Facebook finally rolls out HTTPS security; Sophos celebrates with free t-shirts

Users of Facebook can finally get some assurance of security online, after the social networking giant decided to use secure HTTP (HTTPS).

 

Facebook announced it is moving to HTTPS for all users, though it will start the feature for users in North America before rolling it out worldwide.

 

"As announced last year, we are moving to HTTPS for all users. This week, we're starting to roll out HTTPS for all North America users and will be soon rolling out to the rest of the world," it said.

 

Facebook also said apps and games can now create and manage Groups via the Graph API to help people connect and share their experiences.

 

It said this means games can "seamlessly create and invite players who may not know each other outside of the game to join Groups around clans or other joint activities."

 

Facebook also updated its platform policy for developers, saying that if they use any of Facebook's social plugins, "you must not sell or purchase placement or participate in any like exchange programs."

 

Meanwhile, Facebook said it has overhauled the WordPress plugin for improved stability, individual settings pages, custom post type support, and custom post status support.

 

It said version 1.1 will require WordPress 3.3 or newer, providing features such as contextual help, asynchronous JavaScript loading, and content formatters with multibyte support.

 

Free t-shirts

 

Facebook's decision to roll out HTTPS has prompted security vendor Sophos, which had clamored for this feature, to give away free T-shirts to celebrate.

 

Senior technology consultant Graham Cluley said that while Facebook implemented HTTPS in January 2011, this was only opt-in.

 

Cluley said HTTPS would allow Facebook's users to automatically encrypt their communications, preventing hackers and attackers from sniffing sensitive data while using unencrypted wifi hotspots.

 

"Well done Facebook! Sure, we might have liked it if Facebook had enabled HTTPS by default more quickly, but it would be churlish to grumble now they're doing it," Cluley said.

 

He noted Sophos has had a large pile of "Dislike" t-shirts that explain Sophos' wishes for Facebook to improve privacy and security.

 

"Clearly, with the rollout of HTTPS, one of those now needs to be crossed out. So, we need to get rid of our T-shirts. We've decided the fairest thing to do would be to offer them to loyal subscribers to our email newsletter. Every month, until our stocks run out, we're going to give away 10 of these limited edition T-shirts to randomly selected newsletter subscribers," he said. — TJD, GMA News