My best past time every night is to sit with my laptop and browse through the emails ending up with the new messages and scraps being posted on my scrap book. Like many can I ever hold the temptation of going through the updates displayed by my friends on their respective facebook, myspace and orkut accounts?
Social networking sites have become very popular these days for the easily available accessibility to making connections to lost old friends and their whereabouts .I bet everyone has an account on either orkut , facebook, classmates, reunion ….
But sometimes it makes me wonder if so much of information is safe enough to be displayed online ?I know now you would say that there are security or Privacy settings but there could be exceptions.
I have personally known instances where anyone can actually right click on the photos displayed on any of the albums and save them. There are people with different psych .The Testimonials and other feeds on orkut can be sufficient enough to give adequate details of a person, if not locked .More than that some people enjoy reading through the scrap book of others just to keep a track about the events of their friends. You might not be aware of this fact and might also not think about deleting the so called 1000th scrap displayed , to your friends on your orkut account but be informed that if you do read them from the 1st to the 1000th scrap they are good enough to tell everything that you did or happened to you since last 1 year. Isn’t that a good information to feed any curious mind?
So now is the time to rethink “Privacy”..
There are hackers who send links as messages and catch hold of passwords and usernames ,making these social networking sites to be the hotbeds of cyber crimes.
Recently the yahoo news said that “Privacy advocates slammed revamped Facebook privacy controls on Thursday, saying the change masks a move to get members to expose more information online.
"It's great that 350 million people are being asked to think about privacy, but if what Facebook says is true about giving people more control over their information, they have a lot more work to do."
The good thing is that atleast this time facebook is going to ask the users to set the privacy of their photos, feeds , scraps or messages individually.
While the Names, profile pictures and claimed home cities are public, so people can find friends, colleagues, and other acquaintances they want to connect with in the online community, according to Facebook.
I now wonder is it not sharing more of the personal information of the users this way?
On the contrary as a helpful step ahead , recently a Wall Street Journal article said that Facebook and MySpace, 13 more social-networking sites - including ones owned by Google Inc. (GOOG), Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) and AOL Inc. (AOL) - will remove New York sex offenders from their rolls by using e-STOP.
Facebook and myspace had removed 3500 sex offenders from their site. "The country's most popular social networking sites have taken an important step in making the Internet safer by using e-STOP .
We have teenagers and youngsters hooked up to the internet and it is our duty to make them realize the pros and cons of sharing on the web.
It is always better to “be safe than sorry”, be vigilant about your virtual image and identity because information is power and once it leaks out you cannot have it come back to you ,unless you want it to be that way.
Source :
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091211/tc_afp/usitcompanyprivacyinternetfacebook_20091211033403
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091210-711473.html
AN EYE OPENER TALK
The article is explicit with a caring attitude and simply convincing .It is universally true and well said -'prevention is better than cure'.Kudos to the writer.
Just a reply
Once someone travels in a Paris subway and gets his wallet flinched, s/he can either decide on not getting on the subway ever (and take cabs) or just be cautious (not over cautious) and take life as it comes. One cannot always be too careful - shit happens, its all about the duality of life - the good and the bad, honor and dishonor, war and peace - go together. Life is about taking a little bit of risk despite the inconveniences. Its tempting to drift to an extreme (the leftist Vs the rightist) but the idea is about balance. You do what you got to do. Life is all about balance.
The Tussle is within....
Probably these websites or the social networking site I am presently hooked onto makes me feel special. makes me feel as if I am a celebrity. 29 Fans in 89 frnds makes me feel special yet again. What I personally feel is, we are all in some kind of a trap...... IDENTITY CRISIS. We tend to forget the real world and make the virtual rooms / virtual frnds / virtual communities / virtual agitations / virtual votings //// resulting to a life that's equally virtual.
On the contrary teenagers should indulge in physical activities, playgrounds, I still remember my childhood, when we used to rush to the playground bare footed, with 3 cricket wickets pressed underarms, bat in the hands and tossing the corket ball. Today I seldom see my son involved with his friends in the playground. Everyone seems to be in a hurry to get back to the Internet. Its an EPIDEMIC slowly narrowing the world but creating distances within hearts.
We talk of social networking, I would challenge if one person comes forward and talks about the network bonding he / she has with his / her family members.
The author has rightly pointed out the need to secure the imformation. I would like ask here.... What is the need to share such sensitive informarion with people whom you know so well. Dont they know about u??? and what is the need to share information with people whom you don not know properly?
Prevention is always better than cure...
isnt it??
..Identity theft is the biggest challenge
Just to add up ..There is an option on orkut where people are tagged and same photos are shared by two people having a different set of contacts.These can lead to a lot more people accessing them with names on them.So its always better if they are locked by both the parties.
A good one
I totally agree with the author. It's better to be safe than sorry! We should be very careful about the information or the pictures that we are putting on these social networking sites.
I'll share a story here, a true one!
A guy who had a divorce recently was looking through a dating website, suddenly he saw a profile with his ex-wife's picture on it. So he was schocked to see that his ex wife was also looking for someone! and he started talking to the lady and asked her to meet him. He didn't give out his real identity thinking that his ex wife would know what's going on!And he sets up an appointment and he was all ready to face his ex wife...but guess what! it was a different female altogether and she just casually said "Oh my profile picture?? I just used someone else's"
Soo..just be CAREFUL! it's actually very easy to save the pictures from these social networking sites.
Thanks to the author for bringing up this topic.