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Facebook "Trusted Contacts" Lets You Pester Friends To Recover Account Access
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.'"
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
While I'd hope that people would trust their friends to not abuse a privileged position in order to gain access to one's account, it's probably a good idea to pick friends from different, non-overlapping social circles to make it difficult for them to know who other "trusted" people for one's account are.
Facebook [..] Lets You Pester Friends.
Wasn't that already its primary use?
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.
Probably nobody does in that cave you're hiding in, but out here in the world? Yeah, there's a couple people still using it, give or take millions.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
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.
But I do not have 3 friends you insensitive clods!
Yes. There is a real world outside of your room. People socialize. It might be hard to recognize it from the center of the universe you are in but it happens.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
Isn't this security measure a bit overkill for a stupid social network site??
What's next? All 3 to 5 friends will have to enter their codes simultaneously to recover the lost account?
This is supposed to be a security... enhancement?! How many people do you know on Facebook who would "recover" your password, change your profile picture to the photo they took of you in drag being touched up by a biker, change your status to Dead and start inviting people to your funeral? Because that's the vast majority of my friends - I'd trust them with my life but wouldn't dream of trusting them with £5. Or my beer. Or access to my Facebook accou - ohhhhhhh wait!
you get nothing in return
FB users get a significant amount of utility out of Facebook, and of course it comes at a cost. It looks extremely lop-sided because there's only one facebook and there are a billion or so users, but saying that users get nothing from it is just as stupid as saying that it costs users nothing.
Yes. There is a real world outside of your room. People socialize.
Yes, there is a real world out there. As opposed to Facebook, which you mostly access from your room.
Yes, people socialize. Have meals together, go dance, study together, play and sing, and much more. But it happens in "the real world outside of your room".
Sure, you can use Facebook to facilitate much of that, but you can do that with a phone or a car or e-mail too. Yet that doesn't make people think that the phone or car or mail server is the venue.
Sound like a good idea in theory, and it would also allow close friends to close an account of a departed one.
I know previously this can be distressing to contact facebook admins, and convince them that this is a valid request.
Yes. There is a real world outside of your room. People socialize.
Yes, there is a real world out there. As opposed to Facebook, which you mostly access from your room.
Yes, people socialize. Have meals together, go dance, study together, play and sing, and much more. But it happens in "the real world outside of your room".
Sure, you can use Facebook to facilitate much of that, but you can do that with a phone or a car or e-mail too. Yet that doesn't make people think that the phone or car or mail server is the venue.
You mostly access Facebook from your room? ("In Korea, only old people use email...") I access Facebook from my car, from the office, from the park, from a bar, waiting in line at the DMV, via text, etc...
It's a forum for electronic communication. Sure it's possible to primarily use it purely for random connections, but well over 90% of my Facebook friends I know (or have at least met) in person.
If you're asking "Why Facebook them when I could just text them*?", you're doing social media wrong.
*(outside of a disaster situation)
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
I've heard a lot of complaints about people passing away, and their facebook account becoming inaccessible to friends or family. This would be useful in the event of a long-term disabling event or death, allowing a spouse or close friend to pass on information in the event of a tragedy (or just begin the process of closing out the account).
Assuming they do in some fashion regain control of their account (and setting trusted friends doesn't prevent them from using some other password reset channel), they can simply un-trust your faux friends. Account security is restored. Granted there's a race condition if you can re-reset the password faster than they can un-trust you, but that seems like an *awful* lot of work to keep a Facebook account.