Facebook Will Now Inform You If You Are Being Spied On

Without a shadow of a doubt, Facebook is the largest and the most dominant online social network on the planet. With over 1 billion users worldwide and making lasting strides in almost every aspect of human interaction, including mobile communication, messaging, multimedia sharing and more. Facebook is also on the verge of introducing some amazing advancements in gaming technology, as backed up by South African and Israeli pioneers, like the Oculus Rift – VR (virtual reality) being the most prevalent innovation that is yet to grace the social network. We can only guess the benefits online casinos will have from this.

With that being said, Facebook has always been about gathering user data. By creating a profile on the social network, we are becoming willing participants to the whims and interests of the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, who on many occasions has stated that the company’s interest is in providing tools that will unite people from all across the globe. That and the fact that they use all that gathered data of likes, shares, interests and more to sell to advertisers for their ad campaigns.

This article however, targets a very specific threat to online users as a whole, and it is with high appraisal that the biggest social network on the planet is making something about it.

We are talking about government spying – something that was revealed in recent years by whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, in regards to government bodies “hacking” users’ profiles in order to get sensitive data. This was addressed on October 16th by Facebook’s Chief Security Officer, Alex Stamos.

In the announcement made by Stamos, we learned that Facebook will in the future notify users of potential compromises that are being made to their profiles by a government agency. These notifications can be triggered once a breach has been spotted and the user can set the type of notification with several easy steps.

Stamos was quick to address the rising issue of user security and government spying, stating that the company has always tried to do its best to protect the user’s privacy. However, he points out that some attacks may be more harmful and sophisticated than others. He also pointed out that this doesn’t mean that Facebook’s security measurements and systems have been compromised but rather, the user in question has been breached from a third party malicious software or a “smurf”. These programs are used by government intelligence divisions such as the NSA and are used to gather data on a targeted user via their mobile device or personal computer.

There is one major issue still pending however, in regards to the nature of the attacks. How can Facebook distinguish between a “regular” breach of security made by malicious software (hackers) and that of a government agency, is a question that is yet to be addressed. With that being said, this is a great start to a very touchy subject for online users in an era where we are being bombarded with political maneuvering that seeks to limit the internet neutrality and anonymity of the online public.