Comment by dalke | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dalke | Hacker News Reader

To be safe, I browsed with "links."

"To make a test account, register on Facebook as you normally would. Then, when logged in to the test account, go to this URL: http://www.facebook.com/developers/become_test_account.php

Personally from reading only to this point I would assume that it makes a new account, rather than make the current account become a test account. Even though that description is embedded in the URL, it isn't in the English text.

The warnings come afterwards, starting "A few important things to note". I think the description is ambiguous, and don't get the impression that it will trash your personal FB account.

This is such a nasty security problem it's not even funny. I haven't (and daren't) try. But if people start putting that URL on lots of public sites, and people click on it, then it will make a lot of people angry with FB. That suggests a solution - post the direct link to HN and other sites and get enough people to click on it that FB has to respond. Not a nice solution though.

Even worse, it looks like it's a regular GET request, which isn't supposed to have these sorts of side effects. (Again, I haven't tried.)

That URL itself doesn't perform the action -- that page has a button that, when clicked, submits a form with POST. That is when the action happens. In addition, it appears that they have taken steps to prevent CSRF.

So no, it probably isn't a security issue. Just a flamingly idiotic interface issue that is causing some developers to lose their apps and waste massive amounts of time.

[Edit: Haha, finding and exploiting a security vulnerability would be an effective way to get attention, but it would definitely not be nice to all the people who would get messed up by it. I figure a HN post is a more constructive method. ]

also it does say "WARNING: Test accounts CANNOT be converted back to normal accounts and they are not allowed to access the Developer App." in bold above the button. not excusing them, but they did seem to make some effort.

You are completely right. I admit that I wasn't paying a lot of attention. I was in a mode of scanning-documentation-trying-to-figure-something-out. I didn't think that poking around the developer center could destroy my account.

Obviously I was wrong, and I'm kicking myself now. But still, it is absolutely stupid to make it that easy to wreck your account.

Because much of the time, users won't pay attention to paragraphs of text you put around prominent links and buttons.

[Edit] Also, the button says "Make Your Name a Test Account." I thought it was going to make a test account for me, not from me.

Which is how most people operate. It is the obligation of the interface designer to take into account that people rarely read the instructions.

This is only true up to a point - perhaps not when referring to instructions about how to interface with APIs or otherwise develop custom content for the site.

Indeed, people rarely read instructions - but sometimes they read them and misinterpret them, which is what I think happened here. I still think FB should make you confirm by clicking a button though, especially if there is no way to return your account to its normal state.

While I would also be quite irate if I was in your position, it does not sound like this can be blamed entirely on FB. My first parsing of "Make <your name> a Test Account" is that it means "the FB account with <your name> will be converted from a real account in to a test account".

Also,

> "To make a test account, register on Facebook as you normally would. Then, when logged in to the test account, go to this URL"

That also seems quite clear to me: Create a test account Log in to the test account Click "Make <your name> a Test Account"

That being said, I do agree - this should have required more confirmation. This could have been avoided with a simple message box saying "Hold up, are you sure? <Your name> will no longer be a normal FB user. All <Your name's> friends will be deleted, and you will not be able to admin any apps. If you want a test account in addition to your normal account, you need to..."

While I'm sympathetic to that being your first parsing, it certainly seems a bit off to me.

For example, if you pressed a button saying "Make myran a Cake" you probably would expect it to give you a cake.

If it made you INTO a cake, you'd probably be in tiers. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

I'm not sure your example works because one would not normally expect a person to be turned into a cake, so the "give you a cake" reading is going to seem much more plausible.

If the button said "Make myran a genius", what would you expect to happen?

Like thalur says, the cake analogy is not entirely accurate, but you make a good point - the phrasing of the statement is ambiguous, and could be taken to mean two different things:

Convert <item> in to <an object> Create <an object> belonging to <item>

Given the ambiguity, FB should probably tweak the wording to make it as obvious as possible.

Off-topic, but I am always impressed with how people share differing viewpoints on HN. It actually feels like a "forum" in the original sense of the word, instead of a shouting match between warring egos with something to prove.

Here's a super-obvious fix: Facebook should show you what they're deleting.

It's easy to be confused about which user is currently signed in, even if you did create a new account you want to use for testing.

So FB should have an intermediary step that says: WARNING: you are setting this account to test mode. That will involve DELETING its links to 354 friends (list some of them), 23 pages (list some of them), 5 years worth of status updates, etc..

Or simply don't allow an account to be set to test mode if it has more than 2 friends or 5 status updates (etc... some reasonable test).

You can still clickjack it, can't you?

Probably not, because pages inside Facebook proper don't display inside frames. Despite some terrible failings with providing support to the human beings who use their services, they've got good engineers doing security. :)

If you linked to the page with the button itself, and labelled the link something like "go here to sign up for the beta test of {awesomeapp}", you would probably get a massive number of people clicking it.

Clever idea -- human engineering can get past any kind of software security.

But I don't want fix this problem for myself by dragging more people into the pain. Thanks for trying to help, though.

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