The reason for this appears to be that Facebook’s older systems for storing uploaded content “did not always delete images from content delivery networks in a reasonable period of time even though they were immediately removed from the site.” However they did add that they are putting the finishing touches on a new system that will make the process much quicker, saying that Facebook was “working with our content delivery network (CDN) partner to significantly reduce the amount of time that backup copies persist.”

Even though Facebook are working on correcting the issue, when photos that in some cases were deleted by the user in May 2008 are still online in 2012, it can become quite worrying. However, there is an argument to say that we are all ultimately responsible for what we put on the internet. If you have photos or videos that you think might not be best made freely available to the world, then a more private sharing network could be the answer.

DADapp is a truly private sharing network. While it’s absolutely correct that like the photo sharing services mentioned above DADapp can be used for sharing photos, with DADapp you have absolute control over who you share them with. Whether you want to share just a single image, a whole album, or create a communal sharing folder between a group of colleagues or friends, DADapp gives you the ability to tailor your sharing preferences to suit your own private needs.

The main driving force behind our sharing software is privacy and control – we believe that you should be afforded the opportunity to freely share your own content and data, but not in an environment where you must sacrifice privacy and security for the sake of convenience.

Our 2D sharing system will soon give you the ability to drag and drop files from your desktop on to a DADapp contact and instantly share those files using your DADapp User 2 User secure connection. This means there will be no need to upload photos, documents, videos etc to a third-party cloud based server, which a growing security concern of late, both in terms of privacy and accidental loss of data.

As the year progresses, we’ll be updating this blog with some deeper insights into how and why we do what we do here at DADapp. Eventually we’ll have videos and blog entries that show you how you can go about setting up your own private sharing network, but for now you can download the free trial of DADapp, which for a limited time will also give you a free 5 year licence. This is set to be an exciting year for DADapp, and we hope you’re with us every step of the way.

If the package of legislation announced by the European Commission is approved by  the EU member states and ratified by the parliament, there could be significant changes to the way that companies such as Facebook and Google can hold data about their customers. The laws would give web users the “right to be forgotten”, in that companies would be legally obligated to delete information stored about a person if requested.

Another measure to be included in the proposed legislation would mean that organisations will have to tell customers if their information have been obtained by hackers, and in most cases this will have to be done within 24 hours. This requirement was sought after events last year when Sony took six days to notify users of its Playstation Network that the databases had been breached by hackers and personal information of millions of customers had been stolen.

Before any of these rules come into effect they will have to be approved by the European Union’s member states and ratified by the European Parliament.

But this is exactly what has happened with Grindr, a location-aware smartphone app that allows gay men to meet other gay men within the vicinity, making use of the phones’ GPS capabilities. The news in the last week is that the app’s security has been compromised by a Sydney hacker, potentially exposing intimate personal chats, explicit photos and private information of users.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the hacker used the fact that the app uses a string of personalised numbers known as a hash, instead of a username and password to log on, and then discovered that it could be replaced with another user’s hash, enabling the hacker to:

- Log in as any user
- See the user’s favourites
- Change their profile information and profile picture
- Talk to others as the user
- Access pictures sent to the user
- Impersonate a user’s “favourite” and talk to them as a friend

An unnamed security expert demonstrated – with the permission of a user – how he could log in as them and take control of their app. Speaking of Grindr, the security expert said that the app has “no real security… very poorly designed … [with] poor session security and authentication… It wouldn’t be too hard to secure this.”

In response to this security breach, Joel Simkhai (the founder of Grindr and Blendr – an equivalent version of the app for heterosexuals) has said “We are certainly aware of a lot of these vulnerabilities and … they will be fixed as fast as humanly possible”. He went on to add “We are diligently monitoring for hacking and we’ve added dedicated IT security specialists to our team,” he said. “In the coming weeks, we’ll be rolling out a major security upgrade to our platform.”

According to Gizmodo, the latest target was US television network CBS, with Anonymous not only bringing down their website with a DDoS attack, but also deleting every file that they managed to find on their servers. The only thing remaining was an index page left by Anonymous with a single file to prove that they had gained access to CBS.com and deleted everything.

Naturally CBS had backups of their content and soon enough the site was running again as normal, however it is still alarming that such a high profile site can easily be accessed and wiped. Other sites with in the EU have been targeted by Anonymous over their support for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which is seen as being similar to the SOPA that has been grabbing headlines recently.

Among those targeted in Europe were the websites for the Polish parliament and prime minister, while the Anonymous Facebook page has featured defacements of sites in Romania. On a global scale, the weekend also saw attacks on sites such as Universal Music, the French media company Vivendi, and a number of Brazilian sites.

The attack, dubbed “Operation Payback” began as a retaliation to the DDoS directed at MegaUpload that brought down the torrent site and the arrests of its founders. Anonymous has put together a manifesto of sorts for Operation Payback which can be found on Wikipedia.

A DOJ spokeswoman told CNNMoney “We are having website problems, but we’re not sure what it’s from.” The answer was revealed by Anonymous on Twitter, with the tweet “justice.gov & universalmusic.com TANGO DOWN! You should have EXPECT US! #Megaupload” explaining why the sites were down.

Barrett Brown, unofficial spokesman for Anonymous, told RT.com that “more is coming”, and that the hacking group with “damage campaign raising abilities of remaining Democrats who support SOPA.”

This comes during a week that has seen a lot of focus on the Stop Online Piracy Act, which if passed by US Congress would shut down file sharing sites such as MegaUpload. On Wednesday there was the Wikipedia blackout, supported by other sites in an act of protest about the free exchange of information over the internet.

Part 2 –

Moving away from David’s story (featured in Part 1), with any ‘free’ service such as Facebook, there will of course be a price to pay in some shape or form. While not monetary, the information you provide in your profile, the pages you like, the groups you join etc become currency for marketers. By now it would be a difficult plea to suggest that you are unaware of the fact that any information you share online using services such as Facebook might end up being used to sell you something. The question is what price do you place on privacy or sharing?

I myself actually find the adverts quite useful – every now and then I’ll see something on my Facebook screen that ultimately ends up in me making a purchase. In general my Facebook account is fairly ring-fenced, as I only allow my Twitter updates and listening choices from Spotify – where the output from both is solely controlled by me – to contribute to my Facebook profile. If an ad I see on Facebook piques my interest, I tend Google the brand or type of product instead of accessing the site through Facebook where it’s likely I’ll ending dragging all sorts of my information along with me.

It’s often too much for some people when they realise that a line of code has detected they like a particular musician or sports team and tries to pedal them related merchandise through a side bar of their favourite social network. It all comes down on what balance you’d like to strike between privacy and sharing. Does there have to be one at all?

You want to share photos with friends and family, you want to communicate with a large network of people that often involves the transfer of private information, but what price will you pay? Some people will be fine with the idea that in exchange for having a free place to post their photos, videos, status update and the like, the network they so love might just want to sell some of their information to marketing companies. It’s been happening for years in one way or another, and it’s just the way things are moving in the digital age.

Or if you would prefer a more secure means of sharing with the people that matter to you, a user to user private sharing network like DADapp could be the answer you are looking for. For easy private sharing of photos, music videos and files, download the free trial now for a free 5 year DADapp licence.

Part 1 – Targeted Ads on Facebook & The Cost Of Sharing At The Expense Of Privacy

There has been growing concern recently over Facebook’s privacy settings in relation to targeted ads being used to reveal information that users assumed was private. Stanford Computer Science researcher, Aleksandra Korolova, described in a recent paper how she used a highly specific targeted ad on Facebook to determine that a female user was gay, despite the fact that this user’s sexual orientation information was set to friends only within the privacy options. Find out how she did it here.

And now Facebook’s targeted advertising has been blamed for ‘outing’ a gay British teen to his parents. Privacy International reported that “David” was thrown out of home after his parents discovered “incriminating” gay content on his Facebook page – however it was not his profile information, but instead targeted advertising placed by the site based on David’s activities and relationships.

The report stated: “He never mentioned anywhere on his profile that he was gay, and was not openly involved in any online gay groups… The company placed that material on his page without notification, without his consent and in violation of every principle of care that the company claims to stand for… On this occasion he made the mistake of leaving his computer screen on while going to the shop, unaware that his parents were to return earlier than expected to the house.”

Facebook expressed their support for David, saying that they “sympathize with anyone who has been the victim of discrimination and we are saddened by the story Privacy International shared on its blog,” but added that “Our ads are only shown to people based on the information they have chosen to post or add to their profile — the same information that would have been visible as a result of the unauthorized access.”

So it hardly seems fair to blame Facebook for what is ultimately a clear case of user error. Any information on his profile would have been willingly submitted, and in any case, the specific targeted ads only show up on the user’s own browser when they are logged in – the whole point is that they are targeted to that individual account. No one can logically hold Facebook responsible for a user inputting information about themselves, and then leaving their account unlocked in a shared residence for this information to be viewed by someone else. It also begs the question, if you didn’t want anyone to know this information, then why put it on Facebook in the first place?

By now most of us have heard of Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘Law Of Sharing’, which hypothesises that the amount of content we share online will double each year. However, Julian is but one of the many people who feel that there is a growing apprehension among web users with regards to over sharing. Take a look at the article titled “Will ‘Zuckerberg’s Law’ Hold Water In 2012” on Compter Business Review to find out Julian’s thoughts on the topic.

In March 2012 Austin, Texas, will once again host the annual South By SouthWest festival and conference for film, music and interactive ventures. Ahead of this year’s SXSW event Julian spoke with .net magazine to discuss how it can be difficult for UK companies to get a foothold in an industry largely dominated by American giants.

DADapp is proud to be among the UKTI SXSW 2012 Mission Companies. The UK Trade and Investment Mission helps to provide a platform for the UK’s leading digital companies, showcasing UK innovation and expertise in the digital sector to the US market. You can read about all of the companies who are part of the UKTI Mission, including DADapp, on chinwag.

So with a new year comes a fresh start, and according to a Harris Interactive study of 2,000 Americans, most social media users would make resolutions to take better control of how much they share, and with whom in 2012. The top two promises, chosen by 44% and 42% of resolution-makers respectively, were “share only with close friends and family” and “be more careful about what I share.”

But it isn’t just what people are sharing that they want to regulate, but also what is being shared with them. “Only read status updates from people who are close friends and family” was the third most popular resolution, picked by 37% of respondents.

So what are your thoughts on the topic of oversharing? As I’ve said countless times on this blog, sharing is great – but it’s more the point of where you share your content and who is able to see it. If you feel that you are sharing things that are too private with people who you don’t know you well enough, but you still have cause to keep them in your networks, it may be time to change your sharing medium.

DADapp offers a viable private sharing network, where you have absolute control of what you share and with whom. More private than Facebook, easier than Windows networking and more flexible than Dropbox, with DADapp you can privately share photos, music, videos and files.

So rather than having a new year’s resolution to give something up, why don’t you start something new instead?