How $afe is your personal information?

How Safe is YOUR personal information? Protecting personal information today has become part of the "norm" for every day lives. (Or at least it should be.) There is a certain level of privacy we all give up each and every day with any of our online activities. Social networking for instance seems to have taken the place of personal meetings, having coffee with a friend, house parties and social gatherings of many sorts. With the click of a button you can determine what hundreds of friends and family members are doing each day; vacations are shared, births, deaths, marriages and ex-loves.

Americans value free expression but with it comes the risk of revealing personal information intentionally or unintentionally.
The article I have selected is "The role of security within social network. (Social News & Products).

Sites such as Face book are continuing to make changes to "secure" personal information to the extent that it is intended for but I feel that it is absolutely the users responsibility to be cognizant of their information first and foremost. I feel that as quickly as someone comes up with a new security measure, there is another individual coming up with a way to break into it. At the end of the day, it is still up to the end user to protect their information. Face book is a prime example of displaying seemingly harmless information that others can use to prey upon you. The next time you consider updating your profile or status consider the following:

• What can someone else do with this information?


• Who would you NOT want to read your post?


• How could you communicate this information differently?

Protect yourself, set profiles to private view only, limit personal information to people you know and only accept a friend request from someone you actually know well. (not your friend from summer camp when you were 10). It is a good idea to change your passwords and make them unique in nature. These are a few of the tactics I use to protect myself on the Internet.

While communicating online is a fast and easy way to connect with many, be aware of the risks involved if you are not cognizant and aware.

Reference:

The role of security within social networks. (March 2011) Software World, 42, 2. p25(1). Retrieved April 10, 2011, from general One File via Gale: security in social networking