Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Widget Installs Zango Spyware
BaCa writes "A malicious Facebook Widget actively spreading on the social networking site ultimately prompts users to install the infamous "Zango" adware/spyware. The tremendous success and lightning fast expansion of Facebook empowered the social networking giant with an impressive user base. Needless to say, in a digital world where web traffic equals money, such a user base attracts spammers, virus/spyware seeders, and other ethic-less online marketers like honey would attract flies."
The evolution of facebook took place to fast for the security to catch up.
There is something else that attracts flies which it more closely resembles...
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
All the apps are terrible. Asides from their 'myspacesqueness', they also release your entire profile & friends to an unknown entity. Facebooks TOS is bad enough, but atleast you have a sense of who your dropping all thoughts of ownership or privacy too.
'caring' - imageogram
http://xkcd.com/357/
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I tried to run it from the Facebook link in my sandbox, it wouldn't take. Looks like admin privileges are a requirement. I guess it's not surprising people aren't following the basic security steps that (even) Microsoft recommends.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
You must use facebook a lot.
Facebook have already blocked it, days ago...
The widget in question (according to TFA) is "Secret Crush". The app asks you to complete several steps, including signing up 5 of your friends and installing a tray applet (containing the "infamous "Zango" adware/spyware") from Zango's site.
Think MySpace only it looks like a corporate website c.1999 instead of a Geocities page c.1996. Oh, and with pointless activities.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Am I the only person left who doesn't know what facebook is?
From reading the press it seems to be some sort of web site where you upload all your private stuff for other people to see. I've never seen it though.
No sig today...
According to "blog.zango.com" (found by a google search "facebook widget zango") the widget is now called "My Admirer".
Facebook is going to hell in a handbasket. They should never have opened to "anyone with an email address"; that's just asking for trouble. At least they're making money, right?
While the tag "shitattractsflies" is somewhat amusing when describing (as an aside, Facebook started exclusively on college campuses some 5 years ago, now), I think the more insightful tag would be "peopleattractshit".
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
Don't voluntarily install untrusted executable files! Period! There is no vulnerability without the user thinking that they want what's inside.
Facebook has nothing to do with the existence of this vulnerability. In fact, the browser-based app model explicitly is nice because of the sandbox effect, where such apps are very limited in what they can touch on your local machine. But when you convince people to break out of that sandbox by installing a local app, you can certainly kiss your computer goodbye.
--
Our microcontroller kit. Your gcc compiler. Learn digital electronics.
If you aren't the last person, you're not by much.
/limit/ my online exposure, not enhance it, so of course I created a fake account.
/do/, that I can see. You are supposed to join "networks", but there weren't any that seemed interesting to me.
I only went and checked it out a few weeks ago, after not being able to stand all the hype any longer.
I can't figure out what it's for. I've said as much here on Slasdot before, and was told that basically it's a mechanism to find/keep in touch with friends.
It's kind of like "classmates.com", except it's free.
I went and tried it out. First of all, they want you to use your real name. Like you noted, your "private stuff". Myself, I am seeking to
Once you have an account, there is very little to actually
I don't have any long lost friends to look up, and the couple of names I did plug in didn't get any hits. All of the people currently in my life that I want to keep up with I currently keep up with by other means, like email, telephone, or face-to-face.
I still don't understand the appeal of these "myspace" and "facebook" social web sites. What they really look like to me is an html-based web page creation utility, that allows people to create a personal web page without having to pay a hosting fee.
Since most ISPs these days give you a 5MB or so space where you can make a little web page if you want, I don't know why people don't just use that, except I guess they don't know how to make web pages. So MySpace, Facebook, etc., are like mini web-page software wizards to help you make a web page. Since all the web pages are centralized on one "server", they are thus also easily searchable / linkable.
If I wanted a web page to post things about myself, I'd go register a domain and some web hosting services and make one. I guess Facebook and MySpace are for people who don't want to go to the trouble.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Or a slashdot poster.
Nope. Unethical is an even BIGGER word!
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
They let the highschoolers and world in.
