Facebook App Owns Your Phone - Privacy Compromised on Smartphones

I use Facebook on my smartphone, which is a Verizon Droid Razr Maxx.  I use it when I am traveling and simply when I am bored beyond words.  How one gets on Facebook using their smartphone will be the difference between giving Facebook total control over your phone and ultimately your life or just browsing Facebook for the fun of it.

I go to my smartphones "desktop" and I open the browser which came installed with the phone or I use Google Chrome, which I personally downloaded.  I type in the url, (www.facebook.com) and it brings me to the signon screen and I enter my email address and password and I am in.  I am now free to browse Facebook till my battery dies, with no repercussions.

Here is where your privacy and phone security is compromised:

Most people have the Facebook application or App pre-installed on their phone when they first purchase it.  It is on your phones desktop in the form of the big Facebook "F".  Once you click on it, you are immediately logged in to Facebook and your smartphone, its data, location, network connectivity, SD card and all phone call logs are now accessible by Facebook or a hacker who might hack into Facebooks' servers. 

The photo to the left is a screen shot of my Droid Razr Maxx smartphone showing the App Info for the Facebook App, which came pre-loaded onto my phone from Verizon.  It shows the version number, total storage space, data and SD card.

 This screen shot shows the permissions for the Facebook App on my smartphone, which is universal in nature.  It clearly states, that "this app (Facebook) can access the following on your phone":

Your personal information and it can modify or change your phone contacts, email contacts, it can read your call log, read your contacts and write to your call log, that is, it will insert calls or numbers which you never called!  It can access your precise GPS location and approximate network location.  It has full access to your phones network and here is the kicker:  Your accounts:  it can add, remover or create any account on your phone and set passwords!  It can modify, change or delete the contents of your SD card.

Finally, Facebook and the folks behind it can:  record audio, take pictures and videos using your smartphone, read the phone status of your phone calls and the identity of all callers and prevent your phone from going to "sleep".  Now some people might say, "hey, they can't do that". 

Well, Facebook stated previously, "if you don't like our privacy setup, don't use it".  Simply put, if you are going to use Facebook from your smartphone, never, ever use the pre-installed app that came with your phone and never download and use the Facebook app for any smartphone.  Use the browser on your smartphone instead.

Excellent Chinese Restaurant in Chinatown New York City

I've been meaning to post something about this Chinese restaurant for awhile but I needed to have photos, which I took in and around the restaurant, on my desktop and/or laptop computer.  Because I took some of these photos with my smartphone, I was too lazy to download the photos, so there's the reason for the delay.

Years ago and on this blog, I visited a restaurant called Kam Chueh.  This was my regular New York City chinese restaurant or quite simply, when I went to Chinatown at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge on the Manhattan side, this is where I would go.  I qualified this location because there are quite a few Chinatowns in New York City.  There is a Chinatown in Flushing Queens, there is a Chinatown in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and there is the traditional one in New York City at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge.  Unfortunately, because of the 9/11 attacks and because the economy in Chinatown suffered, Kam Chueh is no more.  Here is my walking tour of Chinatown in Flushing Queens on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

I tried quite a few chinese restaurants all over the city and finally, I have been hooked on Feng Cheng Yuan Restaurant at 100 Bowery, New York, NY 10013.  There number is (212) 226-8778.  I do not believe they have a website...yet. They are a very good and reasonably priced chinese restaurant in New York.

Here are a few photos of the meal that we consumed while there and the signature dish there are the barbeque ribs.  They cover the ribs in this very delicious sauce and it makes you forget you are eating ribs.

Barbeque Spare Ribs with Sauce

Here is the shrimp fried rice dish, which was equally very good and well made:

Shrimp Fried Rice

The pepper steak was delicious as well and was a very healthy dish:

As you can see, there is a balance of steak, peppers, onions, tomatoes and rich sauce and all cooked in the healthy setting of a wok.












Here are photos of us grazing, er, eating and of the interior of the restaurant.

Chinese Food Spread

 Here are photos of the interior of Feng Cheng Yuan Restaurant

 

In conclusion, the ribs were $6.00 per order, the fried chicken wings were $5.50 for 5, the shrimp fried rice was about $9.00 and the pepper steak was about the same ($9.00).  It closes pretty early on the weekends (12:00am) and if you want the ribs or hanging meat dishes, you should get there before 9pm.  There service is decent and the dining room is spacious.  You can do no wrong by visiting this New York City chinese restaurant.

Explaining Riptides at Robert Moses State Park and Water Rescue Video

While at Robert Moses State Park in Suffolk County, I was standing in some very cold water, in crashing waves about waist high while explaining what a rip tide is.  While the waves were making it hard for me and my camera guy Jordan Edwards to stand up, we both heard a whistle and I looked off about 150 away to see a lifeguard running to the water and swimming to a young boy who appeared to be in distress.

Lifeguards sit in elevated chairs above the water, on hot days and are tasked with making sure no one is in distress in the water or is in danger of drowning.  The amount of money that they lifeguards make is next to nothing in relation to the job that they do.  They should be paid like the best first responder and if a lifeguard is not a first responder, we need to re-define who or what it is.

Here is the water rescue video, taken yesterday at Robert Moses State Park: