Digital Media

Facebook users are too willing to give out their personal information, security firm Sophos has found.

According to Sophos' Australian team, which conducted a study to see how likely Facebook users were to offer up personal information, 41 to 46 percent of the 100 people Sophos contacted "blindly accepted" friend requests from two fake Facebook users created by the security firm.

After becoming friends with Sophos, the security firm was able to access up to 89 percent of the users' full dates of birth, all of their e-mail addresses, where they went to school, and more. Half of all the users Sophos befriended displayed the town or suburb where they live. They even offered up information on family and friends.

Younger users were "more liberal" with their workplace or school information than older users. "Both groups were very liberal with their e-mail addresses and with their birthdays," the security firm wrote in a blog post Sunday announcing the results. "This is worrying because these details make an excellent starting point for scammers and social engineers."

The security firm added that "10 years ago, getting access to this sort of detail would probably have taken a con-artist or an identify thief several weeks, and have required the on-the-spot services of a private investigator. Sadly, these days, many social networkers are handing over their life story on a plate."

Sophos' concerns over the way Facebook users are keeping information private comes on the heels of a statement released last week by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg discussing why Facebook users need to use the privacy tools his company has created. On Sunday, Facebook also announced the formation of a safety advisory board, comprised of five Internet safety groups.

Facebook has formed a safety advisory board comprised of five Internet safety organizations that will consult with the social-networking site, the company said Sunday.

Facebook said it plans to meet regularly with the advisory board to review the existing safety resources it provides its users, develop new materials, and seek advice on best practices for safety in general.

"We believe that the only way to keep kids safe online is for everyone who wants to protect them to work together," Elliot Schrage, Facebook's vice president of global communications and public policy, said in a statement. "The formation of a board to advise specifically on safety issues is a positive, innovative and collaborative step towards creating a more robust safety environment, and we are thrilled that such a well-respected, trusted group of organizations has joined us in this endeavor."

Facebook said the board is part of an effort that includes cooperating with state attorneys general to rid the social-networking site of registered sex offenders. The board's formation comes on the heels of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announcing last week that more than 3,500 sex offenders from his state had been purged from Facebook and MySpace.

The five organizations on the advisory board are Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, WiredSafety, Childnet International, and The Family Online Safety Institute.

A new DARPA contest is using balloons to test our social-networking skills.

After kicking off the Internet 40 years ago, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is again tapping into the Net for a new challenge. The DARPA Network Challenge will award $40,000 to the first person who can identify the latitudes and longitudes of 10 red weather balloons positioned at different parts of the sky across the continental United States.

The 8-foot balloons are scheduled to lift off on Saturday at 7 a.m. PST and remain in their locations throughout the day, until sunset. The contest will be open until December 14, so contestants will have a little more than a week to gather up and submit their answers.

But the contest has a twist. Since no one person can identify all 10 balloons across the States in one day, challengers will need to rely on social networks to team up with others to pinpoint the locations of the balloons. DARPA's goal here is not to see if people can answer the question but to gauge how we use social networks to resolve a problem.

DARPA plans to launch 10 red weather balloons, somewhat larger than the one shown here, around the continental United States, and competitors are invited to try to identify the precise latitudes and longitudes of all 10 balloons to win a $40,000 prize.

(Credit: U.S. Air Force photo/Chief Master Sgt. Gary Emery)

"We are not interested in the balloons. We already know where those are," Norman Whitaker, DARPA's deputy director of transformational convergence technology, said in a statement. "It's the techniques people use to solve the challenge we're focused on. We have people who are going to be actively watching from the sidelines to see how this plays out."

Whitaker is hoping the contest will offer insight into how the Internet and social networks can help people build teams and collaborate with each other to solve real problems and challenges.

DARPA is leaving it up to the contestants to best figure out how to work with others to track the balloons. One example posed by Whitaker is that of using a Web site to offer a portion of the prize to anyone who shares info about the locations of the balloons. Another idea is to work with a charity and donate your winnings. People can also naturally ask for help through Web-based tools such as Facebook or Twitter, connecting via computers or smartphones.

Although the challenge may be tough, Whitaker believes that at least one person will be able to solve it, whether it takes five minutes or all day. But if no one responds with the locations of all 10 balloons by the December 14 deadline, the agency will reward the $40,000 to the first person who tracked down at least five of them.

DARPA isn't sure yet what it will do with the information it finds. But that's never stopped the agency before. "We're DARPA," Whitaker said. "We like to do things that are really out of the box."

The agency enjoys a history of out-of-the-box challenges. Past contests have set up races between unmanned, robotic vehicles, including DARPA's 2005 Grand Challenge and its 2007 Urban Grand Challenge.

Are you willing to take the DARPA challenge? How would you use the Internet and social networks to win the prize?

Twitter has had quite a year. Not only has it attracted worldwide attention and millions of new users, "Twitter" has been named the top word in the English language for 2009.

According to the Global Language Monitor, which examines language usage across the world, "Twitter" beat out "Obama," "H1N1," "stimulus," and "vampire" to take the crown. Interestingly, "2.0" came in at sixth place.

