Social Media Means
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Can someone unfriend you when your account is deactivated?

When account holders deactivate their accounts, they "become invisible." They no longer appear on others' lists of friends, nor can others "unfriend" them.

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In their research paper, "Your Facebook Deactivated Friend or a Cloaked Spy?," University College London computer-science student Shah Mahmood and UCL's chair of information communication technology, Yvo Desmedt, highlighted what they called a "zero-day privacy loophole." It enables a person to deactivate his own account and then later, upon reactivating the account and shedding his privacy "cloak," to quickly view his friends' profiles before disappearing into the darkness again. The loophole takes advantage of the lengthy and complicated process of getting rid of a Facebook account. The social network persuades many would-be exiles to take only the half-step of deactivating their accounts, in effect putting the accounts into hibernation instead of deleting them altogether. "As deactivation is temporary in Facebook, the attacker can reactivate her account as she pleases and repeat the process of activating and deactivating" over and over, the research team explained. "This deactivated friend — i.e., the attacker — may later reactivate the account and crawl her victims' profiles for any updated information. Once the crawling has finished, the attacker will deactivate again." The concept behind the exploit is akin to the cloaking method used in "Star Trek," the researchers said, "where Badass Blink or Jem'Hadar has to uncloak (be visible), even if only for a moment, to open fire." When account holders deactivate their accounts, they "become invisible." They no longer appear on others' lists of friends, nor can others "unfriend" them. And, as the paper notes, "Facebook provides no notification about the activation or deactivation of friends to its users."

Who can see you?

The loophole exploited by the "deactivation attack" becomes particularly worrisome if you consider who may be taking advantage of it. Because the perpetrator may only reactivate his account for a very brief period of time, the attack is also difficult to detect.

Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.

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