No Reward for Hacking Mark Zuckerberg’s Page!

With the widespread use of the internet, social networking has become a popular hobby amongst people. It is said to be an excellent way for communicating with people, sharing information and even starting up small home-based businesses. Amongst these social networks, the name of Facebook is renowned as it is the largest social network of the world. Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard roommates launched it in 2004 for the college students, but it has spread far and wide and is being used by 1.1 billion people all over the globe. However, the use of these networks bears risks because there are security loopholes that exist.

Facebook offers rewards to technicians and researchers who are able to point out the flaws and ways to close them. However, the social network has refused to give the said reward to a researcher who exposed a security flaw in the system. This is perhaps because the researcher hacked into the profile page of Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook himself in order to expose this flaw and is thus being denied the customary reward payment from the social network. Rewards are given to those who discover security hole, but it seems that Khalil Shreatah, a Palestine researcher may have gone too far when he decided to post this information directly onto the profile page of Mark Zuckerberg.

The Palestine researcher stated on his own blog that he had discovered a way through which users of the social network could alter the timeline of another user by circumventing the security of the system. He mentioned that the security team of the social network had ignored him and this had urged him to take the unusual step of accessing Zuckerberg’s profile and posting it there. Screenshots of the posting were provided on his blog as proof that he had indeed done so.

His post on Zuckerberg’s wall apologized for the action, but he mentioned that Facebook’s security team wasn’t taking him seriously. For exposing this security flaw, his reward had been getting his own Facebook account disabled. However, he had received a message stating that he had violated the Terms of Service due to which he wouldn’t be paid a reward. But, the message also said that they hoped he would continue exposing any vulnerability he could find in the system. Facebook said that it appreciated the help of researchers in identifying flaws, but it did not give permission to hack into the accounts of users.

Matt Jones, the security engineer of Facebook posted on Sunday saying that the bug had been resolved on Thursday, but they should have consulted the researcher for additional instructions after the initial report had been received. He said that the social network received hundreds of reports on a daily basis and over $1 million had been paid for them. But, most of these reports are misguided or simply not worthy of attention. He said that the important issue was how the flaw had been demonstrated and now what it was. Therefore, no payment would be made. 

Facebook Launching Mysterious Product at June 20 Event

 

Social networking has become all the rage nowadays and there are numerous social networks that are being used today. However, none is as vast or popular as Facebook, which is said to be the largest social network of the world with more than a billion users that are spread out in every corner of the globe. Initially launched for the students of Harvard in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates, the social network has now expanded to any individual above the age of 13. The social network filed for an initial public offering in 2012 and based its headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

Since its advent several years ago, the social network has undergone a number of changes and has added a variety of features to its website in order to provide a better experience to its customer base. This improvement cycle is ongoing and the company is making another announcement related to it on June 20th 2013. According to the company, it will be hosting an event at its headquarters on the said date where it will be launching ‘a new product’. The invites have started rolling out slowly to people and are being sent through the snail mail.

According to the invitation sent out by the social network to the media, the company has said that a small team of its people has been working hard on a very big idea. The social network has invited them to have coffee and learn about the new product that’s soon to be released. The invite was sent out on a clean white paper, but there is a ‘stain’ on one corner, which resembles that of a singular brown coffee mug. In the past six months, this is the fourth press conference that the social network will be conducting and launching a new product.

So far, the company has introduced several other features that include the Graph Search, which was in January, the Facebook Home Android experience that was introduced recently and also a revamped and enhanced News Feed, which was in March. It was rumored that Facebook would be introducing a postcard service and there is speculation that the invites might just be the clue to exactly that. Moreover, earlier this week, Facebook had mentioned that it would be making additional announcements that were related to its public conversation features. Also, in this week, clickable hashtags were also introduced by Greg Lindley, the product manager of Facebook.

He said that previously there was no means of having an overall picture of what people were up to and what was trending, but hashtags were simply the first step that would enable people to take part in public conversations and learn about people. In the upcoming weeks and months, the social network will be rolling out new features that include deeper insights, trending hashtags and this mysterious announcement that will be made in the next week. There is also a rumor that Facebook might be developing its own RSS reader as Google is shutting its own down.

