You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “The perfect storm: there’s a spike in users being told by Facebook they have malware today”.
You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “The perfect storm: there’s a spike in users being told by Facebook they have malware today”.
Good Morning Jack, I wish your latest post on Facebook were on all news media.
Thank you, Karen. More people have been accused of this today than at any other time. I really hope it will hit the news, though it seems the tech media all clam up on this issue. It’s going to take regular news media to break it, I believe.
It’s possible that a lot of people bought new PCs or received them as gifts for Christmas. They may not have properly installed and/or activated their antivirus or malware scanners. (Or maybe that’s what Facebook is banking on them believing – in which case, the user will blame the PC manufacturer or the antivirus that came with their PC, rather than pointing fingers at Facebook. Just a theory…)
Have you noticed other changes/new features, lately? Like round-style profile photos? New backgrounds? (A/B testing, much?)
The media has been curiously uninterested in this. But then, how long did it take them to show interest in the political ads out of Russia, or the uneven enforcement of “community standards” on serious issues like porn and hate speech?
Thanks again for the heads up, Jack – I’ve linked back to this and shared it. Here’s hoping it gets more than a nibble, this time.
Thank you, Holly!
The media should be far more interested—remember the press release I issued about Kaspersky and Facebook’s scanners? I thought it was well timed but I had no bites other than Scoop. The only noticeable change I saw was that Facebook no longer offers Kaspersky, but Trend Micro and Eset are still there.
I hear you on the other issues—I remember the kiddie porn you reported and they did nothing about. And I was talking about bot epidemics on my blogs in 2014, when they went into overdrive. Facebook was better at killing those accounts back then, they leave most up these days—in spite of the Senate scrutiny of them. Dumb move, in my book.
Maybe the Senate has told them to leave the bots but monitor them. Who knows? Maybe some of the bots are monitoring us, and we keep thwarting them (good God, I’d hope my government was able to come closer to passing a Turing test than that, but I wouldn’t bank on it – or on 90% of Facebook’s users ever spotting them in spite of how BAD they are!)
Is it just TrendMicro and Eset? Interesting, then, that news about the cryptocurrency miner on FB being published first on their blog. One might say that was either an obvious likelihood, seeing as how they’re security partners – or suspiciously well-timed to make the uptick in spurious scans look at least PLAUSIBLY legit.
Well, not much longer now. I think I’ll leave my account active; anything Facebook’s got now, they’re not likely to delete just because I do. (I worry they’ll just use it on a fake account when I’m gone.) I’ve been posting less and less, and am not really missing it at all. I don’t feel compelled to post, like I used to. I’ll just fade away gradually over the next month, and my last post will be “Gone Fishin'”
I’m feeling excited again about my own blog. :)
And with you around, THAT doesn’t need Facebook, either. (Thank you!)
I remember even back in 2014 there were some incredibly obvious ones that Facebook gave a pass to, and I had to wind up saying in the feedback box, ‘This is part of a bot net which you have removed x members from. Why not this one as well?’
Based on my search terms recently, it is Trend Micro and Eset now. I noticed the news on their site, too. Despite these “partners” clamming up when asked about the scan, and why it needs to be hidden and not appear in the installed programs’ list, I wonder how much they really know.
You’ll have seen me blog more of late, too. It’s nice to collect thoughts and write properly. I stopped in December, and actually enjoy not posting. The trouble is, I am approving things posted to my wall, and anything that tags me, so casual users won’t see my big post about leaving.
I’ll keep referring—come to think of it, I’m going to add you to my blogroll.
I don’t really have a “blog roll” anymore (never found one with WordPress that I liked as well as Blogspot’s RSS dynamic blogroll). I’ve been experimenting with Flipboard. I’ve got you in there, but it’s not quite right (yet) either. :) Still working on it… Mitch Mitchell’s been giving me clues (and I’ve thrown a few back at him, as I learn things the hard way). It’s PRETTIER than a blogroll… I just want one that can bubble the new up to the top, for readers. :/
I have a Flipboard account and for a little while it was on my phone, but I never really got it to reflect my interests. News seems to be one thing app makers don’t do well. I want something global, yet most apps (at least outside the Apple IOS world) are biased toward one territory (even Reuter does US and UK editions, for example).