A Vancouver computer technician discovered a loophole in Facebook's recently upgraded privacy controls, allowing him to access personal photos of strangers, including some belonging to Paris Hilton.
Byron Ng began looking for the security weaknesses after the popular social networking site announced the security upgrades last week.
The two main updates made to the website:
- A standardized privacy interface across the site
- New privacy options
A new "Friends of Friends" privacy option allows users to share information with people they are connected to through their friends.
Users also now have the ability to share and restrict information based on specific friends or friend lists.
But Ng was able to pull up the most recent pictures posted by some Facebook members and their friends, despite settings that were supposed to restrict his access.
Using his computer-coding trick, Ng accessed private pictures of Paris Hilton at the Emmy awards and of her brother, Nicholas, drinking a beer with friends.
Ng tipped off The Associated Press to the loophole and an AP reporter was also able to access photos from strangers that were supposed to be 'invisible.'
The reporter accessed photos of some users on Italian vacations, at office gatherings, holiday parties and on spring break.
The reporter even accessed a personal photo album of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, which was posted in November 2005.
A Facebook spokeswoman was alerted of the problem on Monday afternoon and the security hole appeared to be closed later in the day.
Facebook has about 67,000,000 members.
Some users post photos on their account that could potentially be embarrassing or questionable if they were to be discovered by an outside party, such as an employer.
With files from The Associated Press