"In a year dominated by world-shaking political events, a pandemic, the aftereffects of a financial tsunami, and the death of a revered pop icon, the word 'Twitter' stands above all the other words," Paul JJ Payack, president of Global Language Monitor, said Sunday in a statement. "Twitter represents a new form of social interaction, where all communication is reduced to 140 characters. Being limited to strict formats did wonders for the sonnet and haiku. One wonders where this highly impractical word-limit will lead as the future unfolds."

To compile its data, the Global Language Monitor uses its proprietary algorithm, called the Predictive Quantities Indicator. According to the company, the algorithm "tracks words and phrases in the media and on the Internet." It also monitors blogs and social media. Word frequency, contextual usage, and "appearance in global media outlets" contribute to a word's popularity.

Click here to see a full listing of the top words, phrases, and names of the year--and of the decade.

The Winklevoss twins will probably be scary, too. This is a 'Jurassic Park' promo shot of actor Joseph Mazzello, who was recently cast as Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. NB: He's nearly two decades older now.

(Credit: Amblin Entertainment/filmdope.com)

This isn't particularly Earth-shattering news, but it's sort of hilarious.

Dustin Moskovitz, one of Facebook's co-founders and its head of engineering until he left last year, will be played by the little boy from "Jurassic Park" in the tell-all flick "The Social Network."

According to details in the Internet Movie Database, the role of Moskovitz has been filled by Joseph Mazzello, the actor best known for playing Timmy, the skinny 8-year-old who fell out of trees, nearly got electrocuted, and narrowly escaped getting eaten by all kinds of meany dinosaurs in the 1993 blockbuster. In other words, he already has experience as a member of the supporting cast of over-the-top movies about high-tech innovations.

Mazzello is now 26, which should make you feel very old.

Moskovitz was instrumental in Facebook's origins, but in "The Social Network" (helmed by "Fight Club" director David Fincher with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin) he has a relatively minor role. The film is not supported or authorized by Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg, its CEO and co-founder. And the book that the movie is based on--Ben Mezrich's "The Accidental Billionaires"--relies on sourcing, much of it anonymous, from other figures early in Facebook's history. We can confirm that Moskovitz, who has been loyal to the company even after leaving, was not one of them. Putting too much of him in there could lead to legal problems.

The young cast of the movie has proven to be an amusing blend, with "Adventureland" star Jesse Eisenberg starring as Mark Zuckerberg (likely a very good fit), pop star Justin Timberlake playing Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sean Parker (really?), and "Gossip Girl" actor Armie Hammer playing both Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the identical twins who claimed Zuckerberg's founding of Facebook amounted to a theft of their own idea.

YouTube might still reign supreme in online video, but the big surprise coming out of Nielsen's VideoCensus release on Thursday is that Facebook is now the world's third most popular place to view video online.

According to Nielsen's latest VideoCensus numbers, which look at the number of video views in October, YouTube serviced over 6.6 billion streams. In a distant second, Hulu offered up over 632 million video streams. But it was Facebook with over 217 million streams in October that easily beat out Bing, Yahoo, and several other online sites. In September, Facebook was ranked tenth in total streams.

In October, Facebook placed second in total number of unique viewers: over 31.5 million. YouTube had almost 106 million unique viewers during October. Hulu placed fifth with 13.4 million viewers.

According to Nielsen, the amount of time Web users spent viewing videos on social-networking sites increased 98 percent year over year. In October 2008, users watched 503.8 million minutes of video; they watched 999.4 million video minutes in October this year. That growth far outpaced growth in number of online video streams as a whole, which grew 26 percent year over year.

Facebook has moved its way up to third place.

(Credit: Nielsen)

"During the past year, online video viewing has become central to the Web experience," Nielsen Vice President of Media Analytics Jon Gibs said in a statement. "In conjunction with this increase, we are seeing remarkable growth in video viewing on social networking sites and it is only natural that these two trends would converge in consumers' minds, making sites like Facebook and Myspace.com, increasingly important distribution points for both consumer and professionally generated video."

But it was Facebook, not MySpace, that led the way in video streams on social-networking sites, nearly tripling MySpace's 85.2 million streams during October.

According to Nielsen, the "total time spent viewing video on Facebook" grew by 1,840 percent year over year. The number of unique viewers grew 548 percent over the same period. Total streams increased by 987 percent year over year.

"Facebook's rapid growth in online video during the last year illustrates the site's evolution from simply a communications focused tool to a media portal," Gibs said. "Social networking sites are evolving from a venue for catching up with friends to a platform for personal expression, allowing consumers to share their experiences in the full variety of content formats available online."

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced on Thursday that the familiar, "What are you doing?" tag line that has sat atop the service's status update box since its launch has been replaced with "What's happening?"

"Twitter was originally conceived as a mobile status update service," Stone explained on the company's blog. Therefore, Stone continued, it made sense for Twitter to make it easy for users to receive "short, frequent answers to one question, 'What are you doing?'"

But as Twitter grew, that question's importance waned. As Stone pointed out, "people, organizations, and businesses quickly began...ignoring the original question, seemingly on a quest to both ask and answer a different, more immediate question, 'What's happening?'"

