facebookprivacyandsecurity – Blogroll entry #4

One of the biggest stories regarding Facebook spam that has broke out last week-end was attack on Facebook’s own Help Center. I read the story on the Sophos Security Blog, but the news was first reported by the website facebookprivacyandsecurity, the Unofficial Guide To Facebook Privacy And Security.

Although I had this website bookmarked I did not read it, but after that news I started reading their older stories and found them very interesting. The website is all about Facebook, but does not focus on a particular area of it as it reports spam news, Facebook issues and algorithms, and new features from Facebook.

From their ‘About’ page I can see that ‘This blog is created by normal Facebook users who want to use Facebook as its tagline promotes; ‘to connect and share with the people in our life’.  When products or procedures contradict Facebook’s policies, or when users aren’t given control of what they share as Mark Zuckerberg states he understands that is what they want, we might take objection.  Facebook makes a lot of money because people like us are happy to tell them what cola we prefer and where we go on the weekend. We like Facebook, we applaud the innovations of the engineers, we do sometimes take objection to the way in which those innovations are executed, and given that Facebook is charged with keeping our data safe, we are at liberty to discuss those objections in a polite and respectful manner.’

As you can see, the blog isn’t a hateful one, but rather one that tries to improve the Facebook experience pointing out things that the owners of the blog consider to be wrong.

The address is http://facebookprivacyandsecurity.wordpress.com and I recommend you to take a look.

Stay socially safe and do not forget to visit our Facebook page available here or our Twitter account here (@scamwiki).

Related articles

• Thanksgiving: Turkey, Stuffing, And Facebook Spam (allfacebook.com)
• Facebook Community Forum Swamped by Spam During Thanksgiving Weekend (pcworld.com)
• Spam attack hits Facebook’s own Help Center (nakedsecurity.sophos.com)

Hoax-Slayer – Blogroll entry #3

The definition of a hoax is ‘something intended to deceive, especially a practical joke’. But when it comes to social networks, hoaxes are used in order to direct users to a certain website, to scare them or to create sympathy for a situation. In some cases, making sure that a Facebook post is a hoax or not requires a lot of detective work, trying to find all the necessary details about the situation the post refers to.

Hoax-slayer is a website which reports hoaxes that users might encounter. But hey do not limit to Facebook ones, but also cover email hoaxes and messenger ones. The website is backed up by users that submit possible hoaxes and the it comes down to Brett Christensen, the owner of the website to find out the truth. Indeed, the website is the result of one man’s work and he has been doing it for over 6 years. For more info about him, please read the site’s About page here.

All entries on the website are thoroughly explained and I search it whenever I see a possible hoax, as it is kept up-to-date. The website also has a Facebook page here, where users can submit or discuss not only hoaxes but also scams and phishing attempts.

‘Hoax-Slayer combats the problem by providing information that can help Internet users reduce spam.’ (from the About page) and I believe it is important that there are people that do this type of work without being a paid job, just trying to help Internet users. I can only hope that this website will be as long-lasting and as helpful as the Hoax-slayer.

The address is http://www.hoax-slayer.com/ and I recommend you to take a look.

Stay socially safe and do not forget to visit our Facebook page available here or our Twitter account here (@scamwiki).

MalwareCity – Blogroll entry #2

After reviewing the Bitdefender security app for Facebook, which you can read here, I would like to mention the website where they break all the latest news about malware. The website covers computer malware, social scams, phishing websitea and email spam, which means that they publish stories every working day, so there are lots of information to digest.

Reading the entries on a daily basis, I could notice that they have original news, do not usually recycle information from other sources, but also only debate the most important news from the social networks and not every minor change or statistics.

The name of the website is a metaphor for the internet being a city and its users the citizens. Having this in mind, the text from their About page makes some sens: ‘Our citizens are wise warriors fighting malware, willing to share their knowledge in order to breed an army ready to battle security threats. ‘

The website also features some of the Bitdefender antivirus tools, like the ‘QuickScan’, which you might remember from the Bitdefender Safego presentation on this blog. The website is available in English, French, Spanish and Romanian (where the company has its HQ).

The address is http://www.malwarecity.com/ and I recommend you to take a look.

Stay socially safe and do not forget to visit our Facebook page available here or our Twitter account here (@scamwiki).

 

Facecrooks – Blogroll entry #1

Facecrooks is a website that reports Facebook scams, phishing and malware news. They also comment the latest Facebook changes or stories that appear. The website posts a couple of entries each day and their news are always fresh.I have discovered it almost an year ago and I have been reading it since to keep my Facebook account safe.

From their About page we can find out that ‘Facecrooks is THE Social Media Watchdog!  Our mission is to monitor and chronicle the seedy, unsavory and silly side of social media. We provide current news, educational resources and alerts on social media privacy, safety and scams.‘

The website address is http://www.facecrooks.com and I recommend you to take a look.

Stay socially safe and do not forget to visit our Facebook page available here or our Twitter account here (@scamwiki).