The reason it's like a second grade class room is because majority of users are of that mentality now. Just look at most of the "groups" now. Maybe they existed and I didn't notice before but all my groups were rather sane, now they're "IF U JOIN THIS GRUP WORLD PEACE WILL START!"
I've been on facebook since the beginning. And every minor improvement seemed to rock. They added photos. I was able to share photos in one place with most of my friends. I could invite friends over to a party with out having to e-mail every one. Yes, sometimes in college you don't get the opportunity to SEE all your friends every day.
And then the flood gates opened. The Developer thread was flooded with "HEAY I LOVE FACEBOOK CAN U MKE IT SO MUSIC PLAYS LIKE MYSPACE." People would kindly remind them that the whole thread was FOR developers. People could make 3rd party apps and it seemed pretty good because all the 3rd party apps were external. Then came the day that they let those 3rd party apps on everyones website. Then it just went to hell.
Thankfully Grease Monkey and scripts like:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/11992
This exist.
Which is why I maintain 2 accounts. My 'professional' account. Uses my work address. All my college friends and people I know well. You can't find it anywhere. You can't search for it by name. Even if you know me I have to add you. Then my "Hi I just met you at the bar and I'm going to add you" account. Basic info. Searchable. Etc.
Well, at least Scoble is safe.
"Piter, too, is dead."
First of all, stupidity doesn't mean you deserve what you get.
Yes it does. It's called life, and we as a society should stop putting so much futile effort into working against it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
>Staying in touch with a bunch of people who you do not care very much for their
>center of interest is one of the most worthless activity i've ever heard of.
My sentiments exactly. It also smacks of voyeurism to me. Maybe that is part of the appeal?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>Hmmm... well, if you used a fake name, then maybe all your former friends did too.
>The site only works if people use their real names.
I really don't have any former friends. There is one guy I've lost track of over the years, but he never kept a phone (his girlfriends kept calling getting him in trouble with his live-in girlfriend) and he hated computers so I doubt he's on the web anyway. But other than him, I don't have any long-lost buddies I'm trying to keep track of. I never had friends in high school so I'm not looking for long-ago classmates. I wasn't a traditional college student (I worked full time and went to school to get my degree) so I don't have any college buddies to track down, either.
If you just want to look people up, why not go use Yahoo People Search? Why opt into yet another database so you can be found?
>It enables the maintenance of casual friendships without having to write/phone explicitly.
This concept is completely foreign to me. If you are worthy enough of friendship than I will make the effort to maintain that friendship explicitly. If you aren't worthy enough of friendship then I'm not going to be interested in your digital trivia on some web page.
>If you think about it, this is how most casual friendships work - I don't specifially talk to John down
>the hall at work to catch up, I might bump into him in the coffee room, see he's got a new shirt, find out
>it was his birthday yesterday etc. etc.. Just seeing and bumping into someone lets you stay in touch without it being an effort.
The people I interface with at work are not friends, they are coworkers. I do happen to have a friend at work, but he is an actual friend, and I maintain our friendship by traditional means, speaking, telephone, email, going out to lunch, having his family over for dinner, etc. The rest of my coworkers, however, I don't care to interface with except for work-related matters. I don't care what kind of shirt they are wearing, when their birthday is, or any other trivial detail about them except whatever information I need from them to execute work functions. This is not to say I might not make additional friends out of co-workers, just that I don't need "casual" friendships.
>Email works for people you really want to stay in touch with, and chat forums work for a bunch of people who want to discuss the same topic(s).
This works for me.
>On Facebook I can find out that Fred who I went to school with is into a particular band too,
>and if there's a couple of other guys from school 10 years ago maybe a group of us could go to a gig.
I figure if I haven't spoken to you in 6 months then you are off my radar. I don't have enough time to keep adequate track of all the people actually actively present in my life. I guess I just don't feel the need to go dredging up the past to fulfill my friendship needs.
What you've said about Facebook jives with what other people have told me about it. Ultimately I figure I'm just anti-social and consequently the thrill of accumulating lots of "casual friends" just holds very little appeal to me. I'm also one of those people who never asks strangers, "How are you doing?" because I don't really care how some stranger is doing, and I know it's just a dumb little thing that people say to each other as a greeting and most people don't care how you are doing, either.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.