Potential employers will be Googling you, so you'd better do so yourself to see what they'll be seeing. If you're horrified by it, here are some ways to improve those results, and make sure there's nothing employer-repellent in the search results in the first place. http://www.productivity501.com/your-online-footprint/8419/
From: Neat New Stuff I Found This Week http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2009.
Wired’s How-To-Wiki has a detailed tutorial explaining Facebook’s privacy settings and how to Make Your Facebook Account Private. The article has detailed instructions and screenshots for locking down your profile. I would also suggest creating Friends Lists and using those to limit who sees particular status updates and photo albums.
via iLibrarian blog
By: Chris Jay Hoofnagle
University of California, Berkeley – School of Law, Berkeley Center for
Law & Technology
Jennifer King
UC Berkeley School of Information; Berkeley Center for Law &
Technology
Su Li
University of California, Berkeley- School of Law, Center for the Study
of Law and Society
Joseph Turow
University of Pennsylvania – Annenberg School for Communication
Media reports teem with stories of young people posting salacious photos online, writing about alcohol-fueled misdeeds on social networking sites, and publicizing other ill-considered escapades that may haunt them in the future. These anecdotes are interpreted as representing a generation-wide shift in attitude toward information privacy. Many commentators therefore claim that young people “are less concerned with maintaining privacy than older people are.” Surprisingly, though, few empirical investigations have explored the privacy attitudes of young adults. This report is among the first quantitative studies evaluating young adults’ attitudes. It demonstrates that the picture is more nuanced than portrayed in the popular media.
[Snip]
A gap in privacy knowledge provides one explanation for the apparent license with which the young behave online. 42 percent of young Americans answered all of our five online privacy questions incorrectly. 88 percent answered only two or fewer correctly. The problem is even more pronounced when presented with offline privacy issues – post hoc analysis showed that young Americans were more likely to answer no questions correctly than any other age group.
From Resourceshelf
Jan 28th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
IF THERE is one thing that could halt the ascent of social networks, it is the vexed question of privacy. This is controversial because it goes right to the heart of the social-networking business model. In order to attract users, sites need to offer ways for members to restrict the information about themselves that gets shared with a wider public. Without effective controls people would be reluctant to sign up. But if a site allows members to keep too much of their information private, there will be less traffic that can be turned into profit through advertising and various other means, so the network’s business will suffer... More
Nick O’Neill at All Facebook discusses 10 New Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know. These are essential tips, many of which I use myself. In this article you will learn to:
University of Waterloo, Ontario researchers have developed FaceCloak, a browser plug-in that shields social network users’ private data from both malicious users and social network providers. Waterloo professor Urs Hengartner says the plug-in replaces sensitive information in a user’s profile with news feeds and meaningless text that can only be unscrambled by trusted friends and contacts. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) professor Alessandro Acquisti says most users are unaware of the privacy implications of posting personal information on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
Much more in the full article.
Source: Technology Review (via ACM News)
Related to today’s theme of controlling your online information, here’s a post by Stan Schroeder at Mashable about how to backup your data on all of the Google properties. HOW TO: Take Your Data Back From Google’s Claws provides a practical guide to creating backup copies of your content on the following websites:
Nick O’Neill at AllFacebook creates an effective how-to guide for protecting your privacy on the social networking giant in 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know. Readers will learn how to take the following steps in order to control access to their information:
Many sites are blocked in some countries - if you are located in the USA, you are probably unfamiliar with this problem (unless you are trying to figure out how to access blocked websites when at work, which I am sure you aren’t).
Or you just want to access a site anonymously (to prevent your IP address from being tracked or protect yourself from from online spying, phishing and pharming). Anyway, no matter what your reasons are, this week’s toolkit is dedicated to bypassing website access restrictions:
Guide to Bluetooth Security (PDF; 3.9 MB)
Source: National Institute for Standards and Technology
To improve the security of Bluetooth implementations, organizations should implement the following recommendations:
Organizations should use the strongest Bluetooth security mode available for their Bluetooth devices.
The Bluetooth specifications define four security modes, and each version of Bluetooth supports some, but not all, of these modes. The modes vary primarily by how well they protect Bluetooth communications from potential attack. Security Mode 3 is considered the strongest mode because it requires authentication and encryption to be established before the Bluetooth physical link is completely established. Security Modes 2 and 4 also use authentication and encryption, but only after the Bluetooth physical link has already been fully established and logical channels partially established. Security Mode 1 provides no security functionality. The available modes vary based on the Bluetooth specification versions of both devices, so organizations should choose the most secure mode available for each case.
Organizations using Bluetooth technology should address Bluetooth technology in their security policies and change default settings of Bluetooth devices to reflect the policies.
A security policy that defines requirements for Bluetooth security is the foundation for all other Bluetooth-related countermeasures. The policy should include a list of approved uses for Bluetooth, a list of the types of information that may be transferred over Bluetooth networks, and requirements for selecting and using Bluetooth personal identification numbers (PIN). After establishing Bluetooth security policy, organizations should ensure that Bluetooth devices’ default settings are reviewed and changed as needed so that they comply with the security policy requirements. For example, a typical requirement is that unneeded Bluetooth profiles and services be disabled to reduce the number of vulnerabilities that attackers could attempt to exploit. When available, a centralized security policy management approach should be used to ensure device configurations are compliant.
Organizations should ensure that their Bluetooth users are made aware of their security-related responsibilities regarding Bluetooth use.
A security awareness program helps users to follow security practices that help prevent security incidents. For example, users should be provided with a list of precautionary measures they should take to better protect handheld Bluetooth devices from theft. Users should also be made aware of other actions to take involving Bluetooth device security, such as ensuring that Bluetooth devices are turned off when they are not needed to minimize exposure to malicious activities, and performing Bluetooth device pairing as infrequently as possible and ideally in a physically secure area where attackers cannot observe key entry and eavesdrop on Bluetooth pairing-related communications.
Permalink Docuticker
First, a Q&A-style interview with the Beeb.
The creator of the web, Tim Berners-Lee, answers questions about the future of the web, social networking and personal privacy online.
The BBC has a second story about Sir Tim’s views on Internet privacy and how he rejects net tracking.
The creator of the web has said consumers need to be protected against systems which can track their activity on the internet.
Source: BBC
Permalink Resourceshelf
There have been quite a few articles, reports, and blog posts about the subject of online privacy recently, many of which focus specifically on Facebook and social networks, others on the Web as a whole. Here are several of the latest writings on the topic:
Facebook and the price of user privacy
ZDNet
Mixed signals on privacy concerns: Internet users say they want to protect personal data, then share it with total strangers.
The Mercury News
Privacy Implications of Fast, Mobile Internet Access
Pew Internet & American Life Report
Clive Thompson on the Age of Microcelebrity: Why Everyone’s a Little Brad Pitt
Wired
The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet
Daniel J. Solove: Yale University Press (2007) (Full Text Available here)
Your Guide to Online Privacy
MediaShift
Does Privacy Matter to Most Facebook Users? Let’s look at some data
comScore
Should We Assume There Is No Privacy Online? Have Widgets Killed Privacy?
CenterNetworks