full-disclosure - Re: Facebook seems to think my Arch Linux box has malware on it

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Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:22:48 +0100
From: "ingo.schmitt@...arysignals.net" <ingo.schmitt@...arysignals.net>
To: Wesley Kerfoot <wjak56@...il.com>
Cc: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
Subject: Re: Facebook seems to think my Arch Linux box has
 malware on it

could you post the link pls? wanna re-produce that...

On 01/20/12 04:13, Wesley Kerfoot wrote:
> So there I was, innocently posting anti-SOPA links on my wall. I close
> my facebook tab temporarily, open a new one a few minutes later, and I’m
> logged out of my account.
>
> “Well that’s odd” I think. So I log back in.
>
> “Your computer has malware!” Facebook says to me. They tell me that my
> computer has malware, okay, well I am very skeptical of that since I run
> Arch Linux, my kernel and all of my software is up-to-date, and I don’t
> remember running any strange shell scripts as root.
>
> They then proceed to force me to certify that I’ve run Anti-Virus
> software, and link to several Windows and OS-X programs.
>
> “Well that’s offensive to me, both as a Linux user and a Programmer” I
> think. Why would they not even bother to check my user-agent to see what
> OS I am running? Why does Facebook even have an algorithm to try and
> detect if someone has malware on their computer? How do you even say
> “You have malware on your computer” with any confidence when the only
> interface between you and the user is HTTP? Facebook doesn’t have access
> to my computer’s hard disk. They have no right to tell me if I do or do
> not have any malware.
>
> So now I am completely locked out of making any changes to my account or
> posting on my wall, or anyone else’s. All because Facebook was too lazy
> to check for false positives. This will supposedly last for around two days.
>
> I ended up sending a bug report that will most likely be ignored, and
> not even looked at. I will most likely end up waiting the two days for
> my account to be re-instated because I don’t know anyone who personally
> works for facebook that can fix the issue.
>
> The message here for Facebook is that they shouldn’t implement systems
> that they can’t support when they fail.
>
> Apparently (this is according to people who I’ve talked to) there is a
> virus program going around in the Windows world called the “Carberp”
> Trojan. The lesson here is also that even if you refuse to use Windows,
> you can still be affected by the mediocrity of Windows. You are not 100%
> safe even on Linux, BSD, or Haiku.
>
> Good job Facebook! You just impeded someone who was trying to help you
> stay around!
>
>
>
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_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/