Facebook Scans Chats for Criminal Activity

Social networking is a great way to keep in touch with friends and meet new people. But it's also important to be vigilant about what you say to people you meet online.
Facebook has technology in place to monitor user conversations for suspicious activity and notify police when necessary, Reuters reported yesterday. The scanning technology monitors chats for words or phrases that may signal that something is wrong, such as personal information being exchanged or explicit language being used.
"We've never wanted to set up an environment where we have employees looking at private communications, so it's really important that we use technology that has a very low false-positive rate," Facebook told Reuters.

Facebook security employees don't see any of the conversations until the scanning technology actually flags the exchange. The employees then review the chat to determine whether the police should be notified.
"I find the news to be both scary and more than a bit surprising," Chester Wisniewski, senior security advisor at Sophos, told Security Watch. Most communication providers tend to take the stance that since they don't monitor user activity, under the Safe Harbor provisions it isn't their fault if users do something illegal, Wisniewski said.
"If you begin analyzing content, you may be held liable for not stopping something dangerous that traverses your network," Wisniewski said.
Protect YourselfWhile it's nice to know that Facebook is keeping a distant eye on chat logs for criminal behavior, users should exercise some Internet smarts when online. And while we are picking on Facebook a bit, these tips apply to other social networking sites, as well.

• Friending Strangers – Study after study have shown Facebook users accept friend requests from people they don't know. It's easy to lie on a profile, and criminals do it all the time on social networking sites. Sexual predators have pretended to be teenagers to talk to younger users on social networking sites. In a recent analysis, researchers from Barracuda Networks found several fake Facebook profiles using the exact same photograph of an attractive woman as the main profile picture. Once a fake profile is added as a friend, that scammer has access to a tremendous amount of personal data. Screen them out beforehand.
• Chatty Profiles – Many people still have not locked down their social networking profiles, letting people they don't know see their home address, phone numbers, and all other information. If it's that critical to have that much information about you on your profile, at least lock it so that only friends can see it (and then be careful about who you friend…)
• Know About Privacy – Some information, such as login credentials and personal identifying information, should never be shared, even with best friends. Learn how to use the site's privacy controls. Google+ has done a good job of giving users control over who can see their profile data, and Facebook is steadily improving.  

"The bottom line is no one should expect any sort of privacy on social networks and these types of programs just further prove that point," Wisniewski said.
Crimes Against Minors Online RareFacebook relying on software to pre-scan chats protects the company from privacy concerns that someone is monitoring all conversations. But it also means that a lot of other suspicious incidents may be missed.
"I feel for every one we arrest, ten others get through the system," Special Agent Supervisor Jeffrey Duncan of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told Reuters.
However, before anyone panics, it's worth noting that that Internet-related sex crimes against children are rare. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children processed 3,638 report of online "enticement" of children by adults last year, 10 percent less than 2010.
Most sex crimes against children are committed by people the children know, rather than strangers. Reuters reported Facebook's technology is more likely to likely scrutinize conversations between two users who aren't already "well-established" in the Facebook universe as friends. In which case, those chats with non-strangers may never even be flagged.
Protect ChildrenDespite the fact that strangers approaching children online is rare, many parents are still jittery. A recent survey of 1,000 parents by MinorMonitor found that 74 percent of parents were concerned about their child's safety on Facebook, with 56 percent worrying about predators.
There are a number of tools available that parents can use to monitor their children's social networking activities. PCMag gave an Editors' Choice award to Socialshield, which lets parents monitor their children's Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Google+, and Formspring accounts. ZoneAlarm's SocialGuard detects cyberbullying, account hacking, bad links, age-inappropriate relationships, and contact by strangers. MinorMonitor also tracks the child's Facebook activity and sends parents alerts for potential problems.

By Fahmida Y. Rashid Jul 13, 2012 6:00 PM EST