For Facebook, this privately share is "love" Twice

On Facebook , your private messages are supposed to be private, but they are perhaps not for everyone. According to a news flushed out at Hacker News, a funny feature would be integrated into the algorithm that records and account "Like" Facebook.

This feature is for Facebook from sending a private message containing a link to a web page as a "Like" on this page. In other words, you send the URL e.g. http://www.techiebuzzie.blogspot.com (randomly of course) a-friend e-e private message and hop counter Press Like lemon s' incremented by one.

In fact, Facebook believes that when sharing a page, whether public or private, the effect is the same: it is that you like this page, and this has the effect of giving more value. Even though Facebook says it does not change the general algorithm, and that the confidentiality of private messages is not affected by this behaviour  it can cause problems of click fraud, and induce behaviour "Like jacking" . This was demonstrated guys Hacker News, who were able to mount a counter Likes 1800 site in less than an hour. Because in addition there is a bug.

Swell Like its counter easy: the bug that sees double

Ashkan Soltani is, editor of the Wall Street Journal, which detected this bug : when sharing a URL via private message, not only it is counted as a Like (so far so good according to Facebook) but the counter Like increments of 2. So annoying bug that allows anyone to quickly, which detonated his counter. Ashkan Soltani has also set up a test page to demonstrate. I tried, and actually sending a private message I saw the counter go from 520 to 522, but I have no way of verifying whether this increase is due to my actions. Facebook reacted by stating that the bug would be corrected quickly, this is probably the case, sorry guys, you will not be able to blow your meter easily.

Besides, I'm not sure it was that easy. Except in the event that we can develop a small script that sends alone private messages with a link to a page, I do not see how you can quickly raise the counter with this method. On the other hand I imagine that Facebook quickly detect manipulation and fraud, and in this case I would not give much account of the author clicks and the page in question. But hey, there may be other possibilities, I do not know.

In his private life, I do not know whether to move that machines and software scan our private messages. Of course this will thrill some idea, which is quite understandable, but those usually are not on Facebook or more. From the beginning, I never had any doubt that everything that passes through this site (and others), including what is supposed to be private is scanned or peeled and dissected by algorithms. I never believed for a second that my private messages on Facebook were truly private, but that does not bother me. Just be aware and do with being very parsimonious about what we share. As they are machines who officiate for statistical purposes or to improve the service and customization, why not after all.