All That Matters

Right across the busy junction on my regular commute to office, a big hoarding has come up in last few days. It is about Facebook's initiative - Free Basics. A huge media campaign is under way at the moment across all channels. It is supposedly a philanthropic effort to provide free internet to people who cannot afford it. Sounds like a great idea. However it has been surrounded with controversy and criticism since when it was launched. So what's the noise all about?
Here is a closer look.

What is Free Basics?

The erstwhile internet.org, now renamed to Free Basics, is Facebook and Reliance Communication's joint effort to provide free internet to everyone. An attempt to bring the entire country of a billion+ online. However the devil is in the details. There is a difference between Free Internet and Free Basics. It's not the entire internet that is free. Only a few "registered" services (aka websites) that are on-board are free. Facebook included. And of course provided those services are accessed through Reliance SIM Card.

It is interesting to see why Facebook and Reliance are so keen to push this through. After all, why would a company run a massive media campaign for a charity initiative? Well, the truth of the matter is, it is not really charity. Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook in every hand so that his advertisement revenue increases. As regards Reliance, Facebook's own survey based on data from other countries says that once people start using the "limited" free internet, more than 50% upgrade to a paid service.

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong in this.

The issue is that of Net Neutrality.

Now what's Net Neutrality? 

Since the birth of the internet, the world has been working towards the principles of Net Neutrality. What this means is every content on the internet must be treated equally. Of course subject to age restrictions for certain sensitive content. The internet service itself must not provide preferential treatment to a sub-set of services available on the internet. The biggest exception to this of course is China and Middle East. However those parts of the world are known for restrictions, on every aspect of life - Internet included.

An open, free internet service is a must of fair competition and growth. A service like Free Basics is kind of biased towards certain set of services (web sites) which are on-board with it and hence carry tremendous advantage over those that aren't. Moreover, Facebook is a commercial organization. Activist doubt the real intent of Facebook behind the service.

Free Basics has been opposed by all activists and proponent of Net Neutrality. It is obviously strongly opposed by those services that are not being offered through Free Basics. Paytm founder famously compared Facebook's tactics with those of East India Company centuries ago. While that me a far stretched comparison, there is a merit in looking at it from Net Neutrality perspective.

In summary 

It is a service that has some great advantages which include internet access to people who cannot really afford it, although in a restrictive manner. Internet access to these hands can potentially open many more opportunities for them. The flip side is that it is strictly against the principles of Net Neutrality. It can potentially encourage monopoly.

TRAI right now seeking comments on Free Basics. The dead line has been extended until January 17, 2016. It is supposed to make its recommendation by end of Jan. It will be interesting to see the outcome, as it is likely to steer the evolution of the internet in India.

How would you react if you knew your Facebook account was hacked? Worst, the hacker not only got into your account, but changed the login ID, reset all security, removed alternative emails and phone numbers and left you with absolutely no means to recover your access? Blame your not-so complex password? Not really. Its a flaw in Facebook's legacy security setting which one can exploit. You don't need to be a hacker to do it either. Read on for the step-by-step method to hack into a Facebook account and a way to shield from such an attack as well.
Facebook account of somebody close to me was hacked last early morning. What followed was a deep investigation to recover the account and to know what exactly happened. Thanks to Mr. Hacker, I now know the precise steps how this was done and figured out ways protect against such an attack. Here are the details.

The objective here is not to encourage such hacking, but to create awareness and help you secure your account from such an easy but brutal hack.

Part A: The Hack

Step 1: Log off from Facebook and go to https://www.facebook.com/recover/initiate
Step 2: Enter the user name/email ID/Name of the target account. Click Search
Step3: Facebook gives you the following options to recover the target account.
You will see the Profile pick of the target account on the right. It has been blurred here.
Step 4: Click on "No Longer have access to these?" link at the bottom left.
Step 5: Facebook gives you the option to enter a new email ID to be linked to the target account. Provide your own email ID. Make sure it is not linked to any existing Facebook account. Click continue.
Step 6: Unless you have set in the right security settings, Facebook throws a security question that you would have chosen right at the time of creating the Facebook account. In most of the cases, the answer to this question is anybody's guess. See example below.
Step 7: Assuming you entered the answer correctly, you will be presented with an option to set the new password.
 Step 8: Facebook will now send a link to your email ID (the one you provided in step 5) to link the email ID to the target account. Click on that link.
Step 9: Once you activate the link that you received in your email, Facebook attaches the new email ID and  the password to the account. You still need to wait for 24 Hrs.
Step 10: Wait for 24 hrs. Bingo. You have got access to the account with the new email ID and password that you specified.

Some major concerns in this implementation. I hope Facebook fixes this sometime.

• There is no way to change the security question or the answer to it. If you made a mistake in selecting a very simple question and obvious answer while registering... too bad.
• There are no notifications to the original email ID when somebody tries to add a new email ID, at least during that 24 Hr window.
• It basically assumes everyone in the world is very honest :-)

Part B: Shielding your account from this hack

Part C:  How does this safeguard from the hack?

“There will come a time when it isn’t ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me.”

