Facebook is one of the biggest social networking sites to hit us. It has rapidly become widespread by enticing all sorts of people to sign up, from pastors and teachers to teenagers and their parents! Now days, I have seized to be surprised regarding who I find on this social network because literally anyone can integrated into the system by willingly signing up. When this Facebook phenomenal first hit, I remember hearing my friends continuously rambling on and on about how amazing the site was, and how it had helped them to find long lost childhood friends! Intriguing in thought, however I must admit that initially I had some reservations about signing up- due to my uncertainties concerning Facebook privacy issues. With all those first class hackers out there, I couldn’t help but ponder what guarantee I would have that my information won’t be hacked into and violated. Eventually, out of curiosity I found myself conforming to ‘peer pressure’ when I plucked up some courage, though hesitantly and opened an account on the social network. Interestingly enough, I’ve come across individuals on countless occasions who shy away from Facebook for the fear of having any random person viewing personal information and looking at their pictures. However it may be reassuring to know that Facebook assures us that changes have been made to give its users more control of personal information while helping them stay connected with friends; users now have the ability to set privacy on everything they share, from status updates to photos. Nevertheless, Facebook is designed to connect with friends, therefore certain information will be kept publically available to everyone such as the user’s name and profile picture. This brings me to the problem of hackers. As you may know, in computer terms a hacker is someone who breaks into an account/ profile and gains access to personal data that isn’t publically available such as emails. On my quest to find out more about Facebook hacking, I decided to do a little research, as I did so I stumbled across some rather disturbing websites which provide Facebook hacking softwares, and as if that is not disturbing enough, I got to discover that some of hacking sites provide their software for free! http://www.gohacking.net/ . I was a bit encouraged to read that with Facebook, there is apparently no such thing as “hack codes” because Facebook designers change links and features regularly, such that one “Facebook hack” code that works today will likely not work tomorrow. This is great however though the chances of people successfully hacking into other accounts may be reduced; it does not guarantee a hack-free social networking system. People have different opinions and reactions to Facebook’s privacy. Some users are not satisfied with the level of privacy on Facebook to the extent that they are forming a campaign to not log into Facebook for 24 hours on June 6, 2010. On the other hand, many are happily members of Facebook and continue to use it to network, connect with friends and to pass time. ms.efuahagan@gmail.com
