Why Romney Facebook hacks aren’t from Facebook mobile


With Facebook’s speculation to Mother Jones that hundreds of its users have liked Mitt Romney’s Facebook page mistakenly through their mobile application, I decided to see just what happens when one likes a Facebook ad from the Facebook mobile app. This turned out to be much more difficult than it first seemed because Android apparently has no built-in screenshot capability. I spent over an hour installing and figuring out the Android SDK on my PC before I finally got to the point of taking screenshots.

Yes, it’s a lot of work but, dammit, I need to know.

I fired up the Facebook mobile app on my LG Optimus V phone running Android 2.2.2. Near the top of my news feed was an ad for Samsung (names blurred to protect the guilty!):

Holding my breath, I clicked on the Like button:
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Following up on Romney hacking with an expert


I saw that the Mother Jones reporter consulted security expert Bill Pennington on the Romney Facebook hacking. Like any good digital sleuth, I hunted down Pennington’s email address to see what he thought about the situation. Pennington works at White Hat Security as the Chief Strategy Officer.

This afternoon I sent him the following email:

Hi Bill,

I’m Mark Turner, a guy who was contacted by Mother Jones about the Mitt Romney Facebook hacking thing.

I wanted to be clear about my experience: I’ve worked in IT and network security for 20 years. I’m a sysadmin who maintains security on my corporate network. I’m the guy who keeps the others in the office from clicking on things they shouldn’t.

I use Privoxy ad-blocking software on my Linux desktops. I do not click on ads, ever. And I rarely if ever use Facebook’s mobile app because it sucks ass. Yet, somehow I became a fan of Mitt Romney without my knowledge.

Facebook’s Activity Log shows every one of the 400+ likes I’ve clicked on during the life of my Facebook account. It does NOT show me ever liking Mitt Romney. That’s the only Like that doesn’t show up. Even if I screwed up and clicked on something by mistake, I would expect there to be a record of it.

But there isn’t. That’s why I think something hacked my account from the inside.
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Australian PM’s epic speech calls out opposition leader for ‘misogyny and sexism’ | The Raw Story

This, my friends, is an old-fashioned beatdown. After explaining to my kids tonight about the indefensible shooting of Malala Yousefzai I am feeling more protective than ever of women’s rights.

Don’t ever, ever, tell my daughter she isn’t as good as anyone else. Or my son, for that matter.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard fearlessly scolded Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on Tuesday as he sat just six feet away over his record of “misogynistic and sexist” attacks on her.

Though Abbott pushed to have House Speaker Peter Slipper resign over crude text messages about female genitalia, Gillard still lashed out at Abbott during question time in the legislature, saying she would “not be lectured on sexism and misogyny by this man. … Not now, not ever.”

“If he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia he doesn’t need a motion in the House of Representatives, he needs a mirror,” the prime minister charged.

via Australian PM’s epic speech calls out opposition leader for ‘misogyny and sexism’ | The Raw Story.

Antidoping Agency Details Doping Case Against Lance Armstrong – NYTimes.com

The USADA has released a report on Lance Armstrong’s doping case. After reading the summary here in the New York Times I find it virtually impossible to think that Armstrong wasn’t doping all along.

What a sorry outcome. I used to love watching cycling but now I’ll never trust it again.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency on Wednesday released details of its investigation of Lance Armstrong, calling it the most sophisticated doping program in recent sports history — a program in which it said Armstrong played a key role by doping, supplying doping products and demanding that his top teammates dope so he could be successful.

via Antidoping Agency Details Doping Case Against Lance Armstrong – NYTimes.com.

Mother Jones on Romney Facebook hacking


Last week I was contacted by Erika Eichelberger of Mother Jones magazine who was curious about my blog posts covering the Mitt Romney Facebook hacking issue. She was interested in talking to other victims, so I put her in touch with a few people on the Hacked By Mitt Romney page.

Her story ran this morning but it concluded a whole lot of nothing:

So we asked the social-networking company to do that. Facebook agreed, and had a team research the issue. They concluded that users are probably liking the Romney page on a mobile device by either accidentally clicking on a Romney ad or a “sponsored story” from the Romney campaign in their news feed. A Facebook spokesman, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the issue is unique to mobile because of the way the app works on small screens, and rejected the idea that the Romney camp was engaging in clickjacking. He added that the company is currently working to clean up its mobile interface.

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Groups Call for Scientists to Engage the Body Politic – NYTimes.com

Great article in the NY Times about an effort to get more geeks in Congress.

Ahem.

In American public life, researchers are largely absent. Trained to stick to the purity of the laboratory, they tend to avoid the sometimes irrational hurly-burly of politics.

For example, according to the Congressional Research Service, the technically trained among the 435 members of the House include one physicist, 22 people with medical training (including 2 psychologists and a veterinarian), a chemist, a microbiologist and 6 engineers.

via Groups Call for Scientists to Engage the Body Politic – NYTimes.com.

Twitter Updates for 2012-10-08

  • The big goofy dog and I ran 4.3 miles through downtown Raleigh this morning. Felt good! #
  • Getting ready to watch @SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launch at 8:35 PM tonight. Go SpaceX! #nasa #iss #
  • Congrats to @spacex on a successful launch! #

Twitter Updates for 2012-10-08

  • The big goofy dog and I ran 4.3 miles through downtown Raleigh this morning. Felt good! #
  • Getting ready to watch @SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launch at 8:35 PM tonight. Go SpaceX! #nasa #iss #
  • Congrats to @spacex on a successful launch! #

Here’s How Facebook Is Cracking Down On Fraudulent Likes – Business Insider

I posted earlier how Facebook would begin cracking down on fake Likes on their service. Somehow I missed this story on Business Insider that explains how Facebook is going about this.

This is worth a read, and as I pointed out earlier, the fact that Facebook has announced this effort is a tacit admission that Facebook hacking is possible.

Facebook announced that it will be making a concerted effort to crack down on removing Likes on brand Pages “that may have been gained by means that violate our Facebook Terms.”

Although a source familiar with Facebook told Business Insider that engineers have already begun the suspicious Like invalidation process, brand pages can expect to see an average decrease of approximately 1 percent of Likes accumulated by malware, compromised accounts, deceived users, or purchased bulk Likes.

via Here’s How Facebook Is Cracking Down On Fraudulent Likes – Business Insider.

Yet another Romney hacking victim speaks


Early this morning another Romney Facebook victim mentioned getting hacked by Mitt Romney. Like many others, she insists what happened to her is not a sponsored link nor is it anything she did herself.

Dora Maria Costa

They are not advertisements that are showing up on my wall, they are posts that match the posts on the Romney page, and when I went to his page, it said I liked it. They are posts, jut like posts that arrive on my wall of pages that I do actually like, or from friends. I did not go to the Romney page and “like” it! I get the ads and the wall posts showing that friends of mine “like” the Romney page. But, this is different. How did Romney FORCE me to like his page???