Open Source Utilities For Facebook Privacy

dward90 writes "Two online projects will scan and edit Facebook privacy settings for maximum protection: ReclaimPrivacy (reclaimprivacy.org) and SaveFace (untangle.com). The article says: 'Several new applications have launched this week that are designed to easily reset a Facebook member's privacy settings, following new changes from the company that make a sizable chunk of profile content public by default when it was once kept under lock and key.'"

Comments

Re:Other websites knowing your facebook account

[mehrotra.akash]

Account->privacy settings->Apps and websites Disable "Instant Personalization Pilot Program"

Re:DO NOT use UNTANGLE.com

[iamhigh]

RTFM you moron. It plainly states on the download page that it resets all your settings to friends only.

Re:Is It Just Me ...

[0100010001010011]

You can't. And neither of these tools do.

You have to drag them from their website to your toolbar. Go to facebook, click on them. The javascript scrapes the website and either validates the settings (reclaim) or just sets everything to 'friends only' (save face).

I've tested both and they seem to work just fine.

I bet facebook releases a change in the html to break the scraper soon though.

Re:Other websites knowing your facebook account

[TimmyDee]

I wish it were that easy. I have the "Instant Personalization Pilot Program" disabled on my account, but FB Connect popped up on CNN Money this morning.

What did I do? I specifically blocked any URL containing "fbconnect". Problem solved. OmniWeb let me do this using RegEx, but I'm sure the same can be done with AdBlock.

I disagree.

[AnonymousClown]

Many employers and definitely for security clearances will look at your page and all of your friends. Guilt by association.

See here under "Yes, Facebook can get you fired."

Mr. Fulmer and his wife made fun of a local church sermon in a podcast they posted online in 2005. Mr. Fulmer says it got so much attention, his boss listened to it, thought it was offensive and fired him.

The thing is, sharing things about yourself can be objectionable to an employer - and you don't know what they could be.

What may be completely harmless or even your God given right to say or do, may make you unhirable for an employer or even fired. Against the law in some cases - prove it. They can always find a legitimate and legal excuse to not hire you or fire you.

The best thing to do is pass on Facebook.

Application Boundary Enforcer

[johndoe42]

Even if you turn off instant personalization, facebook still knows every time you visit one of those partner sites. But NoScript (I leave scripts enabled globally) has a cute feature called Application Boundary Enforcer. Here's (some of) my config:

Site .facebook.com
Accept from .facebook.com
Deny

Site .fbcdn.net
Accept from .facebook.com
Accept from .fbcdn.net
Deny

Enjoy!

Re:Looking forward

[fbjon]

They claim that because they're right. Here's the entire code for the bookmarklet, with some formatting inserted:

javascript:(
function(){
var script = document.createElement('script');
script.src = 'http://static.reclaimprivacy.org/javascripts/privacyscanner.js';
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);
}
)()

And the script itself is nicely formatted. Look towards the end for the actual code that matters. Have fun.