August 10th, 2010
The debate on privacy in the social space took another huge leap this past week. The Wall Street Journal’s ran an in-depth, investigative series titled, “What They Know.” The eye-pooping, jaw-dropping insights in the series (here, here and it continues here) left little doubt that your digital footprint is easier to track and identify than you might realize. But The Wall Street Journal has a big staff, time to investigate, and an editorial directive to find the story.
What could a person like me find out about, say, some people they met at recent networking events?
From a recent handful of business cards I gathered at a networking event, I poked around on social networking sites to see just what people reveal about them to the rest of the world – without cookies, spyware, or other data-gathering tricks. This was a simple search to see just how much I could learn about four people. What’s surprising is that I found a lot of details that I’m not certain these four folks know just how much they’ve put out there. Among the details, I learned:
- where they went to college
- where they went to high school
- how old they are
- where they live
- where they were born
- what nationality they are
- what religion they are
- everywhere they’ve ever worked
- how many kids they have (I even got to see photos and videos)
- what their spouses do for a living
- who they voted for in recent elections
- what their primary hobbies are
- what movies they had recently seen
- what bands/music they like
- what books they’ve read in recent months
- what restaurants they’ve been to in the last month
- and where they’re traveling to right now
Remember, this was just me, looking at public info they’ve posted on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others.
So what are you opening revealing about yourself? Perhaps more than you know.
Tags: digital footprint, facebook, LinkedIn, online privacy, privacy, privacy concerns, security, social footprint, social media, social networks, twitter, YouTube
Posted in privacy, small business | 1 Comment »
May 29th, 2009
(Part 3) The Darker of Social Media: Malicious Intent
Just how much are you giving away through social media?
One of the easiest ways to compromise your computer's security is through social media applications.
Most of you know by now how beneficial social media can be in reaching your audience or listening to the conversation about your brand. You probably also know how much time it can take to do it right. Or how much time your employees will waste once they get sucked into Facebook and Twitter. Nevertheless, what most of us don’t realize is that there are critical security and privacy concerns that go along with the open, personal nature of social networking.
Finally, the most serious of consequences of the open nature of social media is when the first two problems (trust and authenticity, see our previous blogs) are combined with actual malicious intent. You can control your own information flow and you can be diligent in your efforts to establish explicit trust with people in your network, but social media applications are vulnerable to malware that security companies do not even fully comprehend yet. For example, Facebook has been hit time and again by malicious Facebook applications that run within the system to spam your friend and spread like viruses. Facebook applications also require you to allow access to private data in your profile, potentially giving away sensitive info to malicious people. Twitter has had it’s own share of worms – usually under the guise of helping you build followers – that hijack an identity and post messages under your identity.
In social media spheres where you are trying to build a brand and control your message, don’t take risks. Don’t install Facebook applications – even for ‘good causes’ or ‘games’ unless you trust the source of the application, not the invitation, 100%, and don’t friend someone you don’t know or a site with which you are unfamiliar. It’s easy for someone to create forged or confusingly similar profiles on Twitter or Friendster or other sites where they have the opportunity to damage your brand or steal your customers.
As with any security issue, you must stay on the social media offensive to ensure that it’s you that is controlling your message and that the trust in your social media is explicit.
Tags: applications, facebook, malware, security, social media, twitter
Posted in social media | No Comments »
