Facebook finds a way to secure its users’ communication

The American social network operator may now encrypt its users’ conversation on Facebook Messenger

 

Facebook might be developing its Messenger application encrypted version, a report by The Guardian has disclosed. The publication, after talking to sources near Facebook venture, stated an app opt-in version would be launched in the “coming months”. Instead of launching out an end-to-end encryption to 900 million Messenger users, it is reported that the American social networking company will be requiring users to turn on the feature.

That’s because switching on the encryption would stop the working of its artificial intelligence (AI)Messenger bots. End-to-end encryption, which is frequently dubbed ‘strong encryption’, tells us that messaging networks as well as their owners cannot read messages sent through their platform; the receiver as well as the sender can only access the content.

Apple’s Face Time and iMessage are already using an end-to-end encryption method and secure messaging applications like Signals and Telegram. If the measure taken by the social networking service provider goes ahead it would contribute to a very high profile encryption launches ever seen. In April 2016, WhatsApp, which was bought by the social network platform operator 2 years ago launched end-to-end encryption for its 1 billion users by default.

The Ex NSA contractor Edward Snowden-backed end-to-end encryption method Open Whisper Systems was used by WhatsApp. In May this year, the US search company Google added an option in its own messenger application Allo that lets users enable end-to-end encryption – also with the use of the method Open Whisper Systems.

As suggested by the networking organization’s development, the Mountain view based organization’s opt-in function is stated, by the Guardian, to be there to ensure that the Messenger’s AI functions are not limited by the organization not getting user data. The search engine operator’s video calling application Duo backs the powerful encryption technique by default.

The reports regarding an encrypted Facebook Messenger encrypted version comes in context of the public battle between FBI and the American smartphone maker regarding the access to the content on terrorist Syed Farook’s locked iPhone.

Up till the FBI, by seeking the help of an anonymous third party, discovered a method to crack Farook’s iPhone 5S, the consumer electronics maker refused to develop new software to permit the smartphone to be accessed.

During that disagreement the Cupertino based organization’s claim that developing a “backdoor” for law enforcers to crack into the iPhone would undermine its encryption techniques was backed by huge tech organizations including WhatsApp, Facebook as well as Google.

The tech industry is highly caught between 2 conflicting patterns. Customers look to be demanding that organizations share less data with them– but are also interested in companies making an improvement in their facility through the integration of more of their private data.

 

Facebook Introduces New Systems To Provide Cheap Internet Access

Facebook launches new systems to offer inexpensive internet access to underdeveloped and developing areas.

Facebook has taken new measures in its struggle to connect the entire globe to its social platform and the internet. On April 13, 2016, the American social network announced two new terrestrial systems developed to enhance the quality, efficiency and speed of internet connectivity across the globe:  ARIES for the underdeveloped states and Terragraph to offer internet access to dense urban locations.

The company announced both new systems at its yearly F8 conference in San Francisco, which was attended by around 2500 developers. Terragraph is a 60-gigahertz wireless system intended to bring fast internet to dense urban locations. Facebook is currently testing the tech system at its head office and aims to test-launch it soon in San Jose, California. The organization’s VP of Engineering Jay Parikh laid an emphasis upon the system’s cost efficiency at the F8 conference.

The company told that developed countries are hampered by LTE and WiFi infrastructure that cannot keep up with internet users’ consumption of video and photos at higher resolutions.

Facebook pointed out that alternatives, such as optical fiber, which can offer many gigabytes of capacity, are too much costly for many countries. It said Terragraph offers speed in GBs to dense urban locations at a fraction of fiber cost by placing tiny boxes known as nodes, made up of off-the-shelf parts, across the region around 200 to 250 meters apart from light poles.

The Terragraph network design uses an antenna, which can communicate over a huge region. It is able to navigate across obstructions like buildings and manage Internet congestion, which is caused by a high number of visitors.

Facebook told it is among very cheap options to attain street-level coverage of 100% with GB WiFi and can be used to connect entire buildings. For developing states, the company launched ARIES (Antenna Radio Integration for Efficiency in Spectrum). The technology can cover a larger number of users across rural, large regions by using many receivers and transmitters.

ARIES is a base station equipped with 96 antennas, which can provide support to 24 streams or devices simultaneously across the same radio spectrum. A study by the social network company across 20 states, over 90% of people reside within 40km away from a significant city.

