Les Bonnes Choses

I know that a number of people prefer to read these posts as they are imported on Facebook, rather than wait for the monthly print edition to hit the newsstands. What? your local newsstand doesn't carry Les Bonnes Choses? Be sure to let them know that you will take your business elsewhere until you see the Les Bonnes Choses masthead beside the New Yorker.

But back to the story at hand: A number of popular websites, including Facebook, have a security flaw whereby a thirteen year old with a laptop using a freely downloadable Firefox plug-in can snag the file that says "I am so-and-so, and I am logged into Facebook", and pretend to be you. Not only can this be done, apparently it already has. Why is this bad? Have you ever written a drunken email? Allowing a 13 year old boy to post to your friends walls on your behalf would be, like, a kajillion times worse. And it's not just the 13 year old boys you have to worry about either; it's the girls too. Imagine how tedious it would have to be to have to explain to thirty friends that, no, you do not really 'like' Justin Bieber or the Twilight Series. So especially if you are in a public location, do not use a wireless connection to check out your Facebook page.

There is one upside, though. If you do actually drunkenly reveal your appreciation of Justin Bieber's music late one night, and have regrets the next morning, you now have plausible deniability to fall back on.

Addendum: Hotmail has this same security flaw at this time, though gmail thankfully does not.