Upstarting Apps Gunning For Facebook

The ubiquitous social networking site, Facebook has become the bright and burning start of Silicon Valley. An unprecedented scale has been reached by the social network that has over 1.1 billion users and they continue to grow every month, especially in South America, Asia and Africa. This is due to the fact that Facebook is subsidizing mobile access for a completely new generation and has made itself the internet for them. The social network is positioning itself aggressively in established markets and is becoming the default identify provider on countless third party sites. On mobile, the new Facebook app channels all the content via the account.

It seems that business is booming for the social network. Consumer internet companies are aware that people use around seven apps and being one of them means you are becoming successful. Facebook is one of these seven apps for around 751 million people of the world. Revenue has increased by 38%, according to its latest financial results and its total advertising revenue amounted to $1.25 billion. It was revealed that one third of this advertising revenue was generated through the ads that were placed on tablets and mobiles. This proves to be a remarkable recovery by a company that was becoming derailed because of the absence of a mobile strategy.

However, the social network is still facing some challenges that cannot be fixed through algorithms. The most important one of them includes retaining the attention of the internet consumers that tend to be fickle. The biggest example of this is MySpace that fell from the public eye very quickly. From the number one website of the world, MySpace had been reduced to zero and it all happened very quickly. The surprise $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, the popular photo sharing app by Facebook was the defensive strategy of the social networking website.

The acquisition was not because of the worth of Instagram, but was simply a move by Facebook to take it out of the competition. The problem is that it cannot continue to do it with every website that becomes a threat. A human problem is also faced by the social network. It’s engineering and business might be robust, but it doesn’t demonstrate any empathy or sensitivity to the human condition. Regular controversies regarding privacy and inappropriate content continue to arise and the social network is not willing to make any concessions to sort them out.

The social network will point out that it has automated content moderation and the users should flag inappropriate content. However, individuals make inconsistent and poor decisions. Privacy campaigns also continue to hound Facebook for monetizing the date of its users, although the social network denies this claim. It is ignoring the interpersonal and ethical implications of its rapid development and this continues to create controversial issues. Consumers, on the other hand, are becoming more and more aware of the value of their data and are becoming resentful. There is a risk that they will move onto new upstart apps and quit Facebook if this continues. 

Facebook Launches ‘Home’ and Working On Newsfeed Design!

Facebook is the biggest social network of the world as it has over a billion users as of September 2012. It was launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and a bunch of his Harvard roommates for the students of the college. However, it became immensely popular and eventually spread out to students of other colleges and schools. Today, the social network is used by people all over the world no matter where they are. The company decided to go public last year. Facebook Inc. has been around for nearly a decade, but it’s not willing to curtail development, not even after the disappointing IPO last year.

The social network is constantly working on introducing new features to keep its 1 billion users interested and entertained. The company has laid low since the really disappoint IPO, but it seems that now it is going to take some steps come spring. The social network will swing back into action with a new newsfeed redesign and Android software as well. In 2011, the social networking website launched a major change with the ‘Timeline’ design. This move indicated that the company wanted to offer its uses a greater personal experience on the social network.

In a 2012 interview, the Chief Executive Officer of Facebook Inc. Mark Zuckerberg had said that the social network would continue working on things that would have value in the long run and will aid the users in staying more open and connected. The latest developments of the company are based on these goals. There are around 600 million people who are using Facebook mobile these days. Therefore, it is correctly assumed by the company that this is the most important frontier that can be expanded over the upcoming 3 to 5 years. A new software was released by Facebook this April.

The name of the software is Home and it enables owners of Android smartphones to replace the home screen of their phones with their newsfeed of the social network. This means that people don’t need to launch the Facebook application for accessing the social network. They will be able to stay constantly connected with the Home application. This particular software can be downloaded on any Android device. However, the social network has also launched its own smartphone, which has been especially designed for running the Home software and carries a price tag of $99. The phone is known as HTC First and is available with AT&T.

Zuckerberg said that the purpose of launching this interface was to make the experience of the users deeply personal. However, this experience might be at the cost of personal and face to face interactions that take place on a regular basis. Nevertheless, the less controversial of the two offerings is the new newsfeed design of the social network that will be launched in the next few weeks. The only information available about it is that the clutter will be reduced and the focus will be on the interests of the individuals and will offer a greater sense of personalization.