Facebook Launches Its Facebook Live Streaming Video Channel
Facebook has just launched its own real time web-streaming called Facebook Live!
Facebook announced this is just the beginning, and that they plan to use the channel for news streams, press events, special celebrity events, and interviews.
The first event streamed out August 13, 2010, featuring actress America Ferrera and Ryan Piers Williams discussing their new movie “The Dry Land.” Past events and interviews are available to view for those who missed them.
Facebook Live uses Livestream, and like most live video platforms, has integrated chat and broadcast feeds. You are also able to update your status right from the app page, as well as invite friends to join in watching.
Facebook Live is embeddable, allowing you to post broadcasts on your own webpage, as well as Share with Facebook friends and Twitter followers.
Head on over and see what it is all about. The Facebook Live app is available to all users, without having to add anything to your profile.
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Facebook: Beware of $1000 Gift Card & iPod Events
Fake Gift Card fan pages and groups are certainly not new to Facebook. These deceptive pages have been a thorn in Facebooks side for a long time. Most of them are designed to look similar to a corporate offer, such as the $1000 Best Buy Gift Card, and entice those who arrive on the page with a sweet deal. Even the most savvy internet users often fall for the scheme.
Most of these schemes are run similar to the clickjacking pages we mentioned last month. Those arriving on the page are told they either need to “Like” the page to receive the offered “gift” or invite X number of friends. The sheer volume of “Invite your friend” offers that have circulated in the past has many Facebook users wary of such schemes. This loss of potential targets has the schemers moving in new and inventive directions such as clickjacking, and down right compromising user accounts.
Keep in mind, a user must at some point have clicked on something that transferred information to a potential hacker, in order to have their account compromised. It could have been a downloading a file containing trojan software or providing sensitive personal information somewhere they thought was secure. Either of these could give someone access to your computer and Facebook account without your permission.
The latest scheme rearing its ugly head is the creation of Gift Card and electronic giveaway “Events”. These events appear to your friends as though you have not only referred them and endorsed the event, but actually created it as well. Events on Facebook detail who the creator is, causing friends to automatically believe the scheme.
For example, I received two such event notifications today, both from the same friend. I immediately suspected his account had been compromised and brought it to his attention, but the damage had been done – the event was sent out to hundreds of his friends.
The first event, a $1000 Best Buy Gift Card giveaway was removed very quickly by Facebook, and I was unable to take a screenshot of it for you all. I did still have a copy of the email sent though, shown below:
Facebook $1000 Best Buy Gift Card Event Email
The second event was for a free iPad, and gave instructions to those wanting one that they needed to enter their email address and shipping address into a off-Facebook webpage, and then wait 3-5 days for their iPad to arrive.
Facebook Scam: iPad For Free Event
In a recent article on PCWorld.com, Robert McMillan of IDGNews.net wrote:
In the past months, fan pages have popped up all over the social networking site, offering too-good-to-be-true gift cards. There’s the $500 Whole Foods card, the $10 Walmart offer, and the $1,000 Ikea gift card. The Ikea page put these gift card scams on the map last month, when it quickly racked up more than 70,000 fans before being snuffed. Facebook has also taken down Target and iTunes gift card scam pages in the past few months.
The purpose of these schemes is to gather either personal information from users, or to deceive them into completing some sort of affiliate offer. Many of the offers are offered by legitimate affiliate marketing companies, but the methods these unscrupulous affiliates use to get you to do what they want is a major underlying problem. Much of the information they gather either ends up costing you money or could lead to identity theft.
Facebook users need to be not only wary, but vigilant about what they click; especially on social networks such as Facebook. Trojans can be downloaded unknowingly anywhere and then used against you to deceive hundreds and/or thousands of people. A good quality Anti Virus program will help combat those that slip through your radar.
Real corporate offers will also have highly professional fan pages, and they most certainly will not be directing you to a $0.99 .info domain name. “Like” buttons are embedded into a well designed page – not a plain white blank page. Check carefully though as many of these plain pages may show comments from supposed users claiming the event offer “worked”.
Dig around a little first. If the offer is legitimate, it will still be there after you take a few more minutes to check it out first.
Please Donate!Vote On Facebook: Your School Could Win $500,000 From Kohl’s Cares
In celebration of Kohl’s Cares® 10th anniversary, they are donating $500,000 to 20 different schools – for a total of $10 million! You can help your local school win simply by installing the Kohl’s Cares App, placing your votes and then telling other friends and family.
Kohl’s Cares LLC, a subsidiary of Kohl’s Department Stores, allows anyone on Facebook who “Likes” Kohl’s up to 20 votes. You are able to vote up to 5 times per school. This enables you to not only help your own school win, but possibly one that other family members attend.
Eligible schools include operating public schools in the U.S. (excluding Puerto Rico) that serve grades kindergarten through 12, as defined by the U.S. Department of Education, and nonprofit private and charter schools that serve grades kindergarten through 12 and are run by or supported by legal U.S. residents or a U.S. corporation.
