This is great. How long until facebook tries to block it?
Facebook Privacy Scanner is launched
21–30 of 61 posts
Re: Facebook Privacy Scanner is launched
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt you're the only one - thats why I made the source code completely open: http://github.com/mjpizz/reclaimprivacy/blob/master/javascri... The only compressed stuff is jQuery javascript, all other Javascript is uncompressed and commented. Hope that helps. [edit: updated line number]
For the source code, I wouldn't include the compressed jQuery if possible. Speed isn't as important here as transparency and it's quite difficult to scan to tell whether there are any issues. I know you don't want to take up a lot of room with jQuery but it really will help increase my ability to recommend to others if all the code is easy to read. You might also want to put comments on slightly scary things like PAR…
done. I left the compressed version deployed for now, but the source code is now 100% uncompressed and commented:
http://github.com/mjpizz/reclaimprivacy/blob/master/javascri...
thanks for the feedback, esp about the PARTNER_APPS constant (now called BLOCKABLE_APPS for clarity)
Re: Facebook Privacy Scanner is launched
#23The tool's great! Let's hope you have not collected all my data when I ran it. I also checked out this link on your homepage: http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/109538/7-things... It says leaving your full birth date is not recommended (identity theft). So I went to the info page and clicked "edit information" but instead of having edit boxes on the Info page facebook recommends me to convert are my movies,…
You can remove all of your boxes and delete the likes/interests facebook generates for you by clicking the delete button next to the avatar for the page.
Re: Facebook Privacy Scanner is launched
#24Great bookmarklet, I thought I had made everything private but it looks like I missed a few settings. I shared this on facebook. Thanks.
Re: Facebook Privacy Scanner is launched
#25I tested setting all my contact information privileges to Everyone and then re-ran the scanner, and it still claimed that my settings were good, which doesn't seem right. Might want to look into that, since I think a lot of people would tweak a setting, re-run the scanner, and see how it changed.
I'd also suggest that you post a human-readable list of the assumptions that the tool makes, since providing source code isn't particularly user-friendly for non-programmers.
cheers... -Adam C. Engst, TidBITS publisher
Re: Facebook Privacy Scanner is launched
#26Want a german translation?
Re: Facebook Privacy Scanner is launched
#27I'm I the only one a little wary of scanning for privacy by logging into Facebook and then injecting someone else's scripting code into the page? (Edited for the pedantic)
I doubt you're the only one - thats why I made the source code completely open: http://github.com/mjpizz/reclaimprivacy/blob/master/javascri... The only compressed stuff is jQuery javascript, all other Javascript is uncompressed and commented. Hope that helps. [edit: updated line number]
Yes, but the bookmarklet only contains one line of code, which fetches the remainder of the script from your server. So you could possibly replace it at any time with something evil...
Sorry for being paranoid. I very much like your initiative, but people are going to ask questions about these sort of things.
Re: Facebook Privacy Scanner is launched
#28also, a lesson: enable capacity billing on your AppEngine account ahead of time , you never know when you're going to wake up in the morning and find out somebody launched your project :) luckily AppEngine made it really easy to spring back, so it should be fine now (hopefully donations cover costs)
This is really quite well-conceived and executed. I just sent in my donation. Thanks so much.
Re: Facebook Privacy Scanner is launched
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the source code, I wouldn't include the compressed jQuery if possible. Speed isn't as important here as transparency and it's quite difficult to scan to tell whether there are any issues. I know you don't want to take up a lot of room with jQuery but it really will help increase my ability to recommend to others if all the code is easy to read. You might also want to put comments on slightly scary things like PAR…
done. I left the compressed version deployed for now, but the source code is now 100% uncompressed and commented: http://github.com/mjpizz/reclaimprivacy/blob/master/javascri... thanks for the feedback, esp about the PARTNER_APPS constant (now called BLOCKABLE_APPS for clarity)
Instead of copying and pasting jquery into your js, you could pull it from google's CDN, that way it would be cached for a lot of people and trustworthy. Well, trustworty-ish. :)
Re: Facebook Privacy Scanner is launched
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt you're the only one - thats why I made the source code completely open: http://github.com/mjpizz/reclaimprivacy/blob/master/javascri... The only compressed stuff is jQuery javascript, all other Javascript is uncompressed and commented. Hope that helps. [edit: updated line number]
Yes, but the bookmarklet only contains one line of code, which fetches the remainder of the script from your server. So you could possibly replace it at any time with something evil... Sorry for being paranoid. I very much like your initiative, but people are going to ask questions about these sort of things.
yea, I understand the concern, that is partially why I linked the source to my own github account (adds some accountability) and left everything uncompressed and commented. Unfortunately, it isn't possible to put the entire source into the bookmarklet itself due to browser length-limitations, so the remainder of the code will always need to be loaded separately.