Facebook Founder Accused of Hacking Into Rivals' Email 261
An anonymous reader notes a long piece up at BusinessInsider.com accusing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of hacking into the email accounts of rivals and journalists. The CEO of the world's most successful social networking website was accused of at least two breaches of privacy. In a two-year investigation detailing the founding of Facebook, Nicholas Carlson, a senior editor at Silicon Alley Insider, uncovered what he claimed was evidence of the hackings in 2004. "New information uncovered by Silicon Alley Insider suggests that some of the complaints [in a court case ongong since 2007] against Mark Zuckerberg are valid. It also suggests that, on at least one occasion in 2004, Mark used private login data taken from Facebook's servers to break into Facebook members' private email accounts and read their emails — at best, a gross misuse of private information. Lastly, it suggests that Mark hacked into the competing company's systems and changed some user information with the aim of making the site less useful. ... Over the past two years, we have interviewed more than a dozen sources familiar with aspects of this story — including people involved in the founding year of the company. We have also reviewed what we believe to be some relevant IMs and emails from the period. Much of this information has never before been made public. None of it has been confirmed or authenticated by Mark or the company." The single-page view doesn't have its own URL; click on "View as one page" near the bottom.
Stupid Users (Score:3, Informative)
I suggest you use 4 types of passwords, one for accounts that wouldnt effect u much, one for email, one for social sites and IM, and one for bank accounts; with none of the passwords having anything to do with each other, e.g redball, orangeball,greenball... or whiteball, soccer, redflag
this "hack" was probably just stupid curiosity which will probably get him arrested, and once that happens he will loose a lot of control of the company.
Re:Different password (Score:5, Informative)
Color me surprised... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/11/facebook-privacy [guardian.co.uk]
The rise of social networking online means that people no longer have an expectation of privacy, according to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Talking at the Crunchie awards in San Francisco this weekend, the 25-year-old chief executive of the world's most popular social network said that privacy was no longer a "social norm".
Re:Stupid Users (Score:5, Informative)
using the same password for their email account as they do with their social networking sites then people should expect to be compromised.
I suggest you use 4 types of passwords, one for accounts that wouldnt effect u much, one for email, one for social sites and IM, and one for bank accounts; with none of the passwords having anything to do with each other, e.g redball, orangeball,greenball... or whiteball, soccer, redflag ... as this limits the guess work.
Supposedly they did,
"Here's how Mark described his hack to a friend:
Mark used his site, TheFacebook.com, to look up members of the site who identified themselves as members of the Crimson. Then he examined a log of failed logins to see if any of the Crimson members had ever entered an incorrect password into TheFacebook.com. If the cases in which they had entered failed logins, Mark tried to use them to access the Crimson members' Harvard email accounts. He successfully accessed two of them."
this "hack" was probably just stupid curiosity which will probably get him arrested, and once that happens he will loose a lot of control of the company.
I have no idea whether this stuff it true or provable, but if the article is accurate this wasn't curiosity. This was some seriously immoral/dishonest stuff.
Re:Serious Allegations (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So will he get a mug shot now? (Score:5, Informative)
Good thing you are not a lawyer, it's from the date it was committed.
The point of such statutes is because after a long time has passed, the defense is less able to form a coherent defense since a lot of the evidence is gone.
Re:So will he get a mug shot now? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, it can also be the case that the statute of limitations applies when the crime was discovered, not necessarily when it was committed. I am told this is especially so if they're trying to convict someone of "habitual criminal". I only know of this because a friend had to file embezzlement charges against an employee who had been stealing from him for longer than the statute of limitations and he was able to get them convicted of the entire string of crimes stretching back several years.
In civil court one only need look at The Knack v. Run DMC where it's been since 1986 but The Knack are able to sue, so far, because they claim they knew nothing of the song "It's Tricky" until recently despite its massive popularity at the time.
Re:Not Really Surprised (Score:5, Informative)
And that's not even mentioning the history of accusations against Zuckerberg for questionably ethical behavior:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/21129674/the_battle_for_facebook [rollingstone.com]
Re:So will he get a mug shot now? (Score:4, Informative)
Good thing you are not a lawyer, it's from the date it was committed.
The point of such statutes is because after a long time has passed, the defense is less able to form a coherent defense since a lot of the evidence is gone.
I Am Not A Lawyer, but I have a reasonable amount of experience doing legal research:
Actually both parent and grandparent are correct. Generally, in civil cases where the standard is preponderance of the evidence or which was more likely, the statute of limitation is from the discovery of the damage, most of the controlling case law in the US in civil matters was established in the dalkon shield cases against A. H. Robins Company. a three year statute of limitations was held to not protect A. H Robbins 16 years after the faulty product was sold, and 15 years after the initial discovery of injury, but less then three years after the discovery of severe internal damage.
The standards for criminal law are not preponderance of evidence, but beyond a reasonable doubt, and in criminal law, the statute of limitations are a way of saying that there is reasonable doubt by the passage of time, so we will not even try the case because the burden of proof cannot be met. Therefore criminal matters tend to have a statute of limitations that runs from the commission of the crime.