Latest Posts

Boil the Frog Slowly: A Facebook Privacy Map

You are the frog and Facebook is the slowly boiling water. Here is an excellent visual representation of how your default Facebook Privacy Settings have changed over the years. If you want to see the interactive version, click on the picture below and it will take you to the website where you can click on the image year by year and watch your privacy erode. Essentially, the amount of blue on the chart is how much of your information Facebook is sharing with the outside world. Can you say boil the frog slowly?

I found this map in a revealing article on Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerburg published by The Register (U.K.).

The first source for the disturbing comments attributed to Zuckerburg were pointed out to me by my lead researcher, Liz. This article on Mr. Zuckerburg calling his first Facebook users dumbf*&%#$.  appeared on Gawker.com.

Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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CNN Article: Job-Seekers Hide Facebook Profiles

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Young job-seekers are hiding their Facebook pages.

In today’s economic climate, more and more individuals are searching for jobs. Many job-seekers are just beginning to realize that managers looking to hire them can easily Google their name to find Facebook profiles, tweet history and vast quantities of online information that they would probably rather keep a bit more private.  This is even more prevalent with recent college graduates who are entering the job market for the first time. With tough competition from so many qualified candidates, employers are turning to Facebook to help them sift through resumes. While some profiles are innocent, many have pictures, posts, and more that could possibly disqualify them from getting a job before they even walk into the interview. A new article by CNN discusses how more and more job-seekers are choosing to hide their Facebook profiles by changing their names (assuming an Alias, in spy terms) in order to keep a clean digital image of themselves on the web.

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Social Networking Safety – Travel

Identity theft and social networking speaker John Sileo discusses what you should and should not reveal through Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and other social networking sites while traveling. When you are away from home, identity creeps and other thieves can use this knowledge to take advantage of your home or office.

Be conscious of what you share on social networking sites and always remember that what you post is public, permanent and exploitable!

Order your copy of the Facebook Safety Survival Guide to make sure you and your children are protected online.

John Sileo became one of America’s leading Social Networking Speakers & sought after Identity Theft Expert after he lost his business and more than $300,000 to identity theft and data breach. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer and the FDIC. To learn more about having him speak at your next meeting or conference, contact him by email or on 800.258.8076.

Posted in Burning Questions (Video), Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy, Video Tips by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Facebook Privacy: Hide from Google

facebook_privacyThe New York Times recently published an article that discusses the severe changes Facebook has made to privacy settings. This is the last post on these changes and each post gives you details on how to manage these new settings so that you can gradually accumulate your Facebook Privacy.

What Can Google See? (Keep Your Data Off the Search Engines)

When you visit Facebook’s Search Settings page, a warning message pops up. Apparently, Facebook wants to clear the air about what info is being indexed by Google. The message reads:

There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile. They will still only see a basic set of information.

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Facebook Privacy: Your Personal Info

facebook_privacyThe New York Times recently published an article that discusses the severe changes Facebook has made to privacy settings. This is the second post on these changes and each post will give you details on how to manage these new settings so that you can gradually accumulate your Facebook Privacy.

Who Can See Your Personal Info?

Facebook has a section of your profile called “personal info,” but it only includes your interests, activities, and favorites. Other arguably more personal information is not encompassed by the “personal info” setting on Facebook’s Privacy Settings page. That other information includes things like your birthday, your religious and political views, and your relationship status.

After last month’s privacy changes, Facebook set the new defaults for this other information to viewable by either “Everyone” (for family and relationships, aka relationship status) or to “Friends of Friends” (birthday, religious and political views). Depending on your own preferences, you can update each of these fields as you see fit. However, we would bet that many will want to set these to “Only Friends” as well. To do so:

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Facebook Privacy: Videos, Photos and Status Updates

facebook_privacyThe New York Times recently published an article that discusses the severe changes Facebook has made to privacy settings. Each post will give you details on how to manage these new settings and I will break these three topics up so that you can gradually accumulate your Facebook Privacy.

Who Can See The Things You Share? (Status Updates, Photo, Videos, etc.)

Probably the most critical of the privacy changes was the change made to status updates. Although there’s now a button beneath the status update field that lets you select who can view any particular update, the new Facebook default for this setting is “Everyone.” And by everyone, they mean everyone.

If you accepted the new recommended settings then you voluntarily gave Facebook the right to share the information about the items you post with any user or application on the site. Depending on your search settings, you may have also given Facebook the right to share that information with search engines, too.

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Facebook Privacy: Know Your Settings

Understand the new Facebook homepage and know your settings.

The new layout of Facebook’s homepage had some major navigational and privacy setting changes. You may find it harder to find a link that used to be there or find new features that you haven’t seen, but there are some key components to the new Facebook Homepage. As Facebook illustrates in their new homepage tour, there are 6 core components of the new home page: requests and notifications, news feed, bookmarked applications, online friends, account privacy and settings, birthday and event reminders, and Facebook chat.

Facebook Settings

Take 5 minutes to view the facebook homepage tour and review your privacy settings. While these three settings are very critical, they’re by no means the only privacy settings worth a look. You may think these sorts of items aren’t worth your time now, the next time you lose out on a job because the hiring manager found some inappropriate pictures or saw something inappropriate a friend posted on your wall, you may have second thoughts. But why wait until after a storm to buy an umbrella?

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Facebook Privacy Policy: Zuckerberg Interview

Mark Zuckerberg Interview
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, was interviewed just last week by Mike Arrington, co-founder of TechCrunch. They discussed privacy and how Facebook is looking to move forward in the future. Zuckerberg made some really interesting comments on Facebook, but I think the most prevalent to Identity Theft would be what he said on the progression of information sharing.

“People have really gotten comfortable, not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people.”

Zuckerberg also said that when Facebook began most people thought: why would I put any information on the internet at all? Now most users don’t think twice about privacy before making posts. Due to the Privacy changes Facebook made in December, your name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, Friends List, and all the pages you subscribe to are now publicly available information on Facebook. Many people feel that this is a contradiction to what Zuckerberg had said before — that Facebook privacy controls are “the vector around which Facebook operates.” With more than 350 million users on Facebook, privacy is more important than ever.

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Facebook Exposes White House Party Crashers

Picture 6Tareq and Michaele Salahi — Washington socialites are not just known for their possible roles in the upcoming “The Real Housewives of Washington,” but for being seen arriving at the White House State Dinner. The problem was that they weren’t on the guest list, but managed to work their way inside what is supposed to be the most secure party.

The couple took to Facebook to document their party-crashing, and on Wednesday, Michaele Salahi’s Facebook page included photos of the couple at the dinner. The Salahis weren’t exposed until journalists caught sight of pictures showing the Salahis posing with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and others. In the aftermath, the security breach looked more like a publicity stunt than a security threat.  The Secret Service admitted that they did not verify at each checkpoint that this couple was on the invitation list. In other words, they missed the second cardinal rule of security, Verify.

Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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