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Facebook bug allows anyone to access private photos [Update]

Want to see the private, hidden photos of someone's Facebook page? A flaw in the social networking web site's programming apparently allows this to happen if you use Facebook's image reporting tool. This bug was discovered via a message board post on the forums of, oddly enough, Bodybuilding.com.

The post goes into detail on how this flaw works. After you go through the menu items on the image reporting tool, the last thing it asks of the user is if you want to report on any other photos in the album. If the answer is, "Yes," you then get to see a selection of additional photos including those that have been designated as private by that Facebook user.

ZDnet.com even showed a photo from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's own private album (it's not anything kinky, we assure you) using the image reporting tool flaw. ZDNet adds that sometimes this bug worked and sometimes it didn't but "more often than not you get some pictures to view."

Facebook has been contacted and a spokesperson has said the company is looking into the issue. Hopefully this is just a quick programming fix on the Facebook web site. Considering that Facebook just signed a settlement with the FTC considering privacy issues with the site this newest issue might be considered a black eye on improving privacy on the site.

Update - Facebook has admitted the bug was in the web site and has now fixed the issue.

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