Usually in least developed countries, web connections are improved by installing a large number of base stations or by giving licenses to bigger radio frequency spectrums, which is difficult and costly.

Facebook said ARIES could be used as a way to expand the social network platform from nearby such areas to city centers in an efficient manner, while still offering fast internet connections.

The Menlo Park based organization told it aims to offer its new technologies to academic communities and wireless research.

 

Facebook Partners With Automattic To Introduce Instant Article WordPress Plugin

Facebook has collaborated with Automattic to launch Instant Article WordPress plugin to attract a larger number of marketers towards its platform.

As Facebook gets ready to launch Instant Articles to all publications in April 2016, it says on Monday that it is collaborating with the parent of WordPress.com, ‘Automattic’ to launch an Instant Article Word Press plugin.

The plugin develops a special RSS feed that optimizes posts automatically so they can be presented as Instant Articles. The plug-in is customizable and open-source. One could get its documentation on Github.

The networking giant said it tried with “a small group of publishers” that are running on WordPress, including Zap2it of Tribune Media and Foreign Policy to test the plugin. From April 12, 2016, the new feature will be offered to everyone, when the company’s annual F8 developer conference will be held in San Francisco. A large number of publishers are currently publishing on Instant Articles.

The move by the social network to help outlets to easily use Instant Articles followed the launch of its rival ‘Accelerated Mobile Pages’ by Google, in the last month. The publisher-friendly feature of the American search engine is open-source, says Richard Gingras, head of Google’s social and news products, to Shan Wan of Nieman lab. He also said more than 80 developers contributed to the code to GitHub AMP repo since the announcement of AMP in last fall.

Google persuaded developers to play their role in making the plugin on Github. Similarly, Facebook did the same. It has kept tweaking Instant Articles as feedback is received from news companies currently using the feature. Now, the social media service provider permits publishers to ask for email newsletter signups in the feature

In December 2015, the organization improved advertising revenue generation from Instant Articles for publishers. Facebook revealed that over 25% of the webpages (not just publications) are powered by Word Press, so helping Word Press users log up for Instant Articles looks quite logical, particularly if the social media giant is interested in turning itself into a user’s all-in-one news source.

According to Business Insider, Facebook declared that it has backed away from its plans to develop a demand-side platform in Atlas. It started to test platform inside Atlas in 2015, permitting only a few advertisers to use its “people-based” targeting abilities to programmatically bid on advertisements on other applications and websites, or one can say in real-time with automated software.

Facebook posted on its blog that platform did not delivered enough value as the quality of advertisements on the open internet were too low, often selling advertisements to bots not human beings.

 

Facebook Allows Publishers To Distribute Content Through Messaging Service

Facebook intends to provide an opportunity to publications to use Messenger to distribute their content so that it could further penetrate into the print media industry.

Facebook intends to launch a publisher friendly application. Mobile messaging applications are usurping social networks as a new platform through which publications are provided an opportunity to distribute their content.

Now Facebook looks to join them with its own popular messaging application. Soon Messenger will soon let publications automatically distribute their own content through its messaging service. The company aims to announce the measure with many participating publishers in April during its annual developer conference, F8, sources stated.

At F8 2015, Facebook announced that Messenger was extended by it beyond a chatting application to turn into a platform within itself as the social network of its parent company has turned into. At that time, people used applications such as Giphy to send GIFs from that application through Messenger and businesses that could use Messenger as a new customer service channel.

Previously this year, according to reports of Tech Crunch, the Californian organization started to test tool to help other developers in developing chat bots, which are plugged into Messenger so that users could take actions such as requesting Uber from conversation thread found in Messenger.

Technology firm Imperson used the tool to develop a Miss Piggy chatting bot for the “The Muppets” of ABC so that persons could have a conversation with the fictional character, whose respond with the help of computer algorithms that used to analyze what anyone stated to the chat bot and chose the most relevant reply out of a predefined list.

German publication Bild looks to be the first publisher to utilize the still-private high-tech tool to distribute articles through Facebook Messenger when it started to do so in last month. A spokesperson of Bild‘s parent company Axel Springer did not gave a response to a request for sharing views.

The use of Messenger by Bild seems to be an initial example of what more publications will be able to do by using Messenger when the social network operator officially opens the service. After people started conversation using Messenger with BILD ticker which used to just communicate in German – the chat bot of the publication would send messages to them.

