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Marko said in May 24th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
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Watcher said in May 24th, 2009 at 2:52 pm

Yet another one, I am wondering when will it stop?

A massive e-mail needs to be sent out to all Facebookers.

Maybe Mark Zuckerberg should be focusing more on security than on IPO. After this attack, the latter will be a failure anyway.

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Internet lawyer said in May 24th, 2009 at 5:18 pm

Indeed, Facebook should notify all users about this issue. It looks like they cannot control it as more and more accounts get sour.

Blocking only .be domains will not help, it can be any domain. They need to trace those guys and punish them for life for doing something nasty like this.

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All Facebook said in May 25th, 2009 at 3:50 pm

Funny thing is that the phishing sites were so primitive and even had some English misspellings and grammatical errors, and yet, so many people got caught.

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IB rat said in May 25th, 2009 at 10:56 pm

An attack of this scale was well organised, used many servers and withstood weeks of Facebook trying to fight back. The only real thing Facebook did – was asking those affected to reset their passwords.

Conspiracy theory goes like this:

Who is interested in putting Facebook down? A competitor? The government? A third party?

An investmet bank, who was advising Facebook on their IPO would earn dozens of millions – so their rival might decided to kill the deal.

Or was it the buyer that is trying to put the price down this way?

Or was it another Al Qaeda attack?

I guess a book will be written about this case in some ten years by a Facebooker or a hacker or both.

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Marko said in May 25th, 2009 at 10:59 pm

For the moment, as they only ask those affected to reset their passwords it is not very effective. They cure the wrong wound.

Well, Facebook is trying not to lose its face. Let’s see what impact this case will have on their books.

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The Economist said in June 15th, 2009 at 7:50 am

A new figure was put on Facebook’s value when it confirmed that a Russian group had invested $200m for a stake of nearly 2%, valuing the privately owned social-networking website at $10 billion. In October 2007 Microsoft bought a 1.6% stake, which valued Facebook at $15 billion. Analysts gave warning that, given the recent decline in share prices of tech companies on the stockmarket, a $10 billion valuation for Facebook may still be too optimistic.

One can only wonder, if the past attack had to do anything with this private placement to reduce the price for some 33 per cent.

In any case, even with optimistic 100 million user accounts, adjusting for all duplicate, spam, inactive ones, let’s say Facebook has 1 million of active users. Even if those generate $100 dollars of revenue each a year – even by applying a multiple of (x 10) this all give a valuation of $1 billion.

Call me sceptical, but I refused to believe in Skype valuation by eBay of $2 billion. Two years later – I am certain.ly not the one to bite my elbows.

All those Facebook investors: good luck!

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Marko said in August 28th, 2009 at 7:27 pm

Those domains were not cheap. smile.be went for 2,000 EUR on SEDO last month.

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Larysa said in December 28th, 2009 at 2:06 pm

There is another attack is currently going on. Off-facebook, just a massive spam wave. They sent messages like:

Dear Facebook user,

In an effort to make your online experience safer and more enjoyable, Facebook will be implementing a new login system that will affect all Facebook users. These changes will offer new features and increased account security.

Before you are able to use the new login system, you will be required to update your account.

Click here to update your account online now.
If you have any questions, reference our New User Guide.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

Update your Facebook account

[Update Button]

This message was intended for xxx@yyy.com.

Facebook’s offices are located at 1601 S. California Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304.

So, do not click on this scam mailing!

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Marko said in May 2nd, 2010 at 10:33 pm