Facebook has several millions of users around the world. There are cases when even after some of your friends’ deactivate the account it still appears to be snooping periodically. A new research which was done by Shah Mahmood from University College London and UCL’s chair of Information communication technology, Yev Desmedt, has highlighted the new threat happening in Facebook accounts. They called this threat as a ‘zero-day privacy loophole’. According to their research, once a person deactivates his or her account, later the account gets reactivated without the knowledge of the owner of that account.
This threat is mainly because Facebook does not completely delete the deactivated account. Instead, they put these deactivated accounts in hibernation state that provides the advantage for hackers to make use of these accounts. So, it clearly clarifies that deleting an account Facebook doesn’t mean that the user is completely out of this site. There are possibilities that the site attacker can get into deactivated friend’s information and carries out operations like gathering information and once the process is complete they deactivate that account.
The concept behind this kind of attack is that when a user deactivates his account, he becomes invisible rather than completely getting deleted. Later the attacker makes use of this chance to snoop around their friends’ profile creating spam without leaving any proof for identity. The researchers further stated that this Facebook snooping is commonly used among marketers, detective agencies, governments, hackers, spammers and other criminals. Moreover Facebook does not send any notification to other users when a person deactivates an account. This kind of deactivation attack can be limited, if Facebook notifies users of their friend’s deactivation and reactivation of accounts, adds the researcher.

The Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has decided that he should ask automakers to redesign the electronic devices that allow drivers to access social networks to be disabled while cars are moving. He would like to see that the devices are incapable of being used while the car is in motion, therefore, the car must be in park during the use of these devices. The devices include devices that allow the driver to; manually text, browse the internet, enter addresses for navigation systems, and dialing a ten digit phone numbers.
This is in additional to the Government’s guidelines that were set forth in the year 2010. It goes along side the other rules that are concerning distracted driving. Distracted driving has already claimed three thousand, ninety two victims. It is a cause for concern and they plan to take care of the losses of lives due to carelessness even though the automakers have been doing their part since 2002.

As of today, there are many companies that have chosen to upgrade apps for the Facebook Timeline. A few of the companies on this list are; Buzzfeed, CMT, The Daily Show, Huffington Post, MTW News, and TODAY Show.
There were even sixty applications that were unveiled a few weeks age. Most of the apps that are available today are just upgrades and nothing new. They are fixes and tweaks to apps we already use. Here are a few of the apps that a lost of people use. These apps have actually upgrades into using a social media platform.

• Yahoo News – More than twenty five million people have started using the Social Bar. The age range is eighteen to thirty four years old.
• Rockmelt – Approximately fourteen new articles being added every day. It is driving twenty percent new traffic and new users to that site.
• Digg – Since this has launched, its traffic has gone up thirty five percent.

Neiman Marcus has created a social media challenge to mark their twentieth anniversary. It incorporates popular social medias like; Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The participants are able to send in photos of their Christian Louboutin shoes or their shoes from the Neiman Marcus stores. They are to use Instagram or Twitter and putting @NiemanMarcus, @LouboutinWorld, and #NMLoubiLove in the caption is a must.
You are allowed to send in multiple photos. However each image must be different. Another way to have your picture dumped is if it is of another brand name. Only those made by Christian Louboutin are allowed to be sent and shown. They will appear on the Nieman Marcus Facebook page. There will be one picture chosen by March tenth of this year. It is chosen randomly. The person that sent the picture in will be the lucky recipient of a brand new pair of Christian Louboutin shoes.

Computerworld reported that Facebook is going to pay a base rate of $500 with possibly the rate going higher if there are truly significant flaws. Computerworld quoted Facebook’s product security lead, Alex Rice, as saying “In the past, we’ve focused on name recognition by putting their name up on our page, sending schwag out and using this as an avenue for interviews and the recruiting process. We’re extending that now to start paying out monetary rewards.”

Also, Computerworld reported that Facebook would also be launching a new White Hat hacking portal where researchers can sign up from the program and additionally report any bugs. The report also noted that other businesses started implementing these bounty programs to motivate hackers to inform them so that they can patch these problems instead of making them public.

At the moment, hackers contact Facebook’s security team about 30 to 50 times per week, according to Computerworld.

One way to hide Facebook from your boss or your co-workers is to convert Facebook to Excel. A university student recently developed a website that will allow you to automatically convert your Facebook news feed into an Excel spreadsheet. Users will see all news appearing as new Excel rows when you convert your Facebook to Excel. Users will be able to interact by “liking” updates when clicking on the spreadsheet, and uploaded videos as well as pictures can be seen by hovering over the entries.

Your page will even have the title, “daily cash reconciliation” so wasting work time will look like you are doing diligent financial work. It also has a corporate look to it so your coworkers or your boss will be less likely to think you are checking your Facebook if they walk by and see your page when you have converted Facebook to Excel.

Once you convert Facebook to Excel using HardlyWork.in, people passing by your computer at work will think nothing of what they see momentarily on your screen as it will look like a work-related document. This application is a pretty clever way to check your friends update during work hours.

Recently, there have been references to a product called “Vibes” that have been discovered in Facebook’s code. It is speculated that this is related to the company’s rumored music service.

Facebook just recently launched a video chat feature, which is powered by Skype and allows users to chat one-on-one with their friends. Before you can use this feature, though, you will have to download and install this program on your desktop.
Eagle-eyed software engineer as well as researcher, Jeff Rose, was curious about what he was installing and how it interacts with Skype so he made the decision to look into the code of the desktop application. He discovered that the installer supports two different applications. One is named “Peep,” which is related to the video chat client, and one is called “Vibes,” which is related to a future music downloading application.
The code looks like this:

if (paramString.equals(“com.facebook.peep”))
return this.window.getMember(“VideoChatPlugin”);
if (paramString.equals(“com.facebook.vibes”)) {
return this.window.getMember(“MusicDownloadDialog”);
}

It’s apparent that Facebook has a future music downloading feature on the horizon, especially given rumors that eventually Facebook will launch a product that allows users to listen to music together. Facebook users are now wondering if this application will be powered by Spotify, if this is an application for downloading music and uploading it to the cloud, or if this is simply a code that refers to a discarded or defunct product.

Because Facebook’s video chat isn’t called “Facebook Peep,” though, users shouldn’t count on the music application being called “Facebook Vibes.” Still, we can pretty much count on Facebook launching a new music application sometime in the remote future.

What do you think? Do you think Facebook will try to become a better place for people to enjoy music with their friends? What would you like to see?

According to Facebook creator and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, there will be an “awesome” new product released this week on Facebook. Zuckerberg mentioned this to the Seattle press last week along with press invitations that stated, “Please join us for an event at Facebook” on July 6th.

There are many different rumors flying around about what the product is going to be. Many people are speculating Zuckerberg and company will finally release a long-awaited iPad application. This would be released through Apple’s App Store if that is the case. Another theory that people are speculating about is that the new product would be related to music. There have been many rumors of a partnership between Facebook and Spotify, a music-streaming service, which would allow Facebook users to listen to music simultaneously along with their Facebook friends.

The most likely theory, though, is the partnership with Skype that will allow Facebook users to video chat with friends within Facebook. If you are already familiar with Skype, a chat program with which you can also make phone calls and chat face-to-face with others through the use of webcams, it is likely that this new Facebook feature will work in a similar fashion.

While Skype and Facebook have already been working together as we can see from the incorporation of various Facebook features into the Skype program, this new feature is potentially going to be something entirely different, though the exact details will not be known until the exciting launch of the new feature next week.

It is possible Facebook is introducing this “awesome” new feature to take away some of the attention internet users have been giving to the new Google plus (or Google+). There is also still some speculation on exactly what the feature is going to be, although the Skype-powered video chat is seen as most likely since Michael Arrington at TechCrunch reported on it. Arrington also points out that there will likely be a desktop component to this new feature, especially as there has been a great deal of desktop software hiring occurring in Seattle.

What does this mean for you as a Facebook user? Well, it’s impossible to know the full extent of this new feature until it is officially released on Wednesday, but it will likely give you new ways to communicate with your Facebook buddies and give you new options to play around with when you’re browsing the site.