Facebook and Security Issues

Facebook (FB) security issues have been in the news recently.  The topic peaked my interest because I have been a victim of Facebook spam.  As an example, I recieved two wall postings (identical) from friends (see figure below). 

I have been so consumed with grading and finalizing courses for fall semester, that I had not checked by FB page until I was double-checking security settings.  I did notice the Remove button and quickly removed the postings.  The last time my FB was spammed was in the FB email.

FB displayed a pop-up window with information about security this morning (see figure below).

All of us who are FB users should take a few minutes to educate themselves about social networking security.  Start with reading the FB Guide to security at http://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation.php

PC World has an excellent article entitled Protect your Privacy on Facebook and Twitter in the  December 2009 issue.  It is available online at http://www.pcworld.com/article/172604/protect_your_privacy_on_facebook_and_twitter.html

Finally, I noted a CNET article this morning about FB suing three men under three laws: the Can-Spam (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and the California Anti-Phishing Act and the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act. One of the accused had a company name of Choko Systems and another had a company named Harm.  Clearly, the company names were advertising the malicious motives.  The article is online at http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10416265-245.html?tag=mncol