Web Service Uses Security Questions to Protect Information on Facebook

In order to read this blog you must first answer the following security question:

What is the name of my family’s dog?

A new web service, Friendbo, offers to pose a similar question — one which only you and select group of friends know — to anyone who seeks to view information you post on your blog, or on sites like Facebook and YouTube. The more people learn about you, the more access they’ll have.

A group of faculty and students at the University of Washington is workingto demonstrate how the application can be used to protect data on Facebook profiles. The researchers hope Friendbo will better protect the privacy of Facebook users and make sharing information online more natural.

Managing blacklists and whitelists can lead to awkward situations. For example, “a father might want to boastingly show his kid’s soccer photos at work,” Friendbo’s Web site says, “but his coworker might not feel comfortable asking ‘can I have access to the private photos of your children?’” New friends naturally learn more information about each other over time, the site adds, so acquaintances can be granted improved access without effort.

Users can create questions only their friends might know or ones only their family members can answer. And Friendbo can also “record and display successful accessors to the sharer, creating a social disincentive to guessing,” according to the site. —David DeBolt