Those messages briefly described a news article with the link to the site of Bild to find out the entire article, revealed by the screenshot inside the report of NiemanLab.In other news. According to Guardian, millions of British pounds will be paid by Facebook in Britain tax after fundamentally changing its European corporate structure. Beginning in April 2016, the company will alter its policy to rout the revenue earned from its biggest marketers showing content on its platform through the United Kingdom instead of Ireland.

 

Facebook Top Executive Released From Jail In Brazil

Facebook’s official, arrested for not complying with an order to share requested information from WhatsApp, has been released.

Facebook received good news from South America. An executive of the American social networking company was previously arrested for declining to provide details about Facebook users to law enforcers. He has now been released from jail.

The most senior official of Facebook in Latin America, Diego Dzodan, was released from jail in Sao Paulo on March 2, 2016 after spending a night in police custody due to the issuance of a warrant by a judge in Sergipe. The judge gave a ruling that his detention was wrong because he was personally not named in the court’s proceedings.

In Sergipe, another judge issued an arrest warrant by alleging Diego of his repeated failure to act according to a ruling to collaborate with a criminal investigation into organized crime and drug trafficking. Federal police’s spokeswoman in Sergipe Monica Horta said investigators asked for content from Facebook’s messaging app ‘WhatsApp’ and other data, including geo-location.

Investigators initially communicated with WhatsApp, which was purchased by Facebook in 2014, around four months ago but they have not responded yet, Monica stated. Starting two months ago, fine of $12,700 was imposed on WhatsApp on each day it ignored the order. Organization has not paid a fine up till now, which has increased to $250,000 recently, she stated.

Brazilian police claims that the company’s stance differs from Google, Yahoo and local telecoms that are always ready to share user details to aid investigations. Facebook’s WhatsApp has been launching out a so-called end-to-end encryption technology according to which only the recipient and sender can reach the message content. It claims it does not have the requested information.

The battle of Brazilian authorities with the social media service provider is similar to the FBI’s battle with Apple after its request that the smartphone maker crack the iPhone of a terrorist who killed people in San Bernardino.

The country casted itself as defender of internet freedom since the news sprouted that US National Security Agency was spying on President of Brazil, Dilma Rouseff, her close aides and  commercial interests in Brazil, including the state controlled company, Petrobas.

Dilma cancelled her official tour to the United States during a diplomatic battle over the revelations, the outcome of leaks by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden. Dilma also promised to offer more local internet facilities to not depend on the US.

In December, Brazilian authorities also battled with the social network when a ruling compelled the telecommunication service providers of the country to suspend the American messaging service due to its refusal to help a police investigation.

This shut down communications for most of its users, almost 100 million, in the country for half a day. CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded to the move by stating he was “stunned” by the “extreme decision”.

 

Facebook Introduces Reactions To Platform

Facebook added Reactions for users to express emotions.

Facebook has finally introduced emoji “Reactions” after a year of hard work to establish alternates of its trademark “like” button. Users still have the opportunity to give a response to comment or post with conventional “like” button moving at the top of the icon found on the desktop or mobile, providing an extended menu to users displaying six various animated emoji “Reactions”, including Angry, Like, Haha, Angry or Wow Sad.

The most recently introduced option are made as the extension of “like” button in opposition to a full replacement. Notifications will be sent to users when the latest feature is received on their posts as they are sent notifications about “like”.

The social network platform said it is interested in providing users with more authentic means to easily and quickly send responses to posts, whether they’re happy, serious, sad or funny. Prior to the launch of the latest feature users were frequently put in resorting to “liking” a post about a death or one that expressed disappointment or frustration, without differing from how a user would “like” an engagement picture. This problem should be solved by the latest addition.

The new feature must also let the networking giant boost clicks. Product manager of Facebook Sammi Krug said initially, team was concerned that with the update behind the “like” button it could turn the feature into a difficult one for users to find, but that has not been the case.

Users who have the option currently respond more often to posts than users who do not have them. Investors and advertisers would well receive a bump in the company’s already steady engagement.

Before February 24, 2015, the new feature was offered in only seven states: Japan, Chile, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Columbia and Philippines. Krug said results from those states have continued to be highly positive. Individual users are utilizing “Reactions” more often. In Spain, for instance use of it by people has grown by two times since October.

