LOL. There is no confirmation either, Once that button is clicked and the post request sent, Even if you attempt to abort it, the emails go out. It really sucks, and the buttons are so small and close together... lol bleh. But regardless it was my mistake. Be careful what you click :P Espically when you have an addressbook with like, 9000 addresses in it lol. That and the fact that im a bit of an idiot does tend to add into the whole mistake making fiasco. :P On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 6:37 AM, Keith Wright <kwright@keithdiane.us> wrote:

...

From: Jason Couture <plaguethenet@gmail.com>

I accidentially clicked the send invites button on facebook, I didnt mean to, it sent it to EVERYONE in my address book :| Quite annoying.

So anyways, I do apologize for the spam.

Jason Couture

---

...

From: Ben LaVerriere <gonoldothrond@gmail.com>

In fairness, it did require some action on Jason's part ---

Why be elaborately fair to the evil ones?

This is the third time I have gotten one of these bot-written Facebook "invitations" which was soon followed by apologies and annoyance from the purported sender.

They _trick_ people into pushing the button.

But what does the button have to do with it?  What program does the button run that could not be run without the button?  Is this a gaping security hole in the browser and operating system?  Or is it an conspiracy between Facebook and your email host?

...

Facebook does have a feature (?) to email people "from your address book" at various webmail providers,

So the webmail provider has sold out?

If I go to Facebook with Linux and Firefox will the same happen to me?

...

but it won't do so without the user specifically providing his or her credentials and approval.

You need another "(?)" after "approval".

But why not?  Is that in writing, or is it really enforced by software, or is it just a rumor they like to spread?

...

More specifically, we should be upset at Jason for not noticing that WLUG isn't a person when asking Facebook to send those messages, not at Facebook for letting him do so.

To be fair, you shouldn't have to be checking all kinds of occult trivia to prevent your entire address book from getting sent to any website that asks for it.

Facebook did not _let_ him send it.

This is one of the headers of that message:

...

Received: from mx-out.facebook.com     (outmail018.snc1.tfbnw.net [69.63.178.177])       by SMTP.WPI.EDU (8.14.2/8.14.2)      with ESMTP id n3TG9iIT026912    for <wlug@mail.wlug.org>;     Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:09:50 -0400    (envelope-from invite+2maswggx@facebookmail.com)

that clearly shows it was transfered directly from Facebook to WPI, Jason had little to do with it.

I think I will stay upset with Microsoft, Facebook, and the webmail corporations and side with the human.

 -- Keith _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug@mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

Keith Wright wrote:

So the webmail provider has sold out?

No, it's actually worse than that. Facebook offers to do "useful" things with your address book. In order to get at your address book, it encourages you to give it your webmail provider, username, and password. Doesn't *that* sound like a good idea?

If I go to Facebook with Linux and Firefox will the same happen to me?

Yep - it's cross platform and cross browser compatible evil! -- Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu | For every problem, there is a solution that WPI Senior Network Engineer | is simple, elegant, and wrong. - HL Mencken GPG fingerprint = 6174 1257 129E 0D21 D8D4 E8A3 8E39 29E3 E2E8 8CEC

More worrysome for me than the data mining practices is that as a dad with three kids that use Facebook, are the intellectual property rights issues that have cropped up over the last few years. Facebook has eased off a bit, but my understanding is that a typical user's content can be commercially expoited in perpetuity by Facebook if they feel like it. More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook in the "Terms of Use" controversy section. -- Mike