AT&T Randomly Logs You Into Someone Else's Facebook Account

A glitch at AT&T is causing some mobile phone used to be randomly shuffled into other people’s Facebook accounts. Apparently the carrier has confused which phones should be logged into which accounts. Whoops.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

The glitch — the result of a routing problem at the family’s wireless carrier, AT&T — revealed a little-known security flaw with far-reaching implications for everyone on the Internet, not just Facebook users.

In each case, the Internet lost track of who was who, putting the women into the wrong accounts. It doesn’t appear the users could have done anything to stop it. The problem adds a dimension to researchers’ warnings that there are many ways online information — from mundane data to dark secrets — can go awry.

The AP says this glitch can happen on a PC, too. The people who reported the problem to the AP were “dumbfounded” when they were routed to random people’s accounts.

“I thought it was the phone — ‘Maybe this phone is just weird and does magical, horrible things and I have to get rid of it,’ ” Candace Sawyer said.

AT&T says they are aware of the problem and working to fix it. The AP wasn’t able to determine if the people whose Facebook accounts were compromised were also AT&T customers.

Georgians uncover Facebook flaw [AJC] (Thanks, Eli!)

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