Fans have the opportunity to post “ideas” they have about how their favorite school could spend the contest winnings should they win. In order for a school to win, it must have a minimum of one posted idea, so make sure you put in your suggestion.
This contest is being run solely via Facebook, and voting ends September 3, 2010. Be sure to head on over to Kohl’s Cares on Facebook, cast your votes, and share the contest details with your friends and family. Only 10 schools win – hopefully it will be yours!
Please Donate!Facebook Hoax: Christopher Butterfield Hacker Warning
Currently circulating Facebook walls is a message warning friends that by simply accepting a specific friend request, you will have your computer and all your friends will be hacked too. This is not only untrue, but impossible.
In addition to Christopher Butterfield and Jennifer Christina Smith, other known names included in this hoax are Claudia Rivalta, Daniela Mainardi, and Simon Ashton. I am sure there are dozens more floating around as well, but will appear something similar to:
Do not accept a friend request from a CHRISTOPHER BUTTERFIELD and JENNIFER CHRISTINA SMITH they are hackers. Tell all on your list because if somebody on your list adds them, they’ll be on your list too. They’ll figure out ur computer’s ID and address, so copy & paste this message to everyone even if u don’t care for them cause if he hacks them, he hacks you. Be careful.
As you can see, the message warns that by accepting a “friend request” from Christopher Butterfield (or whatever other name is used), not only allows him or her to hack into your computer and gain access to your email account, but also the accounts of anyone on your friends list. The warning has been circulating rapidly through Facebook, other social networking websites, and by email.
This is technically impossible. Hackers (or crackers) use a variety of ways to trick you into giving them access to your computer or personal information. They may send a phishing email coercing info from you, or they may trick you into downloading something that installs trojan software, allowing your computer to be controlled remotely. But, even the best hackers cannot get into your system simply by being on your friends list. There has to be an exchange of information, or the transfer of a file in order for this to happen.
Unfortunately, it is hoaxes such as these, where people feel it is better to be safe than sorry, that turn us jaded and suspicious of all ‘pass it on’ messages. This inadvertently affects truly important valid messages and warnings from being sent to friends.
Be cautious of sending things on to friends. A 30 second Google search on a section of the warning will almost always let you know if it is real, or simply another silly hoax.
Please Donate!Facebook Confirms Again ‘No Profile Spy’
The dreaded “see who’s been viewing your profile”, aka Profile Spy, has reared its ugly head yet again. Late last year, the hoax had millions of Facebook users scrambling to either try it out, or hide out!
Facebook Security itself recently posted the following statement, proving that any sort of advertised “Profile Spy” does not work, nor can work. The functionality required for an application such as this work has been disabled by Facebook developers.
Here is what they have to say:
On Facebook, there’s no way to see who has visited your profile. We’ve also prevented others from providing this functionality. We’re working hard to block and remove websites, Pages, and applications that claim to do this. If you see one, don’t be fooled, and report it to us immediately.
This therefore includes such sites out there as profilespy.info. (I have intentionally not linked to the domain but feel free to visit it if you wish!) The page redirects visitors to an on-page application called Facebook Profile Snitch. I strongly do not recommend you enter your email address into the box provided. The name of the domain you are redirected to (theblackboxproject) is suspect enough and should raise red flags to those who noticed. The app is most likely some form of email harvesting, most likely redirecting you again to some sort of paid survey set up.
Hopefully the actions of Facebook Security will help reduce the number of deceptive groups and apps from popping up. I honestly suspect it will not though, as there just seems to be so many people out there who really do want to see who is looking at their profile 
Source: http://www.facebook.com/security
Please Donate!Facebook: “More Similar Posts” Link Gone From News Feed?
As of about an hour ago, it seems that the “See More Similar Posts” link has been removed from our Facebook News Feed.
The implementation of this feature back in April, had almost all Facebook users either applauding or cursing its addition. For users who did not play games, it afforded them the opportunity to actually see personal status updates from friends and family. However, for gamers and app users, it became nothing short of a time consuming nightmare…
The sudden grouping of multiple posts from one game or app, made playing many of the most popular games extremely time consuming. Players would have to click to open the link, scroll to click the item they wanted, and then start the process again. I can say from personal experience, it would usually leave me thoroughly confused about where exactly I had left off.
Based on comments around various forums and the Facebook News Feed wall itself, the Similar Posts grouping resulted in many players quiting their favorite games. I suspect the sharp decline that many applications have seen over the past few months can be partially attributed to this feature.
Now the groupings seem to have disappeared. Is it permanent? We don’t know. It could just be a glitch, but now that it is gone, I actually-sort-of-kinda miss it!
What do you think? Did you like the feature, hate it, or even miss it now? Let us know below!
Please Donate!Facebook Passing Out Free Facebook Credits For Gamers
In an effort to promote their own online payment method, Facebook started rolling out free Facebook Credits to selected account holders yesterday.
Although these freebies have not made their rounds to everyone yet, it is assumed that at some point many, if not all of us will receive something. The total gifted has also been differing from one person to another.
