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New Facebook Feature Texts Temporary Passwords to Your Phone

by Amar Toor on October 13, 2010 at 10:25 AM

facebook security Users accessing Facebook from a public computer will no longer have to risk using their account passwords on potentially vulnerable platforms, thanks to a newly unveiled temporary password system. As Facebook explains on its blog, users can now request a temporary password when accessing the site from less trustworthy computers. All you have to do is text "otp" to 32665 from your cell phone, and Facebook will reply with your own unique password, which will expire after 20 minutes.

The site has also unveiled a separate security feature, which allows users to remotely end Facebook sessions they may have forgotten to terminate elsewhere. Under the Account Settings tab, Facebookers can now check to see if they're logged in from any other locations or devices, and log out, if necessary. And, just to be sure that no one's secretly accessing your account, Facebook will now regularly ask users to update their security information upon logging in. If, for some reason, you ever lose access to your account, this new feature will help the site verify your identity, and restore your account to its proper owner.

Facebook is hopeful that these new features will help users exercise greater control over their accounts, and that they will offer a substantially wider safety net for those whose accounts or identities have been compromised. As Gawker points out, however, texting temporary passwords to users' cell phones isn't exactly risk-free, either. If someone loses their cell phone, for example, whoever finds it could easily access the owner's Facebook account, simply by using the new text-password service. The obvious way to avoid this, of course, would be to un-sync your phone number from Facebook immediately after you lose it -- but that's still probably not the first thing most users would do.

Tags: cellphone, cellphones, facebook, password, PublicComputer, security, SocialNetworking, Texting, top, web

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