Philip K. Dick

Facebook has been the punching bag of the security and privacy advocates for ever. No wonder the movie on facebook, "The Social Effect" has the tag line "When you make 500 million friends, you are bound to make enemies". The biggest criticism for facebook has been that it knows too much about us and there are concerns about security and privacy of this data. Usual response to this criticism is that this is social media and if you are so concerned about privacy, don't share it. I was convinced with this argument until recently when I figured out, there are things which you don't explicitly share, but eventually reach facebook. Here is an example where you need to be aware that facebook is watching you. Many, won't know. I didn't.

Background
Recently, facebook introduced Social Plugins. These are facebook components that any website in the world could embed in their own webpage to provide social networking features through facebook. Examples are - "share on facebook", "like" button, friend list, comments, etc. This requires that the visitor has logged-in to facebook, may be through another browser window or tab. If a website ebmbeds the facebook "like" button on its webpage, the visitors of the website will be able click on "like" button (very similar to you like videos, photos, status messages etc on facebook itslef). This will result into an update on your Wall that you liked that link. This is good. I have no problems with this.
I have a problem with what it does next. Read on.

The Use Case
Follow the steps below.

1. Login to facebook.
2. Go to any article on Times Of India. Say this one.
3. Look at the bottom. You will see this facebook plugin - "Recommend".
   
   
4. If you observe closely, it also tells you if any of your friends have recommended this. In my case it says "Be the first of your friends to recommend this."

What happens in the background?
If you imagine the logic of this, the code snippet from facebook that TOI would have embedded in this page would have sent this info to facebook that amol has visited so and so URL, and in-return asked if anybody from amol's friends recommended this URL? In my case facebook returned none.
The Issue
This is scary. I just happened to be logged in to facebook in some another browser window and without even checking with me, the plugin sent the info to facebook that I visited Times of India - this article. I hate this. I didn't choose to add/enable this plugin to TOI. It did not check with me and peacefully sent the info to facebook that I visited this page. If you don't observe carefully, you would not even see the facebook plugin amidst the clutter on the site. Thankfully facebook didn't put it on my wall , but mind well... it knows that you visited it.
I do share a lot of info on facebook.com through my wall.... my status, photos, videos, links, etc. However, there I do it conciously.... by choice. Here, I never chose to do it. I don'thave option to turn it off either. Forget it, I didn't even know it did all this.
Simple Advise
Log off from facebook after you are done. Don't keep yourself logged in through out the day. Be aware that you are being watched.

Recently I was reading the book - "The Facebook Effect" by David Kirkpatrick. Its the amazing story of Facebook - the phenomenon that has caught up the entire world since last few years and its effect the world over. I believe, especially in the Indian context, the impact of facebooks and orkuts of the world can be much more significant... I worry... to the extent of being cultural.

About facebook
With 500 million active users and growing at an approx pace of 100 million per 150 days, it the third most populous country in the world, next to China and India, if it was a country. Founded by a (then) 19 yr old Mark Zuckerberg at Harward, it has taken over all of its contemporaries Myspace, Orkut and bunch of others. It is the second most visited website on the Internet, next to Google.com. Its the most talked about Internet company today, loved as well as hated at the same time. It has also inspired a Hollywood Movie, "The Social Network", scheduled to release in Sept 2010.

facebook in India
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in India. It has surpassed Orkut's over last one year. The growth has been phenomenal. One significant observation is that it has been able to reach out to all age groups. Social media (at least India) was always perceived to be for young generation or IT savvies. However, people of all ages, professions, even those who have just learnt to boot a computer, all of them are hoping on to facebook. While its a good sign of IT penetration to the Indian common man, there are some strange observations.

• You can see colleagues sitting next to each other putting stuff on each others walls on facebook. What is so great about the wall that you can not directly talk ?
• Son/Daughters putting comments on their parents wall and vice-versa. This is extreme.
• I get friend requests from people whom I have never seen/met. What does that mean? I know nothing about them. The entire notion of "friend request" is at times misinterpreted.
• There are people who spend 2-3 hrs on facebook every day.
• People tend to use facebook as a medium of chatting.

These are indications of some fundamental changes the facebooks and Orkuts of the world are bringing to our society. They have given a fresh, new and lucrative channel of communication. As a result, instead of picking up the phone and talking to friends, we log on to facebook and write something on their wall. Instead of planning to meet a friend/relative on Sunday evening, people would spend time in reading useless comments others have put on their stuff and even contribute to it.
The Undesired Effect
This is an undesired side effect of the social media. Don't get me wrong. I am a heavy user of facebook. It is a very powerful tool to express yourself to your buddies, share your ideas, your thoughts, happenings in your life, your joys & sorrows. It is a great channel to find those old school friends you never met in last 20 yrs since you completed SSC. It has a potential to influence and move large groups towards a common goal. E.g. Facefook has helped large scale national movements like the one in Colombia a few yrs back. However, it can never substitute the charm and warmth of talking to your friend over a phone or more so, meeting them in person.
Especially in our society, which has traditionally given very high importance to family and social values, a facebook cannot replace the chaukats and nukkads of our bastees. If it does, its a major cultural shift.
So, go to the Profile info of your old friends in Facebook, pickup the contact number and give them a call. You will realize, it is much more satisfying than writing "wats up buddy?" on his/her wall.