Love has remained to be the most famous “Reaction” across states so far. Krug told the countries were chosen to represent a range of languages and cultures to ensure “Reactions” would be universally understood. The social media service provider used feedback for fine-tuning the feature.

The most noticeable change in those countries from the original trials was the deletion of the “Yay” emoji, which was less appealing with less usage, in the recently made update. Now, the organization is introducing “Reactions” without “Yay”.

 

France Orders Facebook To Stop Tracking Non-Users

The French regulatory body ordered Facebook to stop transferring and using personal data of non-users without informing them.

Facebook has been challenged in Europe. Yesterday, the French data protection authority gave almost 90 days to the social networking organization to discontinue the practice of keeping non-users’ activity across on the Internet without their consent and ordered it to halt transferring personal data to USA.

The order given by France is the first important initiative taken against Facebook for transferring data of Europeans to the United States. The order has followed a ruling given by the European Union court last year that succeeded in striking down a contract on which thousands of organizations had been relying, including Facebook for avoiding cumbersome data transfer regulations of the EU.

In 2015, the transatlantic Safe Harbor pact was declared illegal amidst concerns regarding mass snooping by the American government and EU’s data protection agencies stated companies had 90 days to make alternate lawful arrangements for getting data transferred.

Deadline expired recently, which means that regulatory bodies are now eligible to take lawful action against businesses that still rely on the agreement to approve the transfer of data. The American social media service provider earlier said it does not use Safe Harbor for transferring data to the US and established alternate legal structures to continue its transfers according to the EU law.

Whereas the E.U. and U.S. agreed to get Safe Harbor replaced with a new pact, it is not operational up till now and the data protection authorities of Europe have stated more time is needed by them to determine if transatlantic transfers of data must be restricted.

Facebook was confident that it had complied with the European Union’s data protection regulation. It tracks non-users by a cookie placed in their browser without notifying them when they visit a page on Facebook. However, this practice is not according to the privacy law of France.

It also told that the company use cookies to gather information, which is then used to advertise without the consent of internet users. Users of Facebook must be provided the option to prevent the company from using their profile data for serving them personalized advertisements.

In 2015, the organization was previously compelled to stop tracking non-users residing in Belgium after a regulatory body of Belgium fought a legal battle with it in the court. The changes made by Facebook to its privacy policy has prompted the Spanish, Belgian, Dutch, German and French authorities to initiate  investigations  to discover more about its practices.

If it does not act according to the order within 3 months, a fine could be imposed on it, the regulatory body stated.

 

 

 

Facebook Introduces Communication Tools And New Inbox For Pages

Facebook has launched a messaging services to help businesses and their customers in the competitive world.

Facebook has taken an initiative to enhance its platform. The social network organization has launched a new group of features and controls targeted at helping enterprises set better expectations with clients. Starting this December, administrators of a page could specify their average responding time, set an “away” status, enable prompt responses, and even avail a Rapportive-like inbox that offers insights about clients that send messages to them.

Facebook news exclaimed that in the previous few years, the social network platform has been making an addition of tools aimed at boosting the offerings of its page. The concept is that as a larger number of enterprises develop a digital identification, they are probably going to establish a shop on the network, but more incentive is needed to be on the webpage. More than 50 million active enterprise pages on the platform, and the corporation stated majority of them are utilizing their page to interact with clients. In fact, 2.5bn comments are posted on the Pages on a monthly basis.

An official of the company, Michael Sharon, stated, “People can contact businesses anytime and from any device, so we’re offering new tools for Pages to better manage their customer interactions. Now it’s easier than ever for Pages to address both the public comments and private messages that people send them, in order to build and maintain strong relationships and grow their business.”

Facebook news today affirmed that but whereas a lot of communication is carried out, what lures clients is that whether or not an enterprise gives a response to their feedback or inquiry. This is because the corporation has established an indicator in Aug to provide customers a concept of the probability that anyone will respond.

Establishing on this, now admins of a page can set a regular time it requires them to respond to messages. Shown as either “within minutes”, “within an hour”, “within hours”, or “within a day”, the calculation of this metric is carried out automatically, by doing it enterprises could set the correct expectation whereas also minimizing the likelihood of stating, “This company never hears what I have to say.”

The next tool plays a role in letting the corporations control when they would be replying to messages. With a new messaging status, known as “away”, administrators of a page could specify when they are not available to reply to messages. Just like one has witnessed within an instantaneous messaging facility, if a client views the status, they would know that anyone would reach their message instantly.

