Facebook Yanks New Year's Notes Over Privacy Fail

Holiday messages could be read by strangers
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 31, 2012 10:25 AM CST
Facebook Yanks New Year's Notes Over Privacy Fail
In this May 16, 2012 file photo, the Facebook logo is displayed on an iPad in Philadelphia.   (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Facebook was hoping to allow users to write special messages to be sent at midnight tonight, but a student in Wales discovered a small problem: It's way easy to read—or delete—other people's private notes, the Daily Mail reports. Tweaking the URL of a message sent via the "Midnight Message Delivery" service, released last week, lets a user peep on any message. "Facebook have not been very security conscious when setting this up," the student wrote on his blog. The company has now taken down the service and is "working on a fix," says a rep. Until then, an old-fashioned text may have to do. (More Facebook stories.)

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