed that you're hiding something, which to be fair is frequently the case for people that refuse to share Facebook with would-be mates.
No. But then I'd consider that a handy filter. Anyone who thought I needed a facebook account isn't worth my time.
4) There's an ever growing list of companies and events that decline to maintain a webpage or otherwise keep it updated. If you want to stay abreast of their developments the only way is via FB or Twitter. This ties back into the critical mass comment from earlier.
I've yet to encounter one. Several local businesses have facebook pages instead of websites, but its public and it comes up when i search for them, even though I don't have a facebook account. Of course I can't "follow" them... but that's their loss not mine.
Facebook is a necessary evil.
No, its really not. I'm living without it just fine. No one in my household has an account. The kids think its stupid, and don't even want accounts.
Sure when we visit an aunt at thanksgiving we're a few months behind on the news... so what that we didn't know my niece has a new boyfriend the day it happened or that my brother in law has a new job? Catching up, gives us something to talk about.
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Anything a friend broadcasts me is rarely worth reading
Don't blame me if your friends have a low signal to noise ratio. In the last six months I've made four posts to Facebook: Two for half-marathons I completed, one for a full marathon, and the last to share the details of my forthcoming trip to Europe with my friends there.
And a broadcast email etc for something like a baby being born etc ... is fine.
Which kind of defeats the purpose of a centralized system, one of my qualifiers.
Easy. Those aren't friends. :) Seriously... they WON'T communicate with you except on facebook, so therefore you MUST be on facebook?
They don't know how. *shrug* I think it's pretty stupid too, just as I think the tendency of people these days to dislike phone calls is stupid, but it is
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Don't blame me if your friends have a low signal to noise ratio.
Without meaning to be offensive, why do you think your marathon updates are something all your friends want to read broadcasts about? Its a big event for -you- sure; and far better than your thoughts on breakfast... but there is no real particular need or urgency for me know about it, the day it happens, in a broadcast message. It can wait until we see eachother again; I'll say what's new... and you'll have something genuinely interesting to ta
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You seem to be trying to take your personal preferences and apply them to myself and the millions of other people who have found social networking to be useful despite the annoyances that come with it. I find it nice to stay abreast of the developments in my friend's lives. It's awesome having a centralized place where I can see such developments, particularly from the friends who are scattered all over the world and whom I might get to see once every five years if we're lucky. Did my local friends benef
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You seem to be trying to take your personal preferences and apply them to myself and the millions of other people who have found social networking to be useful despite the annoyances that come with it
I'm trying very hard to keep my "personal preferences" out of it. I am just saying one can get along fine without it. That its not 'necessary evil'.
I find it nice to stay abreast of the developments in my friend's lives.
I get that.
Want another anecdote?
I don't doubt that happens.
Do you want another anecdote? I
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And what if you get back from Helsinki and find your place has been robbed because you posted you were going away on facebook.
How old are you? I'm old enough to remember when poorly chosen answering machine [wikipedia.org] messages got houses robbed. This isn't a new concern. Common sense goes a long way.
In fact, "common sense" is enough to shoot down most all of your arguments, which border on tin-foil hat drivel from my perspective. Congratulations, you're sticking it to the man by staying out of social networking. I hope you're likewise refusing to maintain a checking account, don't have any credit cards, don't own any property, aren't r
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I'm old enough to remember when poorly chosen answering machine messages got houses robbed.
Even then the advice was simple -- "don't tell a lot of people your going away, and when you will be back". Advice that holds true today. Advice that you must willfully ignore in order to bring about anecdotes like yours.
Common sense goes a long way.
Common sense would have you look at the growing body of studies that show that facebook on average makes people less happy. And then draw the obvious conclusion.
I hope y
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Even then the advice was simple -- "don't tell a lot of people your going away, and when you will be back". Advice that holds true today. Advice that you must willfully ignore in order to bring about anecdotes like yours.
If you're worried about your close friends robbing your house I would submit that you have bigger problems than Facebook. Conversely, if you're posting it publicly, I would submit that you've failed the common sense test previously mentioned.
Common sense would have you look at the growing body of studies that show that facebook on average makes people less happy. And then draw the obvious conclusion.
Common sense would have you walk away from this bloody conversation, because we're obviously not going to see eye to eye. I'll draw my own conclusions about what makes me happy or sad, thank you very much.
