Slashdot Mirror

http://www.facebook.com/ladieslearningcode - I think they're kind of geographically restricted, but them or something like them might help.

"Crushed heads, limbs, etc are ok as long as no insides are showing"
Because, y'know, a completely flattened dead cat ("Deep flesh wounds are ok to show") couldn't possibly offend anyone, while showing a packet of chicken livers at the grocery store borders on mass-murderer territory?

I bet a raw burger patty or liver pate is fine too. And so are millions of other stuff:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/ISAWGrilled-Chicken-Intestines/120309610626
http://es-es.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=52495068049

There's a reason why they use humans for the job even if computers are getting better at image recognition. For similar reasons they probably won't want "Asperger's wannabe" slashdotters for the job.

"Crushed heads, limbs, etc are ok as long as no insides are showing"
Because, y'know, a completely flattened dead cat ("Deep flesh wounds are ok to show") couldn't possibly offend anyone, while showing a packet of chicken livers at the grocery store borders on mass-murderer territory?

I bet a raw burger patty or liver pate is fine too. And so are millions of other stuff:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/ISAWGrilled-Chicken-Intestines/120309610626
http://es-es.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=52495068049

There's a reason why they use humans for the job even if computers are getting better at image recognition. For similar reasons they probably won't want "Asperger's wannabe" slashdotters for the job.

this parasite on society?

to paraphrase a commenter from some URL: Remember, you're a product, NOT a user.

Yours In Osh,
Kilgore Trout.

I'm curious if anyone knows how it compares to the National Pinball Museum, recently reopened in Baltimore, MD.

There seem to be a few places like this now. There is the one in las vegas: pinball hall of fame
The one in Baltimore you mentioned: national pinball museum
One I just found in California
The one the article mentions in Seattle
another I found in NJ
An article about several of these opening up around the country.
And if you are interested in playing I found a place in St. Louis CP Pinball.
Any other places people have found that are worth noting here?

How about Facebook's Actual Law Enforcement Contact page with guidelines. It seems facebook does waive these requirements sometimes, such as when "responding to a matter involving imminent harm to a child or risk of death or serious physical injury to any person and requiring disclosure of information without delay."

Hilarious! Where does the stupidity end?

http://www.connect.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150417882782746&set=a.362494502745.165721.340808377745&type=1&ref=nf

This was their "pigeon shoot." It was CLAY PIGEONS!! A charity benefit for skeet shooting.

How do you know? The event you're pointing out was scheduled for February 18th. The story itself was posted on February 14th, so the confrontation must have happened well before that event you're citing. Don't you think it would make sense for a shooting range to have both kinds of pigeons anyway? I would think that trucking in live pigeons would be considerably more expensive than trucking in clay pigeons. And also, clay pigeons would be a safer bet, for an event planner, should that "animal rights" group/person decide to disturb the place again.

This guy Hindi is beyond hilarious. He has a record of this type of behavior...a criminal record, apparently. According to commenters of the original story he used a parachute to disrupt a hunting activity... a parachute he was flying. He was held without bail and then hunger-striked his way out.

Yes, the guy is a huge idiot. You don't run toward the guys with the guns, you want to run away from them (let alone, flying down in a parachute, that's like putting a bulls-eye on your head). That being said, everyone is entitled to a speedy trial and a reasonable bail, even huge idiots.

And from what you're describing, if this was the worst offense he ever committed, it doesn't sound like he was a flight risk. If nothing else, this guy sounds like a zealout and an attention-whore, my bet would be that such an individual wouldn't miss his court date for anything.

Hilarious! Where does the stupidity end?

http://www.connect.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150417882782746&set=a.362494502745.165721.340808377745&type=1&ref=nf

Except that's an advert for an event on the 18th Feb. TFA is dated 14th Feb, 4 days before the advertised event - is it not possible that the one attended by Mr Hindi was in fact a live shoot even before the 14th?

Not that I particularly agree with his attempts at what appear to be trespass/annoy on private property (is flying remote controlled aircraft like this over private property trespass?)

Hilarious! Where does the stupidity end?

http://www.connect.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150417882782746&set=a.362494502745.165721.340808377745&type=1&ref=nf

This was their "pigeon shoot." It was CLAY PIGEONS!! A charity benefit for skeet shooting.

This means, among other things, that shotguns were used. This means VERY limited range. As the fire was described as "small arms fire" I an guess that it was a small guage bird-shot weapon... REALLY short range and really not dangerous. (Think 'Dick Cheney shot a guy in the face with one of these with no serious damage') So the allegations of "dangeously close to the highway" are ridiculous. What was dangerously close to the highway was the drone... flying low over private property. I can't say "that" was illegal, but it was definitely more of a hazard than the participants of these charity donors have a little fun.

This guy Hindi is beyond hilarious. He has a record of this type of behavior...a criminal record, apparently. According to commenters of the original story he used a parachute to disrupt a hunting activity... a parachute he was flying. He was held without bail and then hunger-striked his way out. I have expect to read about this guy in the darwin awards at some point in the future.

I tried that using a real looking name, they just removed my account the next day, Facebook are run by scumbags so I didn't bother re-registering. I'd rather have my privacy thank you.

My dog has had a facebook account for ages and, yes, he lied about his age.

You do not need permission, facebook has a Bug Bounty program with (vaguely?) defined rules of engagement that pays money.

I'm sympathetic to that argument. Post-intrusion followup, investigation, rootkit removal (read -- bare metal installation after hdd imaging), these are all legitimate expenses incurred even in the case of a white hat.

Fixing the problem they found is not. Conducting an audit to look for similar problems is not.

Related: How's that related to this? https://www.facebook.com/whitehat/ Did he not follow the procedures?

That guy isn't/wasn't a white hat. He broke the law without a signed agreement. Breaking the law to support a corporation is not ethical.

On the one hand, Mangham definitely didn't have prior authorization. His actions were illegal, regardless of his intentions.

On the other hand, Facebook's long-term security has been dramatically weakened. Now, anybody who finds a vuln in Facebook isn't going to report it for fear of doing jail time.

Sounds like a fuck-up for everyone involved.

Or you know you follow Facebook's procedure for their bug-bounty program: https://www.facebook.com/whitehat/bounty/ Paying special attention to the following section:

Exclusions The following bugs aren't eligible for a bounty (and we don't recommend testing for these): Security bugs in third-party applications (e.g., http://apps.facebook.com/%5Bapp_name%5D) Security bugs in third-party websites that integrate with Facebook Security bugs in Facebook's corporate infrastructure Denial of Service Vulnerabilities Spam or Social Engineering techniques

If you want to test any of those, you do what practically any book on "ethical hacking" ever states and you get prior authorization.

On the one hand, Mangham definitely didn't have prior authorization. His actions were illegal, regardless of his intentions.

On the other hand, Facebook's long-term security has been dramatically weakened. Now, anybody who finds a vuln in Facebook isn't going to report it for fear of doing jail time.

Sounds like a fuck-up for everyone involved.

Or you know you follow Facebook's procedure for their bug-bounty program: https://www.facebook.com/whitehat/bounty/ Paying special attention to the following section:

Exclusions The following bugs aren't eligible for a bounty (and we don't recommend testing for these): Security bugs in third-party applications (e.g., http://apps.facebook.com/%5Bapp_name%5D) Security bugs in third-party websites that integrate with Facebook Security bugs in Facebook's corporate infrastructure Denial of Service Vulnerabilities Spam or Social Engineering techniques

If you want to test any of those, you do what practically any book on "ethical hacking" ever states and you get prior authorization.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=385761004783784&set=a.150692631623957.27577.100000496634796&type=1&ref=nf

I teach at a university, my course is about network protocols and IT security. I prefer to trust my students rather than use punishment as a way to influence them. My attempts to eliminate cheating are quite effective, because the results of the exams are always within my expectations, i.e. a mediocre student never got an A out of the blue.

Here's a review of my methods:
- The final grade is derived mostly from the practical assignments they get throughout the semester. In this context I get to talk to each of them and spend a lot of time interacting with everyone in my group; this is how I know what they know.
- The final grade is computed as 60% = practical assignments and 20+20% = midterm and final exam. This way, even if you cheat at the exam, it won't help you very much, unless you also worked hard during the _entire_ semester.

- Formulate questions that don't take answers that can be copy/pasted from a book, the lecture notes or the Internet. Any question must require analysis. One who thought about it in the past will easily deal with it, one who has never been exposed to the ideas of the course won't be able to construct a good answer in a reasonable amount of time.
- Give them more time than they need, to ensure that time is not a bottleneck of their performance.

When I mentioned social engineering, I relied on research by Daniel Ariely. You can influence people's behaviour in multiple ways:
- a written commitment not to cheat
- give them a moral problem to think of, before giving them the exam itself
- adjust the environment (in your case, tell them that all the Internet traffic is logged - so they know that they _can_ get caught)

For example, I used these tasks in the previous semesters:
- "write as many of the 10 commandments as you can remember" (taken "as is" from Ariely's experiment)
- "actually, there were 11 commandments, but one of them was lost. Think about it and write down a rule which is worthy of being listed as the 11th commandment"
- I once tried a written commitment too. Everyone who was in class signed it and smiled: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=469536753019&set=a.453850808019.243204.739418019&type=3&theater Three years after that exam, people are still talking about it and are proud to be a part of that experience.

You may be interested in:
- "Predictably irrational" and "The upside of irrationality" by Daniel Ariely
- http://duke.edu/~dandan/Papers/BadApples.pdf - here's an example of a paper he wrote about cheating, there are other ones too.

You must also make sure the students care about the course and want to learn, rather than just get a passing grade. Have a look at my notes of a book about this, "Punished by rewards" by Alfie Kohn: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150475760123020.375546.739418019&type=3&l=70e1f3712e

I tried to ensure my assignments are not only useful, but also interesting and fun to play with. A basic requirement is to make sure some humour is always involved, with some references to Futurama or Monty Python or some sci-fi book or movie. Here are some examples:
http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=Lab2_-_HTTP_crawler
http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=Lab1_-_simple_client/server_application

At the moment I'm in the process of devising a very short code of ethics (if it is long, no one reads it). You can read the draft: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=115bLhvMUisnw

I teach at a university, my course is about network protocols and IT security. I prefer to trust my students rather than use punishment as a way to influence them. My attempts to eliminate cheating are quite effective, because the results of the exams are always within my expectations, i.e. a mediocre student never got an A out of the blue.

Here's a review of my methods:
- The final grade is derived mostly from the practical assignments they get throughout the semester. In this context I get to talk to each of them and spend a lot of time interacting with everyone in my group; this is how I know what they know.
- The final grade is computed as 60% = practical assignments and 20+20% = midterm and final exam. This way, even if you cheat at the exam, it won't help you very much, unless you also worked hard during the _entire_ semester.

- Formulate questions that don't take answers that can be copy/pasted from a book, the lecture notes or the Internet. Any question must require analysis. One who thought about it in the past will easily deal with it, one who has never been exposed to the ideas of the course won't be able to construct a good answer in a reasonable amount of time.
- Give them more time than they need, to ensure that time is not a bottleneck of their performance.

When I mentioned social engineering, I relied on research by Daniel Ariely. You can influence people's behaviour in multiple ways:
- a written commitment not to cheat
- give them a moral problem to think of, before giving them the exam itself
- adjust the environment (in your case, tell them that all the Internet traffic is logged - so they know that they _can_ get caught)

For example, I used these tasks in the previous semesters:
- "write as many of the 10 commandments as you can remember" (taken "as is" from Ariely's experiment)
- "actually, there were 11 commandments, but one of them was lost. Think about it and write down a rule which is worthy of being listed as the 11th commandment"
- I once tried a written commitment too. Everyone who was in class signed it and smiled: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=469536753019&set=a.453850808019.243204.739418019&type=3&theater Three years after that exam, people are still talking about it and are proud to be a part of that experience.

You may be interested in:
- "Predictably irrational" and "The upside of irrationality" by Daniel Ariely
- http://duke.edu/~dandan/Papers/BadApples.pdf - here's an example of a paper he wrote about cheating, there are other ones too.

You must also make sure the students care about the course and want to learn, rather than just get a passing grade. Have a look at my notes of a book about this, "Punished by rewards" by Alfie Kohn: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150475760123020.375546.739418019&type=3&l=70e1f3712e

I tried to ensure my assignments are not only useful, but also interesting and fun to play with. A basic requirement is to make sure some humour is always involved, with some references to Futurama or Monty Python or some sci-fi book or movie. Here are some examples:
http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=Lab2_-_HTTP_crawler
http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=Lab1_-_simple_client/server_application

At the moment I'm in the process of devising a very short code of ethics (if it is long, no one reads it). You can read the draft: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=115bLhvMUisnw

You are incorrect, facebook will not violate the privacy settings on your likes.

You can go to the facebook help centre, and specifically to the information about ads pages, where is specifically addresses the issue you mention with the question:

Why did I see my friend's name or photo attached to an ad?

With Facebook Ads for Pages, Events and Apps, you may see stories about actions your friends have taken on Facebook attached to ads you see. For example, you might see a story about a friend who already likes a Page that you're seeing advertised. Similarly, your friends might see stories about you that relate to the ads they're seeing. Such stories will only be shown to friends, and will adhere to any privacy settings you've set for your account.

So if you set your likes to only me then NO ONE will see your name in those ads.
If you set it to a specific group, than only people in that specific group might see them.

Is this a glimpse into the future of Google? Why even bother with running a search engine? Just pay people to give up their personal information and resell it to the highest bidder!

Oh wait, someone already beat them to this grift... except they don't pay anyone!

Those are from the Facebook Social Plug-ins that sites can choose to run. If you're logged out of FB and go to the site, it won't show you anyone on your Friends list. It's not an App on FB at all. http://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/

http://www.facebook.com/jeremy.wathen1

Show me you junk.

I recommend going to the ICE Facebook page (WTF?) and let them know how much we appreciate their hard work protecting us from fake jerseys and other insidious chotchkies.

You know, add yourself to the list of people to monitor. Fuckfaces all around.
Too bad we have to use our real names...

But that's us techies.

Just to be clear, the post I was responding to included this gem right before that bit about the data sink:

Being a geek and techie, I saw Facebook for what it really was

Anyway, beyond that...I am on Facebook now and I click "Edit Profile". Just about everything there has a little x beside it. Hover over it, and it pops up a message saying "Remove". On my main profile page, there's a checkmark to show my sex on my profile. I don't have to. There's a drop down right underneath my birthdate with options to show my full DOB, just the month and day, or nothing.

Every entry I've ever made for employers or schools has that x beside it. Hover, and it says "remove this employer" or "remove this school".

Profile picture - there's a link right underneath it saying "Remove this picture".

Honestly, I get what you're saying, but I think that in this day and age anyone who's savvy enough to use Facebook can be reasonably expected to understand a checkmark, or to hover over the remove/x and see what it says.

And as a matter of interest, something I only just observed: on the "General Account Settings" page is a link to Download a copy of my Facebook data. I click on it and it tells me:

Easily download and browse through a personal archive of your Facebook photos, posts and messages. Learn more about downloading a copy of your information.

As well as details on what is and isn't in that download archive.

Well, that's interesting. Think I'll do that right now.

lol

They built their own PHP compiler so that their PHP code is actually running as machine code.

It's nice to see that you don't even eat your own dogfood: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Viking-Power/153261434691082

Windows Phone, according to Facebook -> https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=135892916448833

Shhhh, don't let facts get in the way of a /. anti-MS orgy. You need to extrapolate the total number of phones sold across two dozen models in over a year by assuming the total number sold is equal to the number sold of one model in less than a month!

Windows Phone, according to Facebook -> https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=135892916448833

https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=7933375107&sk=wall 1.3 million monthly users of the Facebook app on WP7 According to http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/17/facebook-android-iphone/ facebook for android has 85.4 million users montly, IOS has 99.1 million monthly users.

https://www.facebook.com/events/232436933489216/

They've enhanced mySQL's ability to 'scale' better!

(No, I can't recall the specifics but iirc, it had SOMETHING TO DO with putting addons onto mySQL (HBase? Not familiar with THAT exactly here).... but they are in that search result above I am fairly certain, so it can "scale" better over FAR more users than it can by default...)

* Now, THAT's something... & it is innovation.

APK

P.S.=> I also heard to enhance that further, they "busted up" their data across many more DB devices as well (9.10 times, processing smaller sets that end up adding up to a whole larger complete set, just process faster - period... Ask any DB people (you're talking to one now - all you have to do is avoid OVERLY complex "joins" mostly in SQL's all))... apk

Given how they've just made the single biggest change to their interface since the launch of Facebook I'm wondering just what you define as innovating? They've just done a complete re-think of how they tell the story of a person's life through a profile page.

google???

http://www.facebook.com/help/search/?q=how+do+i+delete+my+account

If you do not think you will use Facebook again and would like your account deleted, keep in mind that you will not be able to reactivate your account or retrieve any of the content or information you have added. If you would like your account permanently deleted with no option for recovery, log in to your account and then submit your request here.

Whether they truly delete it or not is beyond me, but it's not the same as deactivation.

https://www.facebook.com/BlackMart?sk=info

Looks like BlackMart provides the same functionality and it already exists.

Honestly dude, troll harder. You're focusing on bullshit again. How many times will you do this with how many accounts? Is this 5? 10? in the last week?

Of course public information is scraped. That's not the point. You could publicly scrape anything whether anyone wants it or not. The reality here is the strawman of focusing on that, yet again. But yes, it must be google, they must be evil. Uh, no.

Oh wait, here's the humor and irony:

to get to http://www.facebook.com/apps/site_scraping_tos.php - you have to log in to facebook.

How does Facebook prevent Google from indexing it? It doesn't - in fact, you can find tons of people, pages and other parts of Facebook on Google. Hell, if you want API access there's Open Graph. If you want to do large scale scraping on Facebook you can also contact then. Judging by Facebook's robot.txt, Google has this permission (and so does several other search engines).

How does Facebook prevent Google from indexing it? It doesn't - in fact, you can find tons of people, pages and other parts of Facebook on Google. Hell, if you want API access there's Open Graph. If you want to do large scale scraping on Facebook you can also contact then. Judging by Facebook's robot.txt, Google has this permission (and so does several other search engines).

I see no evidence that George Cluney ever played a doctor. Perhaps you meant stormtrooper? Or did you mean to cite George Clooney?

Senator Marco Rubio just annonced on his Facebook page that he's withdrawing his support for the Protect IP Act. (Credit to Steve from HardOCP.com's forum for the story).

Therefore, I have decided to withdraw my support for the Protect IP Act. Furthermore, I encourage Senator Reid to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor. Instead, we should take more time to address the concerns raised by all sides, and come up with new legislation that addresses Internet piracy while protecting free and open access to the Internet.

I also agree with Steve from HardOCP, he would have been more credible if he have done this before today

Apparently the Senator withdrew his support. Trying to link to his site: http://rubio.senate.gov/ shows nothing. He did make a facebook posting withdrawing support https://www.facebook.com/SenatorMarcoRubio/posts/340889625936408#!/SenatorMarcoRubio Interesting times...

the difference is that you are not a creative work; your physical body is a product of nature/genetics/parents/god/whatever, but it is not a creative work of man*.

A photograph of me is not merely an image of my physical body; it is of me doing something. My life is a deliberate creative work; any photographs of me are derivatives of that work.

Here's a recent photo of me. I creatively took a drink umbrella and used it to turn my thumb into a hula dancer. My complicated-ex-girlfriend creatively drew a face on my thumb. My friend pulled out her camera phone, and I creatively struck a pose, which I deliberately held for several shots. The photograph that my friend took is a derivative work of a collaboration between me and my complicated-ex.

If the law only recognizes the "creativity" of the friend who took the photo, then the law is an ass. We need to recognize subjectright as being at least as important.

facebook is sharing anonymized personal messages and typed posts. the difference here is night and day.

No they aren't. Summary is just badly worded. Facebook will not share any messages with anyone, they will run the statistics tools themselves. Read the announcement by Facebook, where they clearly state that. Politico will not get the messages.

The link you provide doesn't really clarify. It implies that actual messages go to Politico but it's hard to say for sure.

"Facebook will compile mentions of the candidates in U.S. users' posts and comments as well as assess positive and negative sentiments expressed about them. Facebook’s data team will use automated software tools frequently used by researchers to infer sentiment from text. This information will be exclusively available on POLITICO with analysis by its journalists."

A compilation of mentions of candidates would presumably be more than just some aggregate statistics. But is "the information" that they give to Politico the same thing as the compilation of mentions?

I think that saying that FB is "sharing" the personal messages and such is a little bit of a stretch though. Yes, they have partnered with Politico (they've been working with them for years), but according to their announcement, the only things that are viewed or shared to anything but the automated analysis program are stats on how many mentions each candidate gets and aggregations of positive or negative "sentiment."

It's uncomfortable, and I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I don't think it violates the TOS that I, of course, read thoroughly before agreeing to it. The only part that really chaps me is that, if I were offended enough that they were doing this, I'd have no way of retracting posts that I'd already made even if I discontinued my account.

facebook is sharing anonymized personal messages and typed posts. the difference here is night and day.

No they aren't. Summary is just badly worded. Facebook will not share any messages with anyone, they will run the statistics tools themselves. Read the announcement by Facebook, where they clearly state that. Politico will not get the messages.

Yes, the summary is badly worded. Facebook themselves clearly say that it is Facebook who will run the statistics software.

Google is taking data that users are providing them, and doing statistical analysis on that data. There's no issue with this, because it's not leaving Google.

Facebook is taking data that users are providing them, and sending it off to a third party to do statistical analysis on it. This is a terrible invasion of privacy, because Facebook users never intended for their private data to be shipped off to other companies.

If you can't see the difference here than you're either dumb or an anti-Google shill.

No, that's only what the summary is claiming. How unsurprising that it is wrong. Read the announcement by Facebook

Facebook will compile mentions of the candidates in U.S. users' posts and comments as well as assess positive and negative sentiments expressed about them. Facebookâ(TM)s data team will use automated software tools frequently used by researchers to infer sentiment from text.

And why stop with WWII? Vlad Dracul (yeah, that guy) made damn sure everyone knew why he was called "Vlad the Impaler" and he didn't even have a Facebook account.

Well, he didn't *then* at any rate.

Facebook recently put up this page that explains how and why Facebook advertise. I thought it was a nice, genuine explanation and it is worth a read.

The announcement page has a link to the problems from last year's qualification round, but that leads to a sign-up page for the contest. I'm curious to see the problems, but not planning to compete. Can someone who's already signed up post them here, and save the rest of us some time? Cheers.

Facial biometrics rely on a lot of data points, have a look at ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2007 - a standard that defines how law enforcement agencies exchange data about tattoos, scars, fingerprints, faces... http://www.nist.gov/customcf/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=51174 (free of charge, there are pictures :-)

Here's the specific excerpt you're interested in (public pic, no need to have a Facebook profile to view it):
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150344785953020&set=a.129747423019.106694.739418019&type=3&theater

I sure don't. My comment was just as much an excuse to post that video as to contribute relevant discourse. But I put in a number of years in the bicycle industry. The better component manufacturers also do things for the aerospace industry; conditions fluctuating between sea level and a few dozen thousand feet probably do a number on equipment as well. The stuff is also likely a mite simpler and easier to re-engineer (if necessary) than a gas analyzer shed.

Have a look at some of the photos that Hanebrink has posted. Seems to me like they know a thing or two about testing. It's in a wind tunnel, presumably a refrigerated one.

If I had to guess, I'd figure the trickiest bit would be coming up with chain lube and bearing grease that weren't completely useless... and replacing a broken chain while wearing heavily insulated gloves.