Social Networking: Are You Giving People Too Much Information?
We all know that social networking has become huge over the last few years, but are some people taking too much of a risk with the new friends, fans, and followers they accept? Is the information that they make public more useful to some people than they might think? Most people who go online are fairly sensible.
They probably wouldn't tell passersby what they're planning to do during the day, and they certainly wouldn't tell them where they live so that they could take advantage of that information, yet people do it every day on social networking sites.
How often have you been on an amazing holiday and had to tell everyone on a social networking site all about it, as it was happening? That's the whole point about these kinds of sites, isn't it? You can share things with people as they're actually happening.
But do you really know all that much about many of the people you're sharing this information with? There has always been a certain level of sophistication with your average criminal, and it won't have slipped their attention that people on the internet tend to do a lot of things that they wouldn't do normally, such as giving out personal information, and this is something that they can quite easily use.
Forget, for a moment, the things you may have seen on TV or in the movies about people hacking into accounts and taking over someone else's life; instead just think about what you may have been saying online.
A bit worrying, isn't it? I don't mean some of the things you may have been saying about other people, just think about some of the "innocent" information you've been sharing with people.
A lot of users of social networking sites will accept people that they don't even know into their friends or fans lists, so how do they know they can trust them? A number of stories have started to come to light that have made it clear that some of these so called "friends" are waiting until they know that people are definitely out of the house, and then going off to rob them.
You really don't have to be a genius to be able to work out where someone lives, and then visit them when you know they're posting comments about how wonderful it is to be away from home on holiday; it takes all of the guess work out of it for the burglar.
So, don't just shrug off the warnings you're given about being online, and don't think that because you have 20,000 friends that all of them are your friend because of your wit, charm, and sparkling personality, some people have a far more profitable reason for being your friend.
Take the necessary precautions of not giving out too much information about yourself, and never give them a clue as to when your house is going to be empty.
If you follow just those few small tips then you should be able to enjoy a safer experience when using social networking sites.
They probably wouldn't tell passersby what they're planning to do during the day, and they certainly wouldn't tell them where they live so that they could take advantage of that information, yet people do it every day on social networking sites.
How often have you been on an amazing holiday and had to tell everyone on a social networking site all about it, as it was happening? That's the whole point about these kinds of sites, isn't it? You can share things with people as they're actually happening.
But do you really know all that much about many of the people you're sharing this information with? There has always been a certain level of sophistication with your average criminal, and it won't have slipped their attention that people on the internet tend to do a lot of things that they wouldn't do normally, such as giving out personal information, and this is something that they can quite easily use.
Forget, for a moment, the things you may have seen on TV or in the movies about people hacking into accounts and taking over someone else's life; instead just think about what you may have been saying online.
A bit worrying, isn't it? I don't mean some of the things you may have been saying about other people, just think about some of the "innocent" information you've been sharing with people.
A lot of users of social networking sites will accept people that they don't even know into their friends or fans lists, so how do they know they can trust them? A number of stories have started to come to light that have made it clear that some of these so called "friends" are waiting until they know that people are definitely out of the house, and then going off to rob them.
You really don't have to be a genius to be able to work out where someone lives, and then visit them when you know they're posting comments about how wonderful it is to be away from home on holiday; it takes all of the guess work out of it for the burglar.
So, don't just shrug off the warnings you're given about being online, and don't think that because you have 20,000 friends that all of them are your friend because of your wit, charm, and sparkling personality, some people have a far more profitable reason for being your friend.
Take the necessary precautions of not giving out too much information about yourself, and never give them a clue as to when your house is going to be empty.
If you follow just those few small tips then you should be able to enjoy a safer experience when using social networking sites.