Do you have a real argument FOR using facebook?
I've given you multiple arguments from my personal experience
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1) Google+ Yeah yeah desert void of anything usable.
2) These are not "friends". they are people you know. Friends communicate with each other outside of FB
3) I haven't. To be honest with you, I think I could manage. Social gatherings do occur apart from FB
4) And Google+. I have never had a twitter account, and I find the whole concept silly. I like to have substantive reading / dialogs, but in a world of sound bites that is increasingly difficult.
Re: The only way to win the game... (Score:1)
So if a website gets so big, it should just be a necessary evil and leave it at that regardless of their misdeeds, etc?
That's almost like if everyone walked around with a dildo in their ass and they refused to deal with anyone else that didn't do the same. Fuck 'em. Just because everyone else sips the kool-aid doesn't mean you need to as well.
The majority of the people in the world have always been followers and always will be. Facebook has proven 100+ times that they don't deserve to be a successful compan
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#1 & #2: I interact with most of my RL friends and family in person. Most of them aren't even ON FB, and the ones that are are more likely to phone or email.
#3: My GF isn't on FB. She has no interest in FB, and though she did make a comment when I admitted to "friending" a girl I knew in High School, she took my word that there hadn't been anything between us in years.
#4: That is the only reason I'm still on FB. My neighborhood crimewatch group is on FB, and it's the fastest way to keep up with wh
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Yeah, that's all well and good, except for the fact that Facebook has reached a critical mass; resistance may not be futile but it's damn hard:
1) I have friends all over the world; literally, on every continent. Is there a better centralized method of communicating with them? Should I send out a broadcast e-mail to all of them every time something noteworthy happens in my life? (Noteworthy actually means noteworthy in my world, I'm not logging check-ins every time I go to the grocery store....)
No. Most of the don't care to know about every bullshit event in your life, even though you might think it's "noteworthy".
2) I have friends that only communicate via Facebook. They won't talk on the phone, they don't text, and they rarely check/answer e-mail.
Your friends are stupid and have given up the relative privacy that those mediums offer. Doesn't mean you should.
3) Ever tried dating in the modern world without Facebook? It's instantly assumed that you're hiding something, which to be fair is frequently the case for people that refuse to share Facebook with would-be mates.
I'm glad I'm not dating now. If they only candidates are so invested in Facebook that I get crossed off the list for not being similarly vapid, it'd be a long dry spell.
4) There's an ever growing list of companies and events that decline to maintain a webpage or otherwise keep it updated. If you want to stay abreast of their developments the only way is via FB or Twitter.
Driven by marketing departments filled with vapid airheads who think that Facebook is the Internet.
Facebook is a necessary evil.
No. It's
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1-2-3-4 = you are obviously part of the problem (so why do you even bother to complain?)
3 = you also are either completely delusional or trapped in an environment so toxic i wouldn't even want to know about. my condolences
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Yeah, that's all well and good, except for the fact that Facebook has reached a critical mass; resistance may not be futile but it's damn hard:
1) I have friends all over the world; literally, on every continent. Is there a better centralized method of communicating with them? Should I send out a broadcast e-mail to all of them every time something noteworthy happens in my life? (Noteworthy actually means noteworthy in my world, I'm not logging check-ins every time I go to the grocery store....)
Group chat doesn't work on your phone?
2) I have friends that only communicate via Facebook. They won't talk on the phone, they don't text, and they rarely check/answer e-mail.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm afraid that those aren't friends.
3) Ever tried dating in the modern world without Facebook? It's instantly assumed that you're hiding something, which to be fair is frequently the case for people that refuse to share Facebook with would-be mates.
Actually, Yes. I have dated in the modern world (four to three years ago when facebook was at its peak). When denied facebook details (username, whatever) potential mates became more interested in me! There's a very good reason for this - women looking for a stable relationship are frequently turned off by attention-whores. Telling women that I don't do facebook merely increased my desirabilit
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I am really finding it odd that people would filter their real-life friends on the communication methods they use. Friends are people I like, people who like me. I don't have hundreds of them. I don't find them expendable based on their technical preferences.
