Internet Safety: Facebook

The more I explore on technology, the scary it gets. There are folks out there that just love to harvest personal information. In some cases, it could be as simple as just wanting to sell you something. In extreme cases it reminds me of a training I attended with a police officer in Adams County that shared a story of a sting operation of an on-line predator.

They were able to draw him in, catch him and get him off of the streets, and then when they got their search warrants, discovered that he had pictures of female athletes cut out from the papers and circled in red. You just have to wonder why.

We are trying to limit some of these potential problems as we move into this century by utilizing technology more. We can do what we can do, but it falls into the laps of us parents. We are the ones that need to protect our kids and homes from these predators that look for the open doors. Doors that we are responsible for keeping closed and our families protected.

Here is one example: Facebook

What are privacy settings? Do you know how to access them and set them for security?

Do you know that if you have your settings set that friends of friends can see your information, that practically anyone can get your information?

How does Facebook make money if it is a free service to use? You know all of that personal information you put in even though you think it is totally private...you wonder what and how it can be used?

Consumer Reports June 2010 Page 26 has a great little article entitled: Facebook alert: 7 privacy risks to stop taking. Subtopics include:

• Using weak passwords
• Leaving your full birthday in your profile
• Overlooking useful privacy controls
• Posting your child's name in a caption
• Mentioning when you'll be away
• Letting search engines find you
• permitting youngsters to use Facebook unsupervised

Do your research. Think privacy and security. I am sure you could look at this list and identify something that you need to change. I have and I am very concerned about these matters.

Would you let your doors unlocked while you were away? Would you let your kids in home alone with the doors unlocked? I would bet that you wouldn't. So why not take the extra step and secure yourself.