|
Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Spokane Public Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In
computer news this week
04/14 /2012 The downside of social networking – part 2
Last week I mentioned that today 1 out of 10 people on earth has a facebook page.
As of February 2012, Facebook
has more than 845 million active users That’s a lot of users. That’s a lot of information.
That’s a lot of personal information out there for the entire world to
see. In the old days, specifically my generation of aging
close-to-baby-boomers – the closest thing we had to a Facebook page was
a personal diary, and you guarded the information in it as a secret –
no one was ever supposed to look at it and it was your own personal journal
of your thoughts and activities. A Facebook page today is similar to a diary; with just one major
difference. Instead of being kept in a book hidden somewhere in your bedroom,
your Facebook page is online for the entire world to see. Most Facebook users give out information about themselves, their
age and marital status, where they live, what schools they attended, where
they work, what their spouse or children’s names are, what they like to
do and where they like to go, photos of themselves and their friends, and of
course the friend list which sometimes expands into the thousands. All
of this is personal information that you might not want to share with the
world. A few decades ago credit bureau companies would do
investigations of people for insurance reasons, trying to find out personal
information about people. If you applied for insurance, they would send an
insurance investigator into your neighborhood to ask your neighbors questions
about you. What kind of a person are you; do you drink a lot; do you party a
lot, who are your friends. Today these companies just need to look at your
facebook page not only to get most of this information, but to see your
current and future planned activities. Skiptracers,
debt collectors, bail bondsmen used to have to do a lot of footwork and
driving to get information on people. Now
they can just scan the Facebook pages by name. Identify thieves have found Facebook a treasure trove of
information. People commonly use the names of their children or pets or
schools they’ve graduated from as passwords. You can see it all on
Facebook. Another common banking logon question is where were you married, or
what’s the birthdate of your child. You can see it all on Facebook. Even criminals have Facebook pages. Over the past months
I’ve read stories about criminal activity here in Spokane in the
newspaper, and I could go to Facebook and find these people on Facebook and
see their pictures, their activities, and their friends. If the law was after
them you could almost predict what out-of-town friends they’d go to
hide out with. I’ve seen some TV ads from insurance companies telling
people not announce on their facebook pages that they’re going on
vacation for 3 weeks in the Bahamas. That’s just asking burglars to
come by, and you’d think people would realize this, but they
don’t. And all this is just basic information on most people’s
facebook pages. I’m looking at one of a friend of mine, and instantly I
can see where they work, where they went to college, high school, family members names and ages, their activities – movies
they like. I’m reading
this, but if I
want to capture this information - I can do 2 keystrokes and I
have an exact copy of their facebook page downloaded onto my computer. I could create a folder of their name,
and daily I could add new information to it. But I’ll bet someone’s already doing this, and
I’ll talk about this danger and others more next week. For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2012 MTA Micro Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbxmenu.html (509)624-7230 |
|
|
|
|
