How to Bypass Facebook Photo Security… by editing the URL?
November 29th, 2007 by Kavan WolfeIt turns out that Facebook’s idea of security is bullshit. Besides all the recent problems with 3rd party apps, you can also bypass photo security be simply deleting one of the URL parameters. Basically, if you look at a picture in an album, and you want to see the other pics in that album, but don’t have permission, you just delete the “&Subj=#########” parameter from the URL. Then you can see the whole album.
I’m not posting this to help all the Facebook stalkers out there. The point is that if everyone finds out about something, Facebook is more likely to fix it. This is not exactly nuanced, expert hacking we’re talking about. It shouldn’t be this easy.
Here is a more comprehensive discussion on the subject.
November 30th, 2007 at 7:46 am
I truly have to wonder when we became so obsessed with privacy as a culture that we would even consider this to be a problem.
November 30th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Probably as soon as we started keeping embarrassing secrets. So, around two million years ago, I’d say.
November 30th, 2007 at 10:06 am
I, for one, would much prefer to know everyone else’s secrets and have them know mine than to be able to keep anything secret. Even after two million years.
December 1st, 2007 at 7:16 am
I truly have to wonder when we became so apathetic about privacy as a culture that we would even consider this to be normal.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:12 pm
they would cease to be secrets if they were common knowledge. how about then, having sex in the middle of the mall? would that be something that you’d like to share with everybody? I doubt it, I know you wouldn’t. so we do, in fact, need privacy, no?
December 4th, 2007 at 5:32 am
I believe we may be missing the division between private acts and private information. If I wish to keep my photographs private, I can keep them on a disc. If I post them on the Internet, I should have a reasonable expectation that they will be viewed by others. Unless, of course, they’re bad photographs, in which case, others will likely be too bored to look. And that, of course, is another, yet rather sad, issue for another day.
December 4th, 2007 at 8:22 am
what if you only want to show your photographs to those closest to you ? Is that a possibility? Internet is still the easiest way to do it, no?
my dear, not everybody is a professional photographer, does that mean they shouldn’t post their pictures?
December 5th, 2007 at 4:33 am
Jeremy: I’d suggest _”I’ve Got Nothing to Hide” and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy_ (Daniel J Solove) as a good overview. I don’t have the link handy, but the pdf should be google’able seeing as that’s where I got the printed copy sitting on my desk.
December 5th, 2007 at 4:34 am
I should have added; the linked paper also addresses the “sex in the middle of the mall” argument, and why it isn’t particularly strong.
December 7th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
My issue, which the article decidedly sidesteps, is that I truly have nothing to hide that is bad enough that I would rather hide it than know everything about everyone else. Do you?
December 9th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Ok. Mr. nothing to hide. Send me all your private information. Let me stand outside your house and photograph you everywhere you go. Hell, let me photograph and record everything you do in your own home!
Nothing to hide so that shouldn’t bother you one bit!
April 15th, 2008 at 8:35 am
20 a leaked Paris Hilton sex tape video footage…
Paris Hilton Sex Tape Video 2…