Stay out of my inbox
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Security on
Is this another Beacon moment? Keeping apps out of the Facebook inbox is good security. Even though the new Facebook plan to give apps access to the contents of user inboxes is restricted to whitelisted apps, that doesn’t mean they’re safe apps. Despite Google’s airy claims, just because something runs online, in the browser, does not mean it is safe (I’m still boggling security professionals with the claim by the Google gears team at Google IO that “everything in the browser is inherently safe”). Whitelisting means the app isn’t only malicious, but it doesn’t guarantee it’s not vulnerable.
If you’ve ever spent time drilling into the Facebook APIs (and the FBML language) you won’t be surprised at just how much data a not-so well-behaved application can harvest and take back to its own servers. Sure, it helps build more complex games and powers the viral explosion of memes across Facebook, but it’s a whole heap of security violations just waiting to happen. Yes you have to opt-in to every request, but ticking boxes and clicking OS is what we’ve been doing on Facebook for the last couple of years. Why change your habits now?
And making inbox access opt in doesn’t make it safe. We’ve trained the monkey to click OK on just about any dialog box if what the dialog offers is tempting enough - or if the dialog box is in the way of what I really want to do. Put a dialog box between me and my plan to dash off a quick update as I jump in the taxi to the airport and I might not read that dialog with the same due care and attention you were counting on.
And Facebook is full of career-limiting, security-breaching detail. Bank security questions? I bet I can answer them if I can see what memes you’ve been answering. Last three things you bought, first pet, second school you went to? There’s a meme for that. What’s in your inbox that you wouldn’t want posted on some random Web site?
Inbox access is the latest opt-in feature for apps; but they can do a lot more than throwing sheep…
I’ve been waiting for the Google backlash for a couple of years now; the blanket promise ‘not to be evil’ is no replacement for a thorough security lifecycle and privacy policy. Facebook’s Beacon advertising obviously didn’t make people too worried; the recent collection of ‘resignation by incautious Facebook status update’ proves that. Facebook users want to share; it’s up to Facebook to make sure that the platform doesn’t turn that enthusiasm into a threat.
There’s a petition against app inbox access over at http://www.keepmyinboxprivate.com/?ref=nf, which takes you in turn to
http://apps.facebook.com/keepmyinboxprivate/; ironically, the petition itself is an app that asks if it can publish a link to the petition on your Facebook Wall.
–Mary
Rated: 60% (1 votes)
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