Sebbie on the Webbie

Archive for the ‘Computers’ Category

Don't let the evil crim use your innocent face as his cover

Most of us have  a Facebook account, and the more popular Facebook gets, the more attractive it is for hackers, who want to use your squeaky clean profile as their cover when doing something you would never do. Hacking these days is not too difficult. I’ve tried it once, (with a test account) and without any experience got through CAPTCHA image verification using nothing but an automated program, which some people still think is impossible for a computer to do. It’s not – it will take a computer more time and more attempts than it does for a human, but it can do it through it on trial and error basis. Back to Facebook then.

Picking a strong password

Facebook hacking is done simply by finding out someone’s login (your email) and then testing out a series of letter combinations, actual words  to start with, then continuing randomly, until the correct one is found. If your password is a clear English word, it’ll be amongst the first ones to be cracked. What you want to do is pick a word you can remember, then add some numbers (in the middle) and capitalisations to it. Something like “R4nD0M612″. Pick numbers that are special to you, but not special enough for anyone to pick, such as (not) your birth date so you can remember it, then type it up a few times so you will remember it with your fingers as well, so you won’t have to keep copying because you can’t remember it.

Hide your email address like it was your passport

For sites that are very popular, and the most likely to get hacked, such as Facebook, use a separate email address that you will not be using for any other purpose than this. If you are a domain owner, this should be an easy task for you as you can just add an email address that will forward stuff to your real account if needed, but if not, try something like http://sneakemail.com/to create an additional email addresses for this use. This way it will be harder for a hacker to find out your email address you used to sign up, and makes it that much harder for him to get to your profile – and with so many easier options out there will probably leave your account alone – unless he takes it as a challenge, which I doubt, with so many more tempting targets out there…

When you change an email address to your profile, remember to remove the email address you previously had in use, as all emails stored with your account can be  used as logins. Facebook will nag to you about adding an additional email, so do the same with another email – have two complete oddity emails (such as 82ldh03@yourdomain.com.) Also, then remember to hide it from others, including your friends, because you don’t want to get email to that account anyway. You might be tempted to add another “spam account” type of email to show to your friends, but don’t, since this will function as a login to your account and you don’t want a spam-account as your login email if you want to keep your profile safe.

Then you simply have to remember which email you used to sign up and log in. You can make your computer to remember your login information, unless you use a public computer, in which case you definitely should not.

Why would anyone want to hack my Facebook account?

In addition to identity theft, which might actually be in the minority of reasons to hack someone’s account, there are other reasons for it, for example an annoyed or jealous ex… If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a couple of crazy ones in your past. School bullies use this sort of tactic a lot, and if you’re a parent, I wouldn’t rule out possible bullies using your account to torture your kid. (Imagine the horrible things they could make you say to your kid if they could use your account!) Some people enjoy simply creating a mayhem amongst people so having the login information of someone… ANYONE with a bunch of friends, could be a fantastic source of entertainment – at your expense.

Applications

Applications on Facebook are a security risk, as every time you add one, you grant an access to all your data. What is worse, a lot of the applications can access your data if your FRIEND has added an application and you haven’t told Facebook not to allow access to third party applications. I learned this the hard way: Someone of my friends added themselves to a mailing list of some product specials, and apparently gave access to my information as well. Now I get spammed continuously about products I don’t want in a country I don’t live in. (Hiding your email will also hide it from applications.)

To make sure you’re allowing your friends to give out as little information as possible, go to this address to tweak your third party application privacy settings on Facebook.

Last of all, keep the number of installed applications as low as possible, using only those that are of absolute importance to you, or applications you trust. Use applications from well known developers, and avoid things like gift apps and personality tests and all those dodgy things. While most of these are harmless, it only takes that one…

I hope you will find some peace of mind knowing you’ve done your best to close the doors on your Facebook account.

If you know some more good tips about keeping your account safe, please add into the comments!

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As you might already remember, I am the head-editor of a chinchilla-hobbyists member magazine, named, surprisingly, Chinchilla. I needed the member list as an Excel-file to give to the printing service, who will also send the mags to the members. I asked for it on a phone, and the girl I talked to promised to send me the Excel-file by snail mail as she didn’t have a net-connection. I assumed she meant she’d send it on a disk, as I told her what it was needed for. Well, the letter came as agreed, but the Excel-file was printed on paper… (Luckily she didn’t send me a photocopy of the disc!) Ok, I call her on the phone if she could please send it as an Excel-FILE, as it would save me a lot of time if I didn’t have to type it on the computer again. Oh, it hadn’t even occurred to her! So she tells me that she doesn’t have it as an Exel-file, as she uses Works, so she couldn’t get it into Excel anyway. Then her boyfriend commented in the background, that they have Office on their computer. Do we? She asked, ok then she could send the file as Excel on a disk. All was fine, until she sends an SMS message that she couldn’t export the file into excel. I send her a reply (I’ve never used Works) that couldn’t it be copy-pasted into Excel, as they both are MS-programs. Then I said that if not, I could probably open it at work and paste it on Excel myself if she couldn’t do it. She then replied, that no can do, I’ll send the Works file. The file arrived yesterday. With an attachment of a piece of paper saying, that could you then send this disk back so I can add the new members on it…. At that point I was bursting to tears!! Didn’t she make a fucking copy??? And the disk costs less than a stamp for crying out loud!!

It took me 2 seconds to transfer the list to Excel. It was that hard.