Facebook Breaking news reported that the company stated any messages received through this time would not be counted against the response rate of the businesses.

 

 

Facebook Agrees To Comply With Belgian Court Ruling

Facebook would comply with the Belgian court’s ruling to avoid fines and act in a lawful manner.

Facebook has taken an initiative to appease the Belgian authorities. The social networking enterprise would not track the viewers of Facebook pages in Belgium who are not logged into an account on its platform, seeking to act according to a court’s judgment in November asking it to act in this manner or pay daily fines, the organization stated.

Facebook news exclaimed that the enterprise’s measure means Belgians would need to sign into their respective accounts on the platform before seeing pages on Facebook, compelling them to sign up and log into an account if they are interested in viewing the pages or associated content. In the past, non-users could view companies, celebs, tourist attractions and sports teams’ pages on the network without requiring signing in to it

Because of the alterations, listed users of the network in the European country who try to sign in through an unidentified internet browser would be compelled to follow some additional safety steps, the company stated. At issue is the company’s utilization of a so called  ‘datr’ cookie, which it employs by placing on the browsers of users when they browse a Facebook.com webpage or tap the platform’s  ‘Like’ button on other forums, letting it keep a track of the browser’s activities.

Facebook news today affirmed that tiny bit of code only recognizes browses, not people, and lets it distinguish legal visits from those by attackers. The organization’s official, Alex Stamos, told the media “(Removing the cookie) will cause a marginal privacy hit. That will decrease the privacy of Belgian users.”

The EU member state’s data protection regulatory body took the American corporation to the court of law in June, alleging it of violating EU region by tracking those people who neither have endorsed its action nor they have an account on its platform. Facebook Breaking news reported that the networking giant aims to file an appeal against the ruling but, in compliance with the order, anticipates it would no longer be facing a $265,000 (250,000)daily fine imposed on it.

The organization has claimed that Belgium is not authorized on the matter, since its head office of Europe is located in Ireland and therefore be governed by regulatory authorities there. Privacy regulator of Belgium stated the fact that a court in Brussels’ ruling indicates that the social network operator is a part of its domain.

The changes would be made as soon as the regulatory body serves the company with the ruling, expected anytime this week. The company has agreed to comply with the order when it has activated its safety check following heavy rainfall in Chennai.

 

 

Facebook Warns Potentially Unsafe Users

Facebook now warns its users who are being targeted in state-sponsored attacks.

Facebook has taken a user-friendly measure. Three years ago, Google notified its users whose computers or accounts were supposedly vulnerable to a state-sponsored attack. In 2015, the social media enterprise is now following the suit, the newest in a series of safety-conscious initiatives, the social platform has lately ratified.

Facebook News exclaimed that its Chief Security Officer, Alex Stamos, proclaimed the newest prevention in a post on the website, stating, “While we have always taken steps to secure accounts that we believe to have been compromised, we decided to show this additional warning if we have a strong suspicion that an attack could be government-sponsored, We do this because these types of attacks tend to be more advanced and dangerous than others, and we strongly encourage affected people to take the actions necessary to secure all of their online accounts.”

If Facebook believes that a profile is being attacked by hackers acting on behalf of a state, it sends a notification to its users prompting them to exercise the option of Login Approvals (the Californian company’s version of two-factor verification) to avoid being comprised in the first place to substituting their computers overall, in case of an acknowledged attack. Alex also explained that the social network would only utilize this notice “where the evidence strongly supports” a state-sponsored attack.

Facebook might be warning its users later than Google did, but it has become the first company to do so. The initiative also joins other important initiatives that the networking giant had taken to ensure safety and user secrecy. In June, it provided the feature to disseminate public encryption keys, to keep email notifications between the webpage and users encoded (however intra-network continues to be unencrypted).

Facebook News today disclosed that one year ago, the company introduced a “dark web” edition of its own self on Tor, an additional significant layer of secrecy and encryption for those attempting to get rid of surveillance. There is always more which can be carried out but each and every layer of security is significant, and the social media company continues to demonstrate its inclination to enhance more.

Alex has also stated that the notified users should consider a replacement of their mobile device or computer if possible. Facebook Breaking News supported the idea to safeguard this procedure, the company stated it would often not elaborate upon why it holds the belief that evidence indicates an attack is possible.

It is quite likely that the firm’s initiative would appease its fans.