What if your Facebook friend is actually a company or government agency?
Social networking is more than just Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. It’s about people connecting online and sharing their habits and intimate details with strangers.
Just as Farmville has built internet friends for millions of people, other online games fill the social networking niche for millions who may not be on Facebook or Twitter.
Blizzard’s World of Warcraft (WoW) had over 11 Million subscribers prior to their latest release, Wrath of the Lich King. Second Life built a player base just behind World of Warcraft (WoW).
Through personal connections built over months or artificially from experiencing adventures in the games, people get lulled into a comfort zone where they share extremely intimate details.
From the careless habits of users in all these sites, governments and law enforcement agencies from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) have set up operating procedures to maximize everything they can to be used against you.
Last year, police were able to arrest a drug dealer in December by tracking his login to the game World of Warcraft. He had an outstanding arrest warrant since 2007 and had fled to Canada. His friends and neighbors disclosed that Alfred Hightower was playing an online game. The officer in charge of the case knew immediately which game since he himself is on WoW. They were able to track the drug dealer to his exact location in Canada and had him extradited. Howard County sheriff located another fugitive simply by looking up his phone number on the web.
Binocular by Dia
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
George Orwell’s seminal book 1984 was deemed to be science fiction and not possible when he published it. However, now we are living that reality as ordinary citizens without being aware of our exposure and risks.
How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
George Orwell, 1984
Don’t think that monