Think before you type.....

[elretardo87]

Its always been a stupid idea to post your personal details on a publicly viewable forum, but nowadays with the increase of social networking sites, such as myspace; Bebo and Facebook, people seem to be forgetting this. These innocent pieces of information wriitten in blogs or even messages can lead to horrible incidents such as this, a case which could have been far worse if they had not been discussing their school trip and had been arranging a meeting in a more secluded place.

Although its not even just the sick net pervs you have to worry about now. The increase in use of social networking sites by gangs has also resulted in a greater level of monitoring by the authorities. Before it was difficult to trace exactly who was posting due to pseudonyms and the red tape required to trace an i.p beyond the general area, so follow ups for minor crimes were uncommon. Nowadays people use the same pseudonym across various platforms and the same emails to register to different forums. You may not be posting pictures of yourself on one platform but a quick google search can link the lot. For example throw my username into the search engine and you have a link to all the forums I am on under this name (I don't have a myspace), anyone could link any of my posts from any of these forums to create a fuller picture. Even more foolish are the people who put all there eggs in one basket like this chump, poisting your own face next to an admission that you are growing dope is ludicrous. I'm getting a bit muddled up but basically you ain't invincible and if I can find pictures of your face and link you to your account on here then the police sure as hell can to so be careful what you admit to. No crime is too small when you've given them directions to your house.

Finally you would think that aside from paedo's, perevrts, police and other haters your safe. If you think carefully and don't start posting pictures of massive piles of drugs or your scantiliy clad younger sister, sticking to what you did at the weekend etc, you would think you are safe. Well I'm afraid not, just posting about your fun time at a legal club could wind up with you losing out on a job. Facebook etc have become the latest stage in the interview process with employers often using them to sift through applicants to find out what goes on at home. Even schools and colleges have begun to make sure students are behaving in their extra curricular activities. If you give this article a read you'll find out a bit about how much it really matters. Nowadays the workplace is innundated with people with the skills required and employers have recognised this and are beginning to take more and more control over what you do outside work, with drugs tests and the like, so don't make the mistake of filling the internet with sordid stories of your weekends if your wanting to work your way up the economic ladder.

I'm not telling you to stop posting on here, quite the opposite I think that social networking are there for a purpose and forums serve another. Its great to keep up with old friends and find new ones over the internet and thats what networking sites were designed for but when you live our type of lifestyle on the fringes of legality keep it anonymous and between friends......like here.

[Angel]

Should be made a sticky..

Well written and make a lot of sense..

A must read

[globalloon]

Facebook etc have become the latest stage in the interview process with employers often using them to sift through applicants to find out what goes on at home.

how? only people who you grant access to your personal profile can see anymore than your name and 1 thumbnail photo

[LSDthisway]

im baffled :S
i didnt really say much detail..dont think many peeps can perv over me sayin about ''smoking few J's''

[General Lighting]

Originally posted by globalloon

how? only people who you grant access to your personal profile can see anymore than your name and 1 thumbnail photo

probably those with less security awareness befriending randoms, who subsequently turn out to be investigators from the employers / colleges / whatever and not being aware of what info these randoms can glean from the profile.

A bit of social engineering, dangling the carrot of a job/internship/college place (particularly for media/creative jobs) and I reckon it would be easy to get an ambitious youth to accept a friend request, yet not all of them will cleanse their profile of anything potentially "inappropriate"..

also I expect people are being blatantly grassed by their so-called "friends" if its within somewhere like a high school/college group where people fall in and out of friendships / relationships. A cut and paste of a link/picture to someone in authority and the damage is done within seconds...

There's also college administrators themselves setting up facebook groups to be "down with the yoof" and getting info that way.

Loads of my work colleagues and family are on facebook, that is why I don't use it, it can bring aspects of your life what you want to keep separate closer together than you wish..

And all the other social network sites like murdochspace and bebo are wide open, particularly if you know someones street name or what ends they are from / what party crews / social groups they hang around with

then there's youtube, I've found some rare videos of my mates totally trashed on youtube - funny stuff now but maybe not so good when they reach the time they want "proper jobs"

OK at the moment its more the Yanks doing the "pre-employment screening" but its starting to become popular over here as well...

[Angel]

We have to be careful in every aspect of life..

Don't think you can say Myspazz and bebo are terrible places where you have to be careful.

And then give people the false security and say that facebook is safe and you can post "everything" .. Some people do post everything

You have an option on myspace, that will prevent people who's not on your friends list to view your profile..

Everybody needs to be careful about where they put informations about themself..

Not only on the internet.

[Tank Girl]

I think its a bit mad how much info some people give out on their myspace / facebook profiles -

their mobile numbers / personal emaill addresses and address of where they work!!

and some 'work ' collegues will then link to me and say they know me throuhg work - and as I dont put any of my personal info up I have to ask them to change 'how they know me', as I have no 'controll' over what they write or I just delete them

my profiles are a limited as poss re: personal info / security to stop randoms looking at photo's etc now,
I know for a fact my boss is on myspace and has checked out all our profiles - and he wasnt too happy about people putting where they worked either....

[elretardo87]

Originally posted by globalloon

how? only people who you grant access to your personal profile can see anymore than your name and 1 thumbnail photo

It was really just a turn of phrase and was referring to networking sites in general although there is anoption to make your profile public on facebook. Also this happened recently, where if you din't have your profile set up correctly google could index your profile and it would be returned in a search.

[General Lighting]

Now I could post a lot of stuff about how a lot of places aren't encrypted, all the security risks on these sites etc..And also how if you surf from work your IT/networks people could grab all your data (although this is rare unless you work in some of the high tech industries where the IT staff are ruthless enough to do so)

but there's a far simpler risk to most people

• Will the friends you have today, still be your friends in 2 years or five years time?
• Do you all live in the same town/city? Do some of you work for the same big employer/s?
• What about the situation when two of you are competing for the same job?

Also when you are younger it may not seem like a big deal, but loads more places are starting to do lifestyle profiling before employing people. The difference between "then and now" is that your youthful lifestyle didn't leave an electronic footprint everywhere that can be followed unless you take adequate precautions (and even then people can still be traced).