Happy New Year, I can hack your facebook from here

In late October, the web world was a-buzz with the new extension “Firesheep”  The extension displayed the holes in Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and more site, that allows anyone sharing an unsecured wireless connection to easily use login using your information.  In a year when online marketing has been continually in the headlines for debates about tracking your behaviors, and the possible privacy violations within, you’d think the offending websites would jump to fix the problem. 

It’s been nearly two months, and no major social media site has announced any changes.  Gmail, MSN/Hotmail and YahooMail all have been going by this standard for years.  Why would social media outlets feel that it’s not an issue worth addressing?

“If Facebook was using encryption[...] this would not be a problem,” says Eric Butler, the developer of Firesheep.  He was interview about his free software, “The people who really need to watch [the below] video is Facebook, they’re the ones making this possible”

So, what’s the solution?  Mainly, don’t connect to non-secured networks.  If you don’t have that option use a browser extension like Force TLS(Firefox), HTTPS Everywhere(Firefox), or KB SSL Enforcer(Chrome)  Go forth and protect yourself!