Disclaimer: Accessing social networking sites from a corporate network with VPN is a security breach and may result in legal action. But this policy can be broken with hidden approval and unofficial support :-). Check this feature at your own risk and in no way, I would be held responsible for any of your lawsuits.
Last night, my brother finished browsing and I logged onto Facebook. After clicking the login button, I got a warning message saying: You are signing in from a location we're not familiar with. For your protection, please take a moment to answer a few security questions. Then, I realized my brother had forgotten to disconnect the UK VPN which he was using for awhile. I closed the browser and started the screen-recording application, Camstudio. With my brother’s permission (At his own risk. Hope he doesn't read this post.), I signed into facebook with the VPN connection.
After logging in, the URL pointed to Roadblock and the screen indicated a 4-step security check. After the Captcha verification, the screen displayed a warning: To pass, you cannot get any answers wrong. If you aren't sure about a question, please skip it. You can only skip 2 questions.
- The first photo was one of my ex-colleagues
- The second photo was one of my school mates
- The third photo was also one of my ex-colleagues
- The fourth photo confused me a bit. I thought of skipping, but after scrolling down, I found him to be my school mate
- The fifth photo didn’t load for a long time and I pressed the skip button
- The sixth photo was my boss. After correctly answering 5 questions, I was not prompted to take the 7th question
Now, the security check got over and I got a thank you message saying my account was successfully restored.
I googled for this feature and found someone who couldn't login because of this feature. Those who have gone abroad and accessed facebook would have been very much surprised by this feature.The facebook’s security feature clearly gives a different perspective of implementing security. This incident reminds me of one of my ex-colleague’s session on the difference between a Programmer and a Developer. I feel I am a programmer yearning to become a Developer :-)
PS: Due to the encoding done by the hosting site (Viddler), the video will be a bit blurred. As I recorded the video in a wide-screen flat monitor, please change your screen resolution to 1280 by 1024, if you feel the video quality is not good.
Edit: The video got deleted.
Edit: The video got deleted.
Hey! Good observation, Actually it happened to me also, daily i browse FB from same office laptop as we don't have web-sense in office(I use VPN for client supp in it). But only one day i came across this screens. I thought,i might have typed wrong password, And it never happed again.
ReplyDeleteNow i understood, Actually it was fist time i opened FB for with VPN ON, After reading your blog i tried again with VPN its not asking(As FB might be familiar by now).
Anyways its interesting security feature by FB. i appreciate your observation Bala.
@Ramu: Yes, you are right. This security check is one time alone for a specific location. Please check with another VPN in a different location like UK or some other country, you will be prompted again. I tried with US and UK and got those screens. Thanks! for your compliment :-)
ReplyDelete@Maria: Thanks! for your feedback. I will add Ads after some time.
ReplyDeleteMy account was given this same treatment though I did not login to FB while using VPN. However, since having 1500 friends on FB has rendered me helpless in identifying the photos of my "friends". You see most of them are just my friends for games like MW!!
ReplyDeleteSo FB verification sucks bigtime!!! Now I dont have access to FB. It's good in a way too!
@Anonymous: I feel sorry for your situation. But, having 1500 friends is too much. Hope you get back your account. :-)
ReplyDeletemy security check has 5 steps and it hangs on step 3 and clicking on any thing doesnot work
ReplyDeleteHELP ME!!