Facebook Signup Page To Be More Secure

Facebook security has always been a weak point for those who are ignorant as to how the hackers can steal their information and sell it to some private players; sometimes to harass you. Recently there have been such cases of Facebook account hacking and the security beef up by the company officials is now well known. To strengthen the Facebook security further, Penn state researchers have developed a signup page which assures you to keep your personal information secret.

It is a common misunderstanding that once you have edited your Global Privacy Settings, you are safe from information hacking. In reality, however, if you happen to use any of the apps there are separate agreements of using your information. If the user does not agree to share his/her information then that user is unable to use that app. Many of the members unknowingly opt for sharing and lose the right of keeping your settings secret.

Sensing this need, Heng Xu, assistant professor of information sciences and technology has developed a signup page which can safeguard you against third party agents. There have been cases that the information which might not be considered vital like Date of Birth and place of birth were hacked from such apps and much more danger was posed to the user. The signup page so created gives you an option of sharing the information with people within your network, your friends or whether you wish to make the information private. The options will also give a break to the incidents of hacking the Facebook account itself.

Xu's signup page also takes care of one more aspect which many are unaware of. Unknowingly members also leak the information of friends. This is done if a hacker is able to access a calendar app and get your date of birth. Moreover in a similar way your friend's information can also be hacked because of you or your common friend. The research was presented at Association for Computer Machinery Symposium on Computer Human Interaction for Management of Information Technology, Boston by Xu, who also asked the Facebook Users to share their views about Facebook security. All of them replied in affirmative. They said that the security should be improved.

Speaking of page design, the users were also asked about which type of page they will be happy to select by giving them a monochromatic page and the other was multi-colored page of Green, Yellow and Red color scheme. More than half of the audience wanted the colored scheme for displaying critical information.

However it isn't that the social networking giant does not take any steps to ensure the safety of its users. It also publishes safety booklet and other instructions as and when required. The research by Penn state researchers is just another step from non-Facebook associates in this regard. The spammers and hackers will always be there and it will be the new technology to tackle them will always be discussed.