How to be safe on the net?

[thir]

http://www.care2.com/causes/womens-r...nude-pictures/

"In a stark reminder that there is no such thing as security and privacy online, a man in California has plead guilty to gleaning personal information from women's facebook pages, using it to hack into their email and facebook accounts. He then searched for any sexually explicit photos and sent them to the women's contacts or posted them online."

How can you protect yourself? Or do we really have to accept the above conclusion, that there is no security or safety online?

[lucy]

How can you protect yourself? Or do we really have to accept the above conclusion, that there is no security or safety online?

Yup. I fully accept that conclusion. As soon as something is posted anywhere on ze interwebz, it's out in the open, pretty much for everyone to see.

[Thorne]

How can you protect yourself? Or do we really have to accept the above conclusion, that there is no security or safety online?

One good way is to never post anything personal online, anywhere. Especially photos that you don't want the world to see. Even supposedly secure emails can be hacked, and people you think you can trust can turn against you. You have to be responsible for your own security. Don't depend on some impersonal website to do it for you.

[leo9]

I was told right at the start "don't post anything online that you couldn't have mailed to your parents and your partner." But there are two obvious exceptions to that. One is that it wouldn't hurt me if my parents just said "Who is Leo9 and why should we care?" It is possible to keep your secrets in a separate compartment with no connections to your everyday identity, but it takes a whole lot more work than just clicking a box marked "Make my profile private": you have to have separate accounts that never contain anything that could identify you. Even then you could be backtracked through your host, but that involves the sort of effort used by law enforcement, or reporters on the trail of some really big story, not a casual troublemaker like the one in question.

And the other is that some of us are more exhibitionist than others . One of the reasons my ex-slave left was that she couldn't handle how open I was about my lifestyle. But I had to tighten up when one of the first conditions the Social Services demanded before they'd return my kid was that I stopped being indentifiable as a pervert online. Now he's too old for that to be a danger (and he'd probably think it was cool if I were outed to his peers as a bisexual slave-flogger,) I'm mostly restrained by not wanting to embarrass thir {HUG}.

[thir]

I'm mostly restrained by not wanting to embarrass thir {HUG}.

And I do appreciate it, thank you very much Sir!

And thank you for your answers, everybody.

[Thorne]

It is possible to keep your secrets in a separate compartment with no connections to your everyday identity, but it takes a whole lot more work than just clicking a box marked "Make my profile private":

Very true, and something I probably should have mentioned myself. Maintaining a nom de guerre (or a nom de réseau in this case) is a fairly simple way of staying private. Of course, posting identifying pictures of yourself, even using a pseudonym, is probably not a good idea, if privacy is your goal. And as you say, leo, even an alternate identity is not a guarantee. Just makes it harder for the casual pervert or family member to crack your identity.

[IAN 2411]

How can you protect yourself? Or do we really have to accept the above conclusion, that there is no security or safety online?

Yup. I fully accept that conclusion. As soon as something is posted anywhere on ze interwebz, it's out in the open, pretty much for everyone to see.

I have to agree with lucy on this one, if a boy of 16 can tap into NASA, and a boy of 14 can tap into American Defence, and a school boy in the UK can tap into the Nuclear Submarine base at Fars lane Scotland. Then what chance of the rest of us got? It is basic security to not post damaging information about yourself.

Regards IAN 2411{lillirose}

[Thorne]

I have to agree with lucy on this one, if a boy of 16 can tap into NASA, and a boy of 14 can tap into American Defence, and a school boy in the UK can tap into the Nuclear Submarine base at Fars lane Scotland. Then what chance of the rest of us got? It is basic security to not post damaging information about yourself.

I don't know how they do things in England, but here in the US the security is provided by the lowest bidder! You get what you pay for. And when you consider the added costs companies have to bill to cover the paperwork required by the government, chances are a small company can get better computer security for less money than the government pays.

Still, the idea of keeping yourself secure by using a little common sense and discretion is a good one.