PREVIOUS ARTICLENEXT ARTICLE
NEWS
By 27 January 2011 | Categories: news

0

Yesterday something a tad out of the ordinary happened on Facebook, as founder Mark Zuckerberg "posted" a strange message to his Facebook fan page.

The cryptic message read, "Let the hacking begin: If facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn’t Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook into a ‘social business’ the way Nobel Price winner Muhammad Yunus described it?"
 
Shortly after being posted the strange message had garnered over 1 800 'likes' and almost 500 comments from users, some agreeing, most confused.
 
It was pretty clear from the start that the message wasn't posted by Zuckerberg himself as Facebook soon removed the page. Initially refusing to comment on the situation, Facebook has since released a statement saying, "A bug enabled status postings by unauthorised people on a handful of pages. The bug has been fixed." The company also added that no personal user accounts had been affected in the attack.
 
The strange message referred to Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus, who is also the founder of the Grameen Bank. The bank offers small loans to poor people to help them start their own businesses.
 
The message apparently asks the Facebook hierarchy to let its users invest and help grow the sprawling website, instead of accepting multi-million dollar checks from corporate entities.
 
According to the BBC, Zuckerberg's fan page has nearly three million fans, and has since been moved to a new address. While it is possible that an outside hacker gained access to the page, the leak may have been made possible thanks to any number of vulnerabilities on the computers' of Facebook employees running the site, not just Zuckerberg's.
 
It is less likely, but it's also possible that the message came from within Facebook itself, written by a disgruntled employee in Zuckerberg's name.
 
Whatever the case, it seems ever more obvious that no internet portal can truly be secure, and it's interesting to note how hacking have progressed from a purely menacing practice to a politically and socially motivated one. 

USER COMMENTS

Read
Magazine Online
TechSmart.co.za is South Africa's leading magazine for tech product reviews, tech news, videos, tech specs and gadgets.
Start reading now >
Download latest issue

Have Your Say


What new tech or developments are you most anticipating this year?
New smartphone announcements (44 votes)
Technological breakthroughs (28 votes)
Launch of new consoles, or notebooks (14 votes)
Innovative Artificial Intelligence solutions (28 votes)
Biotechnology or medical advancements (21 votes)
Better business applications (132 votes)