I myself received 10 credits ($1.00) yesterday, whereas Jeremy (my co-editor) received 20 credits ($2.00). Once the credits are deposited to your Credits Balance, you will see a large blue message at the top of your profile once logging in:
These credits can be used to purchase in-game special items from games and apps that accept Facebook Credits as a method of payment.
If you click on the Get Info link shown to the right, you will be taken to a Facebook Credits page where you can purchase additional credits. This is not where you redeem the free credits you have received.
To redeem the free Facebook Credits, select Facebook Credits on the purchase/donation page of your favorite game or app. So far we have found that FrontierVille accepts Facebook Credits when purchasing horseshoes, and Zoo World for a variety of items.
Let us know below if you have found any other favorites that your free Facebook credits can be used on!
Warning: Beware of the “Free Facebook Credit” scams already popping up! So far we have found one claiming to give you 900 free facebook credits. We will update this once we have the full details.
Please Donate!Facebook Testing Face Detection Technology
With over 100 million photos added to Facebook daily, it is clear that it has become an incredibly popular way to share images with friends and family. Everything from crazy pet antics to Aunt Sally’s birthday celebration and babies to “what I ate for dinner ” gets posted every single day. In fact, Facebook states that “Ninety-nine percent of people using Facebook have uploaded at least one photo.” That’s a lot of photos – and a lot of tagging…
As of July 2 2010, Facebook has begun testing the use of face detection technology, brought to them with the recent acquisition of Divvyshot. This technology will reduce the tedious amount of time spent tagging your friends and family in photos.
For those who have access to the testing phase, you will be able to tag photos from anywhere in Facebook, not just in your photo albums. A box will appear around any untagged faces that the technology detects, just as you would see when using most digital cameras today. The script then asks you whose face it is, allowing you to simply enter a name.
This new feature is in its early testing phase and is among numerous new improvements that Facebook states it has planned for us; including advancements in uploading, browsing and tagging.
Is face recognition a possible future addition? Tell us what you think!
Please Donate!Facebook Monitors Malicious Content
With the ever increasing number of malicious links and pages popping up all over Facebook, people are becoming more and content and security conscious. At least they should be. These spammers and scammers are becoming much more devious, making them at times difficult to spot.
Facebook itself is doing what it can to monitor and halt the spread of this content. According to Monica Horak, of the Facebook Blog, here is what they are doing to help:
Once we detect a phony message, we delete all instances of it across the site. We also block malicious links from being shared and work with third parties to get phishing and malware sites added to browser blacklists or taken down completely. People who've been affected go through a remediation process so they can reset their password and take other steps to secure their accounts. We also partnered with McAfee to provide you with trial anti-virus software and free virus scanning and removal.
In addition to our automated systems and educational efforts, we have dedicated security and legal teams who are responsible to investigate spam, phishing and malware campaigns, and go after the people behind them.
While the actions Facebook describes above are certainly helpful, they are reactive. Us as users need to be proactive. Be careful of the links and video’s you click, and if it doesn’t seem quite right, report it right away. Your friend may not even be aware that he/she has automatically posted.
To take full advantage of Facebook’s partnership with McAfee, simply “Like” the McAfee Fan Page, and receive a complimentary 6 month subscription to McAfee Security Software.
Source: Facebook’s Blog Post – http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=248766257130
Please Donate!Warning: Facebook ‘Like Button Worm’ Clickjacks Your Friends
Over the past 10 days, Facebook users have been plagued by a variety of clickjacking viruses, now known as the Like Button Worm. Those affected quickly realize they’ve been duped, but by then, the chain reaction has already started.
The virus spreads simply by 1 person clicking a “Like” button on any of the affected pages. Since we all see updates in our status feeds about people, places and things our friends ‘like’, curiosity gets the better of many, and they too click to check it out.
Here is a short list of groups/videos/pages as a sample of what is enticing people to click:
“LOL This girl gets OWNED after a POLICE OFFICER reads her STATUS MESSAGE.”
“This man takes a picture of himself EVERYDAY for 8 YEARS!!”
“The Prom Dress That Got This Girl Suspended From School.”
“This Girl Has An Interesting Way Of Eating A Banana, Check It Out!”
Once you click on any of the above links, you arrive on a blank page that instructs you to “Click To Continue”. According to sophos.com, that page is infected by a virus called Troj/Iframe-ET. As soon as you click it, it automatically posts a silly spammy message to your wall, enticing your friends to view the video/link/group too.
How To Stop The Spread:
If you’ve been clickjacked, view your Facebook profile page and delete any status messages there that you yourself did not post. Don’t forget to delete the one that says you like the link. This will remove the update from not only your profile page, but the news feeds of all your friends.
How To Avoid Clickjacking:
Be vigilant about what you click. If you are brought to a blank page with just 1 link on it, that alone should be suspect.
Noticeably, the one line updates that used to appear on our profile pages when we clicked the like button of a friends post, are no longer there. If this was a decision made by Facebook to help combat the virus is unknown at this time.
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