Facebook changed your email address
81
Posts: 58,276
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-f ... 2947.story
Without asking for permission, Facebook has changed users' listed email address to one ending in "@facebook.com."
The changed was discovered Saturday, and has resulted in either users having their @facebook.com address being listed or simply having all of their other addresses be hidden, as happened in my case.
The @facebook.com email service was announced in 2010, but it hasn't really gained traction as a replacement to other email service. It makes sense for the social network to want to promote its own service, but the way it's gone about it is sure to upset some people.
To change back your email address, go to your profile, click "Update info," scroll down to "Contact Info" and click "Edit." Select with whom you want to share each individual email address and to the right of that choose whether you want your email displayed on your timeline or not.
While users can opt out of having their @facebook.com address listed, the troubling part of the change is how Facebook went about implementing it. The social network didn't as much as announce the change was coming or alert users once it happened.
Instead, a blogger came across the change over the weekend while checking his profile's contact information.
"Facebook silently inserted themselves into the path of formerly-direct unencrypted communications from people who want to email me," said Gervase Markham, the blogger. "In other contexts, this is known as a Man In The Middle (MITM) attack. What on earth do they think they are playing at?"
The company contends it announced the change back in April in a note mentioning all users would be getting updated URL and email addresses. However, it makes no mention of the fact that users' listed emails would be changed.
"In addition to everyone receiving an address, we’re also rolling out a new setting that gives people the choice to decide which addresses they want to show on their timelines," a spokesman for the company said. "Ever since the launch of timeline, people have had the ability to control what posts they want to show or hide on their own timelines, and today we’re extending that to other information they post, starting with the Facebook address."
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2010: 5/20 NY, 5/21 NY ... 2011: 6/21 EV NY, 9/3 WI, 9/4 WI ... 2012: 9/2 PA, 9/22 GA ... 2013: 10/18 NY, 10/19 NY, 10/21 PA, 10/22 PA, 10/27 MD
2015: 9/23 NY, 9/26 NY ... 2016: 4/28 PA, 4/29 PA, 5/1 NY, 5/2 NY, 6/11 TN, 8/7 MA, 11/4 TOTD PA, 11/5 TOTD PA ... 2018: 8/10 WA
2022: 9/14 NJ ... 2024: 5/28 WA, 9/7 PA, 9/9 PA ---- http://imgur.com/a/nk0s7
would you tell that to my gf's
14 year-old daughter?
1 more "glamour photo"
+ I am going to lose it!
Cheers.
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
Any emails sent to this address get forwarded to my messages.
whatever. Adbook trying to get ever more inside shit I dont care to share.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
hid my email addy though...but my profile is private anyway.
- Christopher McCandless
But that 'Star' thing I got a reference about a while ago... That shit s creepy. You can Star any of your friends, and it will post everything that they do you your wall without elling that person.. That shits is rediculous.
2010: 5/20 NY, 5/21 NY ... 2011: 6/21 EV NY, 9/3 WI, 9/4 WI ... 2012: 9/2 PA, 9/22 GA ... 2013: 10/18 NY, 10/19 NY, 10/21 PA, 10/22 PA, 10/27 MD
2015: 9/23 NY, 9/26 NY ... 2016: 4/28 PA, 4/29 PA, 5/1 NY, 5/2 NY, 6/11 TN, 8/7 MA, 11/4 TOTD PA, 11/5 TOTD PA ... 2018: 8/10 WA
2022: 9/14 NJ ... 2024: 5/28 WA, 9/7 PA, 9/9 PA ---- http://imgur.com/a/nk0s7
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Fuckerberg doesn't care about anything else, he's made his name and money. I'm sure he has invested his money in other funds, and could live very comfortably if FB imploded today.
- Christopher McCandless
"Here's the rub, folks: by doing this, Facebook is going to start having a hand in the routing and transmission of your email. That is, instead of people seeing your real email address (those with whom you choose to share it, of course), they'll s...ee the Facebook email address. And when they use it, that email will go to Facebook's server before it's forwarded to you.
Do you trust Facebook having your email route through them? They'll be able, by the terms of service you've already agreed to, to scan that email. A human could read it by those terms.
And by making this change, they are essentially inserting themselves into your email flow WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION and without notification. Is that allowed by the terms of service? Arguably not!"
Security researchers refer to this sort of behaviour as a "man in the middle attack", and it's quite serious. The biggest problem I have with this is that Facebook did it without asking its users, in effect forcing it on them without explicit permission, because Facebook's TOS is heavily slanted toward the company and away from the best interests of its users.
It's important to recognize that, for a generation of Internet users, Facebook *is* the Internet. A generation of young people is being trained by Facebook to not value privacy, and to blindly trust any corporation that does something which appears cool or useful.
If someone wants to have a facebook.com email address, that's entirely their business and I'm not going to bitch about their choice; but I guarantee you that there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people at this very moment who are happily giving up an enormous amount of their personal privacy because they don't understand the trade off -- or worse, they don't care, because they've been trained by Facebook and Google to willingly give up their personal information in exchange for convenience.
Facebook is useful for a lot of people, and I totally understand that. I just wish their privacy policies and forced opt-ins would change, because it's only a matter of time before some truly evil companies (cough Zynga cough) take advantage of and exploit the generation that's been trained by Facebook to blindly give up their privacy and personal information to anyone who wants it.
Not Mine
I still believe FB is going to hit the cellular market hard. Wouldn't be surprised if they take over BB actually.