Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Facebook is gradually rolling out a feature that creates one-time passwords for use with public computers. The theory is that you won't expose your actual Facebook account password when you're logging in from airports, Internet cafes and the likes. This works if you are in the US and have associated a mobile number with your Facebook account. In order to get a one-time password, you need to text "otp" to 32665. You'll get back a text that contains a temporary password that can only be used once and expires after 20 minutes. This feature should become available to all Facebook users in the US in the coming weeks.It all sounds safe enough, until you start to think about it. And realize that if you've tied your mobile number to your Facebook account, you'd better not lose your phone. Anyone that gets their hands on it can now request a one-time password to access your Facebook account. Sure, they also need to know the email address that you used to sign up for Facebook, but who doesn't have any reference of that on their phone these days? You should probably lock your phone with a password when it goes into standby to avoid any potential problems.
Facebook has also announced that the remote logout feature, which Jay covered last month, is now available to all Facebook users. The roll-out has taken a while, but this is a very useful security feature and it's good to finally see it in the hands of the masses.
Facebook launches one-time passwords, makes remote logout available to all originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 13 Oct 2010 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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