Protect Yourself on Facebook

 

This UML diagram describes the domain of Faceb...
If there is one memorable feature of the early 21st century its surely the rise of the social media and specifically the almost meteoric ascent of Facebook.
For those of you who have been living in a cave for the last few years, Facebook is the social networking site that puts you in touch with friends and family.
While the singularly most popular of the Social Networks, eclipsing competitors like Myspace, its has been criticised for not putting in sufficient security to guard its users and the proliferation of third party applications, some poorly constructed and others downright dodgy, do little to help the situation for the average user. So here's a few tips, none of which require any technical or PC knowledge and are all more under the heading of common-sense.
1. Commit the following to memory: "NEVER PUT ANYTHING ON FACEBOOK THAT YOU WOULD NOT BE HAPPY TO SEE ON A WALL IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR TOWN CENTRE."
Facebook is a social network, its existence is based on how well it can be used to pass information from one person or group to another. Its not designed for secure one to one transmission of information, by its very nature it's there to pass information widely. Anything you say on the wall of a friend will be passed onto to anyone who shares a friendship relationship with you and the person you have written to.

2. TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT WHAT INFORMATION ON YOUR PROFILE AND ON YOUR WALL. What's wrong with this:

A good friend arrived on Facebook and immediately started posting. One of the things on their personal details was their address. Not a good start! They were running a small home business and needed the exposure.

All is well for a couple of months and then an amusing post saying that teen son was now permanently in his bedroom having received a PS3 for his birthday. Another four to five months pass the business is doing well and my friend announces to the world that she and her family are off on their first foreign holiday in years.

Now put it all together and you get the following.

a) an address.

b) the times that it will be empty and

c) the existence of at least one piece of expensive technology.

d) Possible cash from the business or disposal goods (stock)

Now unless my friends was absolutely confident about all her friends and anyone who might have had access to their PC and their skills in terms of not leaving FB pages open for others or friends of others and unless she was confident that anyone she had contacted for the business was completely honest, she could well return home to a burgled house and the loss of money, games machines and God knows what else?

3. THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS. Once you have accepted someone as your friend they will be able to access any information about you (including photographs) that you have marked as viewable by your friends. You can however remove friends at any time should you change your mind about someone.
You can choose to make people 'limited friends' who only have access to a cut-down version of your profile if you wish. This can be useful if you have associates who you do not wish to give full friend status to, or feel uncomfortable sharing personal information with.

4. ALL SINGING AND DANCING? MAYBE NOT! Think about how you want to use Facebook. If it's only to keep in touch with people and be able to contact them then maybe it's better to turn off the bells and whistles. It makes a lot of sense to disable an option until you have decided you do want and need it, rather than start with everything accessible. Lock your options down to friends only across the board.

5. THE THIRD PARTY PARTY. Facebook allows you to add extra third party
applications to your profile. These have a wide array of uses including giving you a weather forecast, allowing you to doodle graffiti on another person's wall, or telling people who your top friends are. Users should exercise care over which applications they add to their profile as information can be shared with the application's author.
Facebook has published terms of service to inform developers of what is and is not acceptable behaviour, but there is always the danger that people will abuse the information. Sophos, the security people had lots of useful information about how to protect yourself when using Facebook.
For the majority of items available to the FB user they recommend a privacy setting of “Only Friends” This reduces the chances of some information ending up in the wrong hands. There are probably lots of you out there thinking that they won't bother about this because they are not in any danger, but have a good look at your information and add it all up. Use the advice above and protect your social investment.
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