Realizing that, Stone said that Twitter has decided to ask users what's happening to reflect the real nature of tweets. It makes sense. While there might be those who still answer questions related to what they're doing, the vast majority of users are, as Stone pointed out, "witnessing accidents, organizing events, sharing links, breaking news, reporting stuff their dad says, and so much more."

By changing Twitter's question to "What's Happening?", Stone doesn't expect anyone to use the site differently. But it is a major step for the company.

For years, "What are you doing?" has been a staple on Twitter as it grew from a niche community to a major social network. At the same time, Twitter's users have largely ignored it. And so, if Twitter insists on asking a question for users to answer in their status update box, maybe it really is appropriate for it to ask "What's happening?"

What do you think? Are you happy with Twitter's modification? Let us know in the comments below.

Facebook groups are under attack. But the attackers say they come in peace and insist they want only to highlight a flaw in the way Facebook handles group administration.

An organization called Control Your Info has taken control of hundreds of Facebook groups. Those groups had administrators that eventually stepped down from their position, creating a power vacuum at the top. According to the organization, when the administrator steps down, anyone can take over a group, view the members' personal information, and change group information to say whatever they want. Control Your Info believes that the way Facebook handles group administration is a major flaw. And it wants to bring that to everyone's attention.

Control Your Info has hijacked Facebook groups.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

"Hello, we hereby announce that we have officially hijacked your Facebook group," a message written on Monday reads on one hijacked group. "This means we control a certain part of the information about you on Facebook. If we wanted, we could make you appear in a bad way which could damage your image severely."

Janis Roukkos, a representative from Control Your Info wrote that his organization wants to get social-networking users to "think about the safety in your social-media life to the same extent you do in your real life." Although the Control Your Info is in control of that specific group now, Roukkos wrote that Control Your Info will restore the group name (which it changed) and leave the group "by the end of next week." He also promised to not "mess anything up."

That single group isn't alone. A quick search for "Control Your Info" in Facebook yields hundreds of groups that have been hijacked by the organization. All the group names have been changed to "Control Your Info," the logos have been changed to the organization's image, and the messages are all the same. The only difference is which Control Your Info representative is writing about the organization's intentions to each group.

Control Your Info's blog sheds some more light on the organization's problem with Facebook. According to Control Your Info, "Facebook Groups suffer from a major flaw. If (an) administrator of a group leaves, anyone can register as a new admin. So, in order to take control of a Facebook group, all you really have to do is a quick search on Google.

"When you're admin of a group, you can basically do anything you want with it," the blog post continued. "You can change (its) name, and the groups members won't even get a notification of it. You can send (messages) to all members and edit info. This is just one example that really shows the vulnerabilities of social media."

Once again, Control Your Info attempted to justify its actions. The organization said the "project is strictly not for profit and done for a good cause."

Facebook did not immediately respond to request for comment.

In the meantime, what do you think about Control Your Info's practices? Is it really teaching folks about social-media security? Let us know in the comments below.

Although technology and the Internet have taken a beating in the past for potentially limiting people's social interaction, a new study from the Pew Research Center has found that the opposite might be true.

According to a Pew Internet Personal Networks and Community survey, which polled 2,512 adults, the dawn of new technology and the Internet has not caused people to withdraw from society. In fact, the study found that "the extent of social isolation has hardly changed since 1985, contrary to concerns that the prevalence of severe isolation has tripled since then." Pew said that 6 percent of the entire U.S. adult population currently has "no one with whom they can discuss important matters or who they consider to be 'especially significant' in their life."

That said, Pew did find that Americans' "discussion networks"--a measure of people's "most important social ties"--have shrunk "by about a third since 1985" from three people to two. However, Pew found no evidence to suggest that it had anything to do with mobile phones or the Internet. In fact, the organization's study found that mobile-phone use and active Web participation yields "larger and more diverse core discussion networks."

Social media is also helping people expand their social interaction. According to Pew, those who use the Internet frequently "are much more likely to confide in someone who is of another race." Users who share photos online are more likely to discuss political topics with someone of a different party, the organization found.

Do you know your neighbor?
Frequent Web users are more likely to communicate with neighbors in person than those who don't use the Web as often, Pew found. In fact, 61 percent of respondents said that they talk to a neighbor at least once per month. The study also found that bloggers are 72 percent "more likely to belong to a local voluntary association" than those who don't blog.

Perhaps most important, Pew found that just because someone is a heavy Web user, that doesn't mean they remove themselves from traditional social activities like visiting a restaurant or hanging out at a bar on a Friday night. According to the study, Web users are "45 percent more likely to visit a cafe, 52 percent more likely to visit a library, 34 percent more likely to visit a fast-food restaurant, 69 percent more likely to visit other restaurants, and 42 percent more likely to visit a public park." Later on, the study reported that social-networking users "are 40 percent more likely to visit a bar, but 36 percent less likely to visit a religious institution."

So, next time your grandmother tells you that the Web is ruining the world, you might want to tell her to check out Pew's study. For more on these figures and many more, click here.