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Or play responsibly. Don't make your main page ("wall?") look like a Christmas tree, keep a tight cover on who's in which group, don't accept a gazillion "friends", keep a low profile, update only when you have to (something important, worth sharing, happens) and you'll be fine.
Those who fall for such scams don't use the system, they are the ones being used, they're fodder and none the wiser.
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The only winning move is not to play.
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If the tool wasn't intended to be used like that then it wouldn't be set up to allow on to use it like that.
Funniest comment on Slashdot today.
You know all those potential system exploits that every system has? Those are because the main concern of developers is "does it do what we want it to?" not "does it only do what we want it to?" The main concern of QA is whether it can do what they want it to without developer-level knowledge of the system. The main concern of management is getting things "done" so they can become revenue sources (or for OSS, reputation sources).
So, no, a tool's intended use and its pot
Re:The only way to win the game... (Score:4, Interesting)
The function and purpose of Facebook is what I want it to be. That's the trap I was talking about.
If it allows you to share all your shit, it doesn't mean you HAVE to.
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That's if you have shit to share. I don't. My account exists there because other people have shit to share and I am perusing it. That is, a few close friends and relatives who live abroad. Handpicked people.
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keep a low profile, update only when you have to
From personal experience I suspect that FB prioritizes the visibility of your updates by other people based on how frequently you post - thus rewarding those people who post the most (crap).
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Wonderful, I thus would always be at the bottom of the barrel, exactly the place I want to be in :)
Not designed that way (Score:5, Informative)
Facebook has a known history of changing security settings, so safe today is not safe tomorrow. Almost every major security change has been done via stealth, leaving users to race to go fix things after the fact. This is just a behavior problem with the company so not the same issue as TFA is discussing, but worth mentioning since "playing safe" is impossible when a company intentionally circumvents all of your efforts to be "responsible".
The design of Facebook is such that you can't play safe. Conversations are ordered based on "likes", not based on chronology. So you have to get "likes" to be seen in a crowd, and you gain more "likes" by expanding your profile to more and more people. Anyone wanting to be seen has to open their profile to more and more people in order to compete, so the design is to not have tight control over who can see your information. In fact control is discouraged (and what gets broken most frequently in security changes). Contrary to your last sentence, scams happen to appeal to the people that use the system exactly as intended and designed (the point of TFA).
The implementation of the moronically named "Timeline" feature which removed chronological based dialogue and replaced it with "like" based dialogue was when I stopped using Facebook all together. Prior to that, I agree that Facebook could have been used for conversations with smaller groups. Even if no "likes" are assigned to comments algorithms order your post based on content Facebook wants to be popular. Cat memes will top political dialogue if the viewership is a high enough threshold for Facebook to notice.
In the words of Nancy Reagan, "Just say No!". (probably showing my age with that quote, so get off mah lawnz!)
The problem (Score:3)
is even if you don't have a profile, like me, other people will post pictures of you and information about you which they collate, analyze, and sell as well (without your permission or direct interaction with them).
So, not playing isn't effective unless everyone you know also respects your not wanting to be there, and most won't, even if unintentionally.
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So you're saying Fecesbook allows people to be idiots? What a surprise :)
It's not Facebook's fault there, it's people being dickheads and not respecting your privacy.
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So, not playing isn't effective unless everyone you know also respects your not wanting to be there, and most won't, even if unintentionally.
Just to be clear, you have asked people that you know not to tag you in photos that they post and they do so anyway?
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Yeah. And I've given people pictures that I took and asked them not to put them on Facebook and they do it anyway. Or they take photos and put it up without really letting you know. It's creepy.
But even if they don't, they allow Facebook to scrape their phone of all the contact numbers, so Facebook knows who my friends are because, well, the same 10 people who are friends with one another
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Not an option. You're in whether you like it or not. Let's see... another 2 dollar ATM fee ought to cover any incidents...
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Nuke'em from orbit?
Who? (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm not entirely sure, but one of them just pooped on your lawn and then told five of his friends about it.
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I'm not entirely sure, but one of them just pooped on your lawn and then told five of his friends about it.
But you can stop them with this one weird trick...
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Facebook indistinguishable from a scam (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't tell Facebook vs a scam... both ask for personal information, promise a fantastic experience that is never delivered, and sell my personal information for a profit...
I can see why people struggle to differentiate the two.
