Thanks Sharon. Yet another reason - actually the MAIN kind of reason - I don't use FB!

Here is a link that might be useful: snopes

Thanks Sharon! I just linked the aritcle to my FB page.

Alexa

I think FB is fine as long as you don't do the large group greetings or some large sharing app. Thanks Sharon, it validates my wariness!

I got zapped a week ago. Destroyed my hardrive. $500.00 later (a new computer and virus protection) and I'm back.

Duane

Just curious how you got hit, Duane. I just now got yet another invite, grrrr.

Practise safe text...
Have a reliable virus control with automatic updates and keep it updated.
And don't consort with wierdoes and strangers and don't click on strange links and don't join large groups.
Jessy, lots of your friends are on Face Book....really! we won't give you bad diseases!

(Linda, there are all sorts of reasons I'm staying away, kicking and screaming, which I won't go into)

Linda, don't be so smug. Seriously. And Jessy, I had a friend of my DW send me a link...it seemed innocent...and I clicked on it, but did not download the attachment.....I figured I was safe. 2 weeks later somebody hacked into my account and sent a message to everybody in my friends list to 'click on this link'. Two of my friends (that I know of and have contacted me) had the virus. One spent 6 hours getting rid of it and the other spent 5 hours and 89.99 getting rid of the virus. So it isn't just groups Linda...don't be self smug about avoiding it because you don't click on 'groups'....it can hit you if you click on any innocent link...supposedly sent by a friend.

Duane

Oh, and by the way LindaC, if I didn't consort with weirdo's and strangers I would have no interaction with you! So there you have it!

D-

Duane....don't click on links
As for wieirdos....takes one to know one....don't cha know!
Nice to know I am among friends....some of my best friends are...
Well you all know who you are! LOL!!
I am suspicious of people who aren't at least a little bit wierd!

Thank you for posting this... my kids and I have FB accounts and although I'm constantly warning them, this is exactly the type of email they would open! I'm printing it out and taping it to their monitor as a reminder.

AM

Duane, I received an email with some links from you, I think there were about 5 attachments. When I clicked on the first one my virus program would not let me open it and sent out all kinds of warnings. I quickly deleted, dumped and ran a new scan. I have had no problems since. That was a week or two before Christmas.

I use advast! online scanner...guess it's working!!!

Nancy

Nancy, glad to know you had up to date virus protection. I learned the hard way I did not. Linda, I agree with you. People who look and act 'too normal' are usually the ones who are the true weirdo's! Us quirky people are the real normal ones! ...and I like you too :-)

Duane

A friend of mine who is a gazillion times more tech savvy than I (an MSCE) recommends that you set up your computer with an administrator and users. Then in everyday use you log on as a user, and no one can push programs or executables to you because you don't have the rights to accept them. I think he said it only works on Vista, but I could be wrong, and I could be misrepresenting his advice. I'll ask him next time I talk to him.

p.s. Duane - Not accusing you of anything or admitting to anything, but I think it would be amusing to see the results of a study on which gender gets the most viruses. Waddayathink?

Today its 'don't click on links' and 'be careful who you friend' (my son just had a friend of a friend experience and it wasn't pleasant). We don't know what tomorrow will bring. I'm not saying that we should all avoid Facebook and other social networking sites - FB is here to stay and it IS the wave of the future. Look at me, posting my picture all over the CF, and already identified by two local lurkers (one of whom I like!). I'm just saying I don't trust FB management - the site is too porous and vulnerable as is, even without the help of 'friends' - who can and do post compromising pictures of their own friends. Those turn up when college admissions officials and employers go hunting!

FOAS, I'm not really sure what you are getting at there. The virus that I believe came from my DW friend was a female, but the other friend who had the same thing happen was my buddy Bob, obviously male....so I don't think gender has anything to do with this miscreants who spend their time just to ruin people's computers and/or gain access to steal passwords and bank acct. info. Plus, it looks bad when somebody uses my name and info to send this out to all of my 'friends' on FB. I changed my password on another computer and now log-in and log-out. I used to stay logged in and that may have been part of the problem. I don't know...but all I do know for sure is that I am $500 bucks poorer than I was before Dec.26.

Duane

uh oh

I wonder which I am....

(heh heh Denise I knew you would read that! OF COURSE you are a GOOD stalker/lurker! Even to the point of chasing me down in the market last week....)

"He seemed like such a nice young man. Helped me get my cat out of a tree once...."

sorry, couldn't resist.

I don't do Facebook. Unfortunately, I think DH does, and he said something is screwy with his computer.

Beanthere, if your DH thinks something is up he should not wait to investigate. That trojan worm is nasty. It steals passwords and bank account info. That is why I felt safer to get a new computer with updated virus protection. And stick to 99 percent business funcionality with it. Of course I come here and a few garden forums but am almost never going back to facebook. If I check in I make sure to log right out. The novelty has pretty much worn thin anyway. I don't want to play mafia wars of farm games etc. and that is what most of that is turning into.

Duane

Well, it sure makes me glad that I have no interest at all in Facebook, although Ashley and Elery have both pushed and pushed that I would "love it".

