Be-friend at Own Risk: On-line and off-line

December 9, 2009 by Terry.

Social media sites have their level of security choices built-in, OR NOT, that registered users can select from!

Facebook also comes with privacy tools, and Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the social networking site, urges people to use them.  Even on LinkedIn I am reminding those I am connected with to NOT show their birthday [even if it is just the month and day].

In an article on the CNET website, Don Reisinger says younger users of Facebook are particularly liberal with sharing personal, job-related, or school information to their Facebook ‘friends.’ Reisinger cites a study by security firm Sophos, which found that 41 to 46 percent of the 100 Facebook users contacted “blindly accepted” friend requests from two fake users the firm created for the study.

“Half of all the users Sophos befriended displayed the town or suburb where they live,” he writes. “They even offered up information on family and friends.”

10 years ago it might have taken a con-artist or identity thief weeks, and even a private investigator, to find out the sort of non-public personal information [NPPI] people now willingly share on Facebook, according to a Sophos blog.

Facebook has announced it is forming a safety advisory board to address these and other Internet safety issues.

To read the CNET article, please click here:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10410257-2.html

Facebook isn’t the only place to be careful.  There is MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, Genealogy/Reunion sites, focus/interest group sites, military buddies sites, …

Just think twice before clicking the button to display personal or private information that you would not share with a stranger walking up to you out in public.

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