Facebook is only safe if you make it that way ... here's how
By Donovan Hoggan
Dark Reading (www.darkreading.com) has a list of their “Top Four Social Engineers of All Time”. These are people who have become experts at conning other people. Two, Kevin David Mitnick and Frank Abagnale, have criminal pasts. Frank Abagnale was the subject of the movie Catch me if You Can. The third is a consultant who simulates criminal attacks so that companies can shore up their security.
So who’s the fourth? The unanimous choice for the Number One position is Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook. He has managed to lure 400 million people into divulging the secrets of their lives including compromising pictures, when they will be leaving their homes unprotected, many of their behaviours and preferences and a host of others. This at a time when awareness of identity theft is at an all-time high.
Then he has sold this information for millions of dollars to thousands of different vendors. And the most amazing accomplishment is that he’s done all of this LEGALLY. If you look at the rest of Dark Reading’s list, two are former criminals and one plays the role of a criminal. Normally, crime would be the only way to get the sort of information. Zuckerman has not only been able to get it, but he’s managed to convince people to GIVE it to him.
Does this mean I hate Facebook? No, it doesn’t. I even have a profile. It does mean, though, that I think it has some dangers. Just be aware of them.
There are some great resources out there that will help you. When I decided to protect my virtual self, my first stop was Facebook’s own Privacy Guide at www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation.php. They give a really good introduction, explaining the various settings and what they mean.
For my next step, I turned to a writer named Angela Alcorn. She has a great on-line book called “The (Very) Unofficial Facebook Privacy Manual”. It’s available at either makeuseof.com or on Angela’s blog at netsavoir.com. This one is very detailed, but very easy to read.
Another resource I used can be found at www.reclaimprivacy.org. It gives you a scanner that will run through your settings and identify potential vulnerabilities. Even after I locked down my settings, it still identified two areas of concern and, once I told it to, fixed them. It’s a little buggy and not as polished as it could be, but still very revealing.
I think all of the advice boils down to two things. First, manage your privacy settings. If you look under Account and then Privacy, you can quite a bit of control over what shows up to whom. One hint I didn’t realize is the “Custom” setting. This gives you a menu with choices that include selecting “Only Specific People” or “Only Me.”
My second piece of advice is, by far, the most effective for protecting yourself. Consider that anything you put on Facebook is open to the world. Your birthdate (feel free to lie when you set up your account), those pictures from that wild bachelor/ bachelorette party last week, and everything else on your profile either is public or may find itself public.
Facebook’s raison d’etre is to share information. They are constantly changing the features and capacities of the service and those changes do not always prioritize users’ privacy the way some of us would like them to. Be conservative with your privacy settings and assume that anything on Facebook is public info. These two steps will go a long way to protecting your real self from any damage being done by your virtual self. Ed Note: While I think this is a terrific article, I think there’s one critical point not made within it, that I’m now going to make myself. Any care and caution you exercise on your own behalf regarding Facebook should be amplified a thousandfold when your kids use Facebook. While it’s a fun means to keep in touch with family and friends, and to feel “plugged in” to your social network, it’s also a favoured weapon for bullies and almost an online catalogue for pedophiles. If your child is young enough to still live with you, he/she is young enough to have Facebook activity monitored. I’ve had parents tell me, “Oh, I could never snoop on my child’s Facebook account – it would be like going through her dresser drawers.” Well, perhaps …but only if the entire planet has access to her dresser …only if every pedophile in North America can enter her room through her dresser drawers. It’s like any tool – the more powerful its potential for good, the more powerful its potential for harm. Staysharp knives are great for chopping vegetables, but you wouldn’t let your toddler play with one. Facebook is the Internet equivalent of a loaded gun. So ask yourself this: Do you really want your kids playing with a loaded gun unsupervised?