Elery says I can track down old friends from school and I told him that if they were friends, I already knew where they were!

Ashley says I'm hopeless, but I read this post to her and she said it happened to one of her girlfriends on Facebook too....

Annie

I have to say that I enjoy FB and I have found some old friends from college. It has been wonderful to reconnect with them and I don't know how else we would ever have found each other.

I have my settings so that Only Friends can see my info. When you have it set for Friends of Friends, you are really opening the door for a lot of people.

I don't do Farmville mostly because I don't want to get hooked! I don't like the functions that require access to your info, so I don't use those for the most part.

Just remember that current and potential employers have access to FB, so if you belong to a group called "I like to Sleep Late and Play Games at Work", that's not a good idea. I'm sure the same thing goes for schools.

I guess I'm willing to take the risks, but I try to use caution.

Ditto Pam!

I use it to keep in touch with my extended family, brother, sister, kids, grandkids, cousins, cousins' kids etc and see their photos and accounts of family events or holidays which I might not otherwise see.

Apart from that I keep to just a few friends with whom I share comments and photos. I have never been interested in games or virtual gifts, and I do keep high level anti-virus and firewall protections up to date. So I enjoy my visits there.

SharonCb

This article has been on my comcast homepage for several days so I imagine most everybody's already aware of this newly discovered glitch. I decided to post it just in case there's a few that aren't aware. Seems a new way to have one's info compromised pops up quite frequently.

We've never used Facebook because of security concerns but this article sounds like other sites are potentially also not nearly as safe as some would like you to believe. The random nature of this glitch is really disconcerting.

We do use Skype & have been wondering lately how secure that process is?

/tricia

Here is a link that might be useful: Facebook Glitch

Duane - He did have a Trojan, and it was indeed a nasty one which was very hard to eradicate. He spent all weekend hunting it down and uprooting it. Fortunately, he's good with computers. Doubley fortunate that this was on a netbook that he uses only for email, internet and the occasional letter -- so no sensitive information on that one at all. Ironically, he usually has no use for FB and that ilk, but had ventured to one particular page that was set up to help some folks in his biz out of a bad situation (by providing hot meals, rides, a place to stay, etc.).

Annie, that is EXACTLY what I have told people who try to push me to FB! If I didn't keep up with someone from twenty years ago, there's probably a really good reason for it!

I really don't think there's much in my FB account that would be useful to a stranger, although I am upset to think that a non-Friend could get in. I do not list my phone number, address, etc. I do list my email address but I can;t imagine getting much more spam than I do already.

I think of anything I put on the web as public info, whether it's FB, Gardenweb, Linked In, whatever. If I don't want the world to know, I don't post it.

That said, I am sure I have not been 100% cautious. I posted a lot of info on a web site that was created for my high school reunion and was dismayed to find that it could be found through Googling. Since I had the passsword to the site, I went in a deleted it.

Come to think of it, I could have gone in there and posted all kinds of untrue stuff in others accounts! I didn't.

The thing is, even if you delete information from a profile or post, once it is on public view, it can (and usually is) copied by datamining bots onto other servers that are in no way related to the original site. So, once public, always findable. (I don't think that's a real word, but it works.)

These bots aren't picky, they'll take any and all info. Might not be worth mich by iteself, but you harvest enough material, and you can build a pretty substantial profile on users, which is then sold to anyone who'll pay for it. I figure these dataming companies are already making plenty selling info they have compiled off public recrods; I don't need to help them get richer by providing them with any freebies.

Can you tell I really despise datamining? They are the telemarketers of the 21st century, only more intrusive and annoying. I had a special cold hard spot in my heart for the likes of Intelius and PeopleFinders. Grrrr.

Huge business this data-mining. The funny thing is I read about it in a novel, I think either Dean Koontz or David Baldacci, most likely the latter but I can't be for sure. These people, if they wish, can destroy not only your credit, but your life itself....implenting you into many illegal enterprises.....kiddo porn, etc. that you have had nothing to do with, but when they can access your computer info they can inject whatever they want to implicate you. Very scary stuff and enough to make you want to escape to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Of course at that point they may make you into the new 'unibomber' and screw up that persona. Okay, most of this is total paranoia.....the likelihood it could happen to you, as a normal citizen is slight....but it could happen. This is a crazy age we live in. I really think the old days were better and I suppose every generation says that....but the days of yore were simpler and I really sometimes wish we never had computers, cell phones, etc. We need more people-to-people contact. Enough said.

Duane

Wow...I will be careful!!

I just got into FB when Dan died...weird but it was a way to connect with people he knew.

AnyHoo....I got an account now and use it alot more that I thought I would.

Amy has deleted her account. I guess she doesn't want any potential employers seeing her "stuff" LOL!!
I think she should keep one open and just have a nice professional picture on her profile and a list of intrests and accomplishments.

That said I am on there if ya want to look me up but please don't send me any quizzes or hearts or smiles LOL!!

Cheers!
Susie

Susie, from what I understand, accounts are not ever truly deleted unless one goes in and totally cleans it out. The information still sits there on their servers. At least thats what I read.