This week in computer security

Yeah, such sites are a great way to stay connected to large circles of friends and family that are otherwise hard to stay in contact with. Of course if you don't have a lot of people in your life, one wouldn't appreciate the value.

I agree it's not worth sharing a lot of personal information with who knows who. I would pay a modest monthly fee rather than have my personal information shared, sold, or stolen. But I have little faith in the keepers that they can secure it from hackers though. Rather sad situation, quite frankly.

People communicating and sharing interests isn't the problem or issue, the rotten part is why this platform was created in the first place, and what the creators are doing behind the scenes. Nothing in life, not a damn thing is worth revealing information that should be kept close to the vest. Anyone that wants that from you for their own purposes is never to be trusted.

I just don't provide all the personal information they ask for. It isn't required to use the site.

I have a made up name, DOB, location, etc. on my FB. I deleted my original and only invited people I knew well enough to do so. I don't share any personal stuff on it except somethings in private chat … which I am sure FB does have access to since it is saved. So I try to be cognizant of what I write in PM as well. Mainly use it to stay in touch with a few folks who I don't connect to in other ways. Also some of them have a similar sense of humor and I like things they share.

The $$ side had nothing to do with the creation. It started as a student's way to rate girls at harvard and quickly grew into a general social thing by that student (again an unsanctioned bored student project). The money side occurred way later after the fact.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
People communicating and sharing interests isn't the problem or issue, the rotten part is why this platform was created in the first place, and what the creators are doing behind the scenes. Nothing in life, not a damn thing is worth revealing information that should be kept close to the vest. Anyone that wants that from you for their own purposes is never to be trusted.

When you build or create an entity that has the potential to be perverted into something monstrous, the responsibility/onus is on the creator. If others come along and pervert your creation, and you stand by and do nothing, I see you as equally guilty. Regardless of what was initially created ( and if it was indeed built to rate women, that is quite hideous, imo), what exists now is a monstrosity. I've never really cared much about the face book but I'm certainly watching now to see what will happen next, and several of my friends and family members have already cancelled existing accounts, which I applaud.

Mozilla themselves made a Firefox addon to lock Facebook in it's "virtual" tab from where it won't be able to steal user's data:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir…ook-container/

Does it work as intended or Sandboxie and similar utils are better solution dunno, I never registered on any social network.
If you can't live without Facebook however, I have to suggest using this with Firefox while visiting Facebook through a browser.

For US people, be aware of Panera Bread security breakin.

Panerabread.com Leaks Millions of Customer Records

Lawsuit. 8 Months knowing about the problem and not fixing it. Almost, but not quite as bad, as equifax. These freaking companies just don't care.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
For US people, be aware of Panera Bread security breakin.

Panerabread.com Leaks Millions of Customer Records

Incompetence or negligence, in either case we need regulations in place to do a better job of protecting us from shitty companies like this.

Data security is a scandalous mess pretty much across the board. The public just don't seem to care enough for it to become a significant political issue.

Honestly, I never thought I'd see the day when the sheep woke up, grabbed pitchforks, and marched against Facebook. Good sheep marching against evil, I applaud you all!!!

Man, I believe you're still asleep. But that's a nice dream you have there.

PC Gamer reports that 7Zip has a pretty bad security flaw. It was fixed on Monday so, unless you downloaded 7Zip really recently, it's time to update.
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-serious-se…ound-in-7-zip/
https://www.7-zip.org

The latest Firefox 60 update added group policy settings to customize the web-browser. To use this feature you need Windows 10 Professional.

I personally use this to disallow addons being installed from websites (previously this was very complex to setup for Firefox). As my computer is shared an addon was accidentally installed that change the search engine and homepage. This way I don't need to worry about this for other user accounts on my computer.

How to install and use:

• Download policy_templates.zip from https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/releases.
• Extract and copy mozilla.admx, firefox.admx and en-US folder to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions.
• From Windows Start-menu, type and start "edit group policy".
• Configure the Firefox settings:
  - Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Mozilla -> Firefox
  - User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Mozilla -> Firefox

The computing magazine I regularly read reports that there are a few even more severe … security things … found within or with Intel processors.

I'm actually a bit surprised that no-one had written about that so far.

And yes, it isn't the first of April, and the mag is usually very trustable (it's the " c't " ).

Actually we did write, even linked to utils to check if your machine is vulnerable, but you were playing some MMOs and ignoring us here.

We missed you and you should feel bad because of it and I want to be both selfish and blunt in this case because instead of returning to us you bought some console.

Also it's not just Intel, AMD has some security holes too. No reason for panic as it's being patched.

Two new Spectre variants discovered. Workarounds will likely hit performance further.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa…ulnerabilities

Facebook patents system to eavesdrop on your phone mic, to work out what your viewing habits are.

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo…ening-tv-shows

Well I would be less concern about their patent then realizing that frequently micro phones and cameras on pc are hijacked by ill gotten people in general (of course many would consider facebook a virus but whatever ….). There was a case where tvs were also being hijacked for …..