Having Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace is great if you want people to find you. Well, that is, people you WANT to find you.
In a recent CNN article entitled “Fears of impostors increase on Facebook” warns that even though Facebook is a great place to reconnect with friends and family from all over the world, it is also a breeding ground for illegal activities. For instance, how do you really determine who someone says they are? Their name? Email? Location? If you supply and email address and a name, that’s all it takes to sign up on Facebook. 
Who you say you are…
I personally know two individuals who created Facebook accounts for people who are not themselves. One person didn’t really get around to creating a Facebook account so one of her friends created it for her and used her email address. Apparently all it took was a little nudge and voila! The second person I know created an alias account so that she could keep tabs on her pseudonym as she writes. That sounds weird, but it’s legit.
No, I’m Bryan…
Well, as reported on the CNN article, there is real threat to individuals who use social networks to keep in touch. But there should be some basic common sense you should have before you wire anyone money. I understand the need to address the concern, but if you are tricked into sending money blindly to an address, then, well you might deserve it.
Here are Five Best Tips for any Social Network:
5. Don’t ever give anyone your personal information. Even if you trust someone, the information you passed along can be copied and looked at if a hacker had a chance to look at your computer files (even from across the Internet).
4. The more information you have about yourself on the Internet the greater the chance for identity theft. It’s not to say that your information isn’t safe, but just have a general knowledge of what information you have out there.
3. Change your passwords frequently. Don’t use the same password you use for your credit cards as you would with your forum posts.
2. Create on email address (@yahoo, @gmail, or @hotmail) where you can send all your spam and “sign-up” emails too. Keep your .edu and @work.com email address safe.
1. It’s really worth repeating, never give your information out unless you know the website or the person 100%. I’ve had friends who go tricked into “signing into” a “facebook” looking page and his account was hacked and the account was used to trick more people. (You see his information was stored into a database and reused for more hacking).
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