Zynga Lost $11.9 million in fraud

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A 29-year-old British man faces a certain jail term after admitting he stole 400 billion gaming chips worth an estimated £7.5 million ($11.9 million) from FarmVille maker, Zynga.

Ashley Mitchell, who runs the Facebook application Gambino Poker, had illegally accessed Zynga's servers in 2009 before draining the chips and then selling them to fund gambling debts, a British court heard this week.  

Mitchell sold the stolen chips at a discounted price, netting him just over £50,000 between June and September, 2009.

Had police not intervened, he would have netted about £184,000 at the rate he was selling.

Zynga alerted police after staff discovered many chips were disappearing. Mitchell had accessed Zynga's computers between June and August, 2009.

Justice Phillip Wassall denied Mitchell bail on the belief that he would do it again. 

'It is inevitable you are going to prison. The question is how long for," said Phillips.

Mitchell's lawyer said the defendant's "six-figure income" was enough to pay back the money over two years.

Mitchell admitted to a charge of unauthorised access to data with the intent to commit a crime and faces four more counts under the proceeds of crime act. 

Zynga's most famous game

source: www.securecomputing.net.au

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Firefox, Chrome to add "Do Not Track" tools soon

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Firefox and Google Chrome browsers are getting tools to help users block advertisers from collecting information about them. This is similar to "Do Not Call" feature available on phones.

Mozilla is reportedly exploring putting anti-tracking features on its popular Firefox browser so that users can keep their online activities from being monitored. The bad news?  Mozilla recently rejected a more powerful privacy protection tool under pressure from the advertising industry.

Alex Fowler, a technology and privacy officer for Firefox maker Mozilla, said the "Do Not Track" tool will be the first in a series of steps designed to guard privacy. He didn't say when the tool will be available.

Google Chrome users can now download a browser plug-in that blocks advertisers - but only from ad networks that already let people decline personalized, targeted ads. According to Google Inc., these include the top 15 advertising networks, as rated by the research group comScore, a group that includes AOL Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Google itself.

The next version of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser, which is still being developed, will include a similar feature, though people will have to create or find their own lists of sites they want to block.

Google and Mozilla, however, are developing tracking-protection tools that will work automatically - once people decide to turn on that privacy feature, that is.

Microsoft, Google and Mozilla's promises of stronger privacy comes on the heels of government complaints that online advertisers are able to collect too much data about people in their quest to target ads.

Last month, the Federal Trade Commission recommended the creation of a "Do Not Track" tool that would invite consumers to restrict advertisers from collecting information about them, including the websites they visit, the links they click, their Internet searches and their online purchases.

Google product managers Sean Harvey and Rajas Moonka said the new Chrome tool will allow for more permanent ad blocking. Before, opt-out settings were typically stored through small files known as cookies; when users clear cookies, however, the opt-out settings get erased, too. Another benefit is that the new tool allows users to opt out of all participating ad networks at once, rather than one at a time.

Google eventually hopes to develop a similar plug-in for other browsers as well, Harvey and Moonka added.

Thus the dilemma of Web browsers caught in the crossfire between their audience, Internet users and regulators seeking to protect user privacy, and their revenue, online advertisers who want more information on users’ preferences.

source: ibnlive.in.com, socialtimes.com

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Explaining Facebook's Spam Prevention Systems

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  • As a global service connecting 400 million people, Facebook has helped build and extend communities around the world. As with any community, the benefits of bringing people together are occasionally accompanied by inappropriate or unacceptable conduct by a small number of people. This behavior ranges from thoughtless to criminal and can degrade the experience for others or undermine the community itself. 

On Facebook, the most common unacceptable behavior involves some abuse of the communication tools. This can be as innocent as annoying others with too many messages or friend requests or as serious as deliberately trying to spam others for commercial gain.


Facebook has taken these deliberate spam attacks seriously and devote a tremendous amount of their engineering time and talent to build systems that detect suspicious activity and automatically warn people about inappropriate behavior or links. Because of the efforts, only a very small percentage of people who use Facebook has ever experienced spam or a security issue.


Every once in a while, though, people misunderstand one of these systems. They incorrectly believe that Facebook is restricting them by blocking them from posting a specific link or from sending a message to someone who is not a friend. Over the years, these misunderstandings have caused Facebook to be wrongly accused of issues ranging from stifling criticism of director Roman Polanski over his sexual abuse charges to curbing support for ending U.S. travel restrictions on Cuba to blocking opponents of same-sex marriage. 


To try to be more transparent, they have been working to improve  warnings and make them more clear. 

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                                    New warning explaining why content has been blocked.
                    
                    
                    With billions of pieces of content being shared on Facebook every month and bad actors constantly targeting the people who use Facebook, preventing spam isn't easy. Just as a community relies on its citizens to report crime,Facebook rely on you to let us know when you encounter spam, which can be anything from a friend request sent by someone you don't know to a message that includes a link to a malicious website.
                    

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                            Using information from your reports and what they know about how the average person uses Facebook, they have identified certain common patterns of unacceptable behavior. For example, they have learned that if someone sends the same message to 50 people not on his or her friend list in the span of an hour, it's usually spam. Similarly, if 75 percent of the friend requests a person sends are ignored, it's very likely that that person is annoying others he or she doesn't actually know. 

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                              In extreme cases where the behavior continues despite the warnings, they may disable the person's account. When this happens, it usually isn't a person's account at all but a fake account or a real account that's been compromised. The compromised accounts are put into a process to give control back to the rightful owner. 

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                                  These automated systems don't just prevent spam and other annoyances. They also protect 

                        against dangerous websites that damage your computer or try to steal your information. When we're notified about one of these sites, we immediately add it to a block list and prevent Wall posts or messages that link to it. We also provide the person who's attempting to share the link with an explanation of why it's blocked and a way to correct us if we're wrong. 

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                • • • • • • • Sometimes, spammers try to hide their malicious links behind URL shorteners like Tiny URL or bit.ly, and in rare cases, we may temporarily block all use of a specific shortener. If you hit a block while using a URL shortener, try a different one or just use the original URL for whatever you're trying to share.
                              
                              These systems are so effective at working in the background that most people who use Facebook will never encounter one. They're not perfect, though, and Facebook always is working to improve them. 

                        
                        

                        
                        

                        If you do encounter one of our spam prevention systems, remember that its sole intent is to protect you and maintain Facebook's trusted environment.
                        

                        
                        

                        Source: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=403200567130

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