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I was going to say roughly the same thing, I can't tell facebook from a scam anymore either they're basically the same thing.
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I can't tell Facebook vs a scam... both ask for personal information, promise a fantastic experience that is never delivered, and sell my personal information for a profit...
I can see why people struggle to differentiate the two.
Any commercially greedy social medium is indistinguishable from malware.
87% Slashdot Can't Distinguish Ad from News (Score:2, Funny)
Yes. You should click on this to see how naive those Facebook users can be. Ha. Ha. Made you RTFAd.
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Nobody summoned you this time. It was just snoring.
Re:Why the surprised look? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is that way every election, whether the winners are (D) or (R). The scam is that people think that there is substantive differences between the party that is taking our rights quickly or the one taking them away slowly. But enjoy your cake an circuses.
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I really don't care about the content of the scam, whether it's elections or facebook, etc. I am only interested in what makes them work so well. But... that is offtopic, so never mind...
Explanation is VERY simple (Score:5, Insightful)
So it is not surprising that people that willing accept one scam, can not distinguish other scams from the official, approved scam they intentionally use.
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The UI sucks big time (Score:4, Interesting)
rely on a combination of the obsessions encouraged by the Facebook experience, and a general lack of understanding about Facebook's functionality — which, as most users know, is a constantly moving target.
The FB UI is half the reason I don't have an account.
Thier UI is so CLUTTERED, so absolutely ANNOYING, with a constant FIREHOSE of SHIFTING posts, videos, content, etc, etc;
I get a headache just thinking about it...
Combine that with, as the article points out, the fact that their settings change constantly.
I honestly don't have the time or inclination to become a CFE(Certified Facebook Engineer) just to watch cat videos and read nutty political rants...
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The ironic thing is that in the past, their clean UI is one reason why people moved from MySpace to FB, because MySpace had just so much clutter that it sometimes was too much like a ytmnd reject.
That's because... (Score:2)
That's because... there is no difference.
Facebook features are scams.
This is just traditional web advertising (Score:3)
Ads have been pretending to be part of website user interfaces forever now. A good website would ban those kinds of ads, but Facebook's customers (the advertisers) pay top dollar for unfettered access to Facebook's main commodity (its users). The only way that's ever going to change is if people start to leave Facebook in droves, but unfortunately it's the primary way that Gen X, Gen Y, and older Millenials communicate with each other. It's going to be a couple decades yet before Facebook's primary users age into less valuable advertising demographics, and people have already shown that they're generally unwilling to jump ship for better platforms (Google Plus isn't great, but it's a hell of a lot less obnoxious than Facebook). Me, I deleted my Facebook account several years ago, and have never looked back.
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Me, I deleted my Facebook account several years ago, and have never looked back.
You think you deleted it....
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Is there some trigger for summoning this guy? Like the world's shittiest bat signal?
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You know how people string together random bits of marketing or business jargon for comedic effect? I think one of them accidentally came up with his true name. Now every time the word "ads" appears in a Slashdot post, a rift appears in reality and two spectral hands stretch it open, so that he can manifest in our world and shill for his... I think it's a hosts file?
Somebody call an exorcist.
A variation on Poe's Law (Score:2)
Any hack of a bad interface is indistinguishable from the bad interface?
(Original Poe's Law: Any parody of an extremist position is indistinguishable from the extremist position.)
why is this BS allowed? (Score:2)
Click bait... (Score:1)
Click here to turn off Beta
It can only hurt you if you get too close (Score:1)
Really? (Score:2)
2o year old fake tan retards who spent all day duck-facing half naked selfies of themselves aren't up on the latest cyberscam? Where do you get this crazy talk?
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headline of the year (Score:2)
who could have guessed that users are so smart!?
Easy targets (Score:2)
If these people actually looked at where these URLs are going to take them (granted, less likely on mobile) and realized that being prompted for a password on a site where you are already logged in is suspicious, the impact would be much reduced. Facebook is basically a public website and all advertising and user supplied content has to be treated with the needed caution.
I am curious how Facebook checks advertiser content and user posts for malicious behavior if anyone has details.
Because they're both scams (Score:2)
The easiest way to win... (Score:2)
...is not to play. You don't need facebook as much as you think you do, and the 500 people in your friends list are not really your friends.
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Simple solution (Score:1)