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Facebook "Trusted Contacts" Lets You Pester Friends To Recover Account Access

Posted by samzenpus on from the with-a-little-help-from-my-friends dept.

alphadogg writes "Facebook Thursday said it's making available globally a feature called 'Trusted Contacts' that lets users select three to five friends who can help users recover account access such as if they forget their password. Facebook said the idea is that once these friends are identified as 'trusted contacts' through the user's security settings, Facebook will provide each of them with a special code. 'Enter the codes from [at least 3 of] your trusted contacts, and you'll be able to access your account,' Facebook says. 'After you set your trusted contacts, we'll notify them so that they can be ready to help you if you ever need it.'"

5 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Security by LordLucless · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That sounds like a really good idea; adding a human element to password recovery using already established trust relationships. Of course, slashdot wouldn't be slashdot if we didn't try and skew reader response by painting it as "pestering".

    --
    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    1. Re:Security by Chrisq · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It does not protect against a bad choice in friends

      I would imagine that Facebook account access is the least of your problems if you have a bad choice of friends.

    2. Re:Security by teslar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I suppose the one worry is that if someone has the ability to impersonate your e-mail and has access to your friends list, he could then impersonate you and ask *all* your friends for codes. The attacker doesn't need to know who the trusted friends are since your circle of friends would not easily be able to detect that everyone's been contacted. The attacker may mine the publicly available info on the friends to personalise the message a bit, if not, keep it short and very simple. It's not like this request would come in a long personal message anyway. It IS likely that it will come by e-mail though since you'll already be at the computer, trusted friends may be around the globe and so on. In short, you need your friends to be capable of detecting an impersonation attempt, even if brief and potentially conveying a sense of urgency. Remember, your trusted friends may be the same people who click on links that appear to be from you *because* they trust you. So in summary, while I do think this is pretty neat, I also wonder if this is not rather vulnerable to social engineering (perhaps not so much among the /. crowd - but generally)?

  2. Re:Teen Drama in 5 4 3 2 1 by Grantbridge · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There are plenty of young people pranking each other by hijacking their friend's accounts without this! Leaving yourself logged in on a laptop/phone is considered permission to update your status to something "hilarious". I don't think this is going to increase hijacking.

  3. This is a social gimmick by EmagGeek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It creates yet another layer of "friendship exclusivity" in the Facebook social world. You have "friends" already, but now you can have "OMG BFF!" people as well, and some will feel accepted or rejected based on whether they are one of your "chosen few."

    This is, of course, the intent - to create more hype and drama, and even more important, yet another vehicle for narcissism to flourish.