Facebook security hole allows viewing of private photos

No, it's surely just a mistake. No one made an affirmative decision to skip "privacy". What happened is that whoever added the "select more images to block" feature somehow did it in a way that skips the normal access checks.

If there's a goof here, it's that the framework they've built apparently doesn't make the privacy controls mandatory. Developers have to remember to "turn them on" by calling an access control predicate or whatnot. That's bad. That's dumb. But it's not malicious.

Ugh, JW blue

Here's a good writeup of the state laws, http://law.jrank.org/pages/11804/Computer-Crimes.html

  It is not enough for purposes of these laws to accidently or
  unintentionally wander into areas on the internet where valuable
  or secure information may reside. If one enters such an area
  using computers or computer technology, his/her intent must be
  to steal, destroy or defraud to be found guilty of a crime.

For example, David Kernell was convicted of "misdemeanor computer intrusion"[1] for accessing Sarah Palin's Yahoo! email.

[1] http://www.esecurityplanet.com/headlines/article.php/3879756...

I haven't kept up, but IIRC that used to be the case. And that's what I'm addressing.

A few years ago, I believe, they explained that they generate these ginormous image caches where, IIRC, individual images are not distinct files.

My point is, regardless, if you can find the image (and its extent), and if the cache data are still write-able, then overlay a generated "blank" image onto the cached image, in place. You still have some data leakage, in that the working URL confirms that there was an image having that URL. But for most cases, I believe this would suffice.

I guess they'd also have to track down and overwrite the various thumbnail versions, but if their systems can already find these in the course of their normal work, this shouldn't be a problem.

As for overlaid tag data and whatnot, I'm not sure what to suggest. At a first pass, I'd suggest just deleting (or "offlining" or whatever, given that FB apparently never really deletes anything) that data. But I don't know what continuing dependencies that might break.)

EDIT: I should add that I don't know whether/how such image caches are replicated. And perpetuating such an overwrite against multiple replications might not be easy / something the existing design supports.

Nonetheless, I think it's something they should support. At a minimum, when a user really wants to delete an image, then overwrite its segment of whatever image cache file with a "blank" equivalent.

Although... then you get into what may be legally required and/or prudent, from FB's perspective, to retain.

I'll stick to the simplistic user perspective: When I say delete, I mean delete.

The Misc is probably my favorite general forum on the internet. Suprisingly-high level of discourse and genial atmosphere for a forum dedicated to lifting weights. HN would be pretty impressed with the number of engineers and entrepreneurs there as well :)