How your private photos Facebook can be made public

A few months back we discussed Facebook photo album privacy settings and how you can make sure your bosses don't see those Christmas party shots, for instance. And a few days ago we explained what content is viewable when you are logged out, including photos.

But there are still a couple of ways in which your photo albums - and your friends' pics - can be seen by people outside your immediate circle (including ones who refuse to join Facebook) regardless of privacy settings. You would think that if you set your album to be viewed only by 'friends' that no one else could see them.

This isn't necessarily true.

Unique album URL method:
When logged in and viewing your photos, there's a special album URL (web address) displayed at the bottom of the screen. It takes the form (where the Xs represent random numbers/letters):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=xxxxx&l=xxxxxx&id=YOURFACEBOOKIDNUMBER

This is a unique URL and if people don't know it they won't be able to access your album (there was a loophole last year, now fixed, that allowed people to easily circumvent this by guessing the string of characters the Xs represented). However, anyone who has the URL will be able to view the album even if they aren't on Facebook -- yes, even if you only wanted friends to view the album. So, if you email an album's address to 20 mates and they send it to all their friends, a lot more people than you intended could be viewing the album.

So, before we send that unique URL to our friends, we will consider who else might be told about it and the implications not only for ourselves, but for our friends.

Image URL method:
Go to anyone's album and click on an image thumbnail. Right-click the image and choose to copy the image's URL. You can paste the address (ctrl+V) into the address bar and view it even when logged out. You can also embed the image so it appears on other websites.

Oh, and here's a little 'Easter egg' - delete everything up to any forward slash in the image's URL, and you get this guy wearing a "Little Celtics Fan" bib. Now what's all that about?