She's an idiot. There's nothing unique about Facebook in this regard; it could happen to almost any Web site. Facebook just happens to have a lot more users than most Web sites do. Using a little common sense avoids 95% of these things -- if your great-grandmother's news feed pops up with a link titled "OMG! BRITNEY SPEARS SEX TAPE!!!", you can probably deduce what happened. Two very basic steps will stop nearly all of this cold:

1. Choose a decent password. It doesn't have to be an impossible string of random characters, just something that's not obvious to guess.

2. Don't use Internet Explorer. Ever. The only thing you need IE for is to download another browser when you get a new computer.

My concern: Who voted for this woman, and can they prove they have an IQ above freezing?

Amy, this is California after all - Gov. Moonbeam and the rest of the motley crew.

Here in Minneosta, where nothing is above freezing most of the year, 12 degrees when I woke up this morning, we elected Al Franken and he is probably not the worst.

I don't have a Facebook Account.

I don't want the world knowing what I'm doing. If a friend wants to know what I'm doing they have my phone number, my cell, my e-mail, and my snail mail address.

If I want them to know, I'll be pro-active and e-mail them. If I want to know what is happening in their life, I will ask them. Or the can e-mail me.

As for Password strength: http://xkcd.com/936/

I have facebook and generally like how easy it is to stay in touch with people. I strongly dislike their "upgrades" and random privacy issues. I have to be vigilant about settings, which are constantly changing.

I also never post a picture I wouldn't splatter on the front page of the newspaper. I'll tell about a trip to the beach after I get back, but never before (Hey! I'll be 120 miles away! Come rob me!).

I don't post rants or political diatribes. My mom and my son are both on facebook so I bear in mind my possible audience at all times.

I don't play any of the games or use any of the apps. Ever.

It is a useful tool.

Thanks Jim P, I deleted my FB account. Not only were complete strangers coming out of the woodwork trying to 'friend' me but FB was trying to go through my email address book and look up people for me to friend.

It's creepy, like that Google Picasa face-recognition scheme.

Well it's a good thing that she's going to talk to them or they'd never do anything about the porno hacking. It's not like Facebook is losing money and members over this or anything. They'll just let it go on until every Facebook post and every twitter message is porno. Then we'll all be forced to look at porno all the time!

Thank god for the Widow Sunny Bono!

She's looking for $$opportunities$$.

This nitwit doesn't merit any real consideration, especially when Congress is up to really heinous stuff when it comes to the internet: many legislators are pushing the atrocious SOPA/Protect IP act that has the potential to totally fuck up the internet if passed. In the name of preventing piracy (something it will fail to do), it will create massive liability for user generated content sites, ISPs, chill innovation, and remove safe-harbor provisions providers have under DMCA.

If you have energy around the law and the internet, and think that web technologies (particularly those involving user-generated content like YouTube, Wikipedia, Twitter, etc.) are a net positive for the world, I'd encourage you to write your representatives and senators, and ask that they oppose this egregious law. As a web publisher, I understand the concerns of right-holders around copyright violations, but this law grants far too much power to arbitrarily damage others' businesses. Protecting people's IP rights needn't permit the kind of collateral damage likely under SOPA/Protect IP.

Here's the take from Google, eBay, Facebook, AOL and a number of other companies:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/72798715/Tech-Companies-Letter-to-Congress

Christopher,

Have you ever heard of the Baen Free Library

Jim Baen and his stable of top authors realized the DRM path sucked. I just bought a Kindle and hope Amy got the kickback. But I have read several of the authors and if I see Baen on the spine in a non-book store, I generally will buy it over anything else available. The only other publisher in that class is/was Del Rey.

I have liked the authors/books so much that I have gone out and bought additional copies of the books to give to friends.

I sent an e-mail to my Reps and Senators. The e-mails I got back supported the shit. Quite frankly, they are a bunch of morons. The issue is what Joe J hit on the head in is post back in advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/11/18/smart_points_on.html.

He was talking about portraits of sunflowers, but it also applies to intellectual property. If you have something of value, be it a book, music, movie, or other media, it will have a value to someone.

Have you ever heard of the Baen Free Library

I had not. Thanks for pointing me to it!

I sent an e-mail to my Reps and Senators. The e-mails I got back supported the shit.

I was quite shocked - in a good way - to find that my congresswoman opposes it. She's normally a supporter of most hack legislation that Hollywood comes up with.

Whoa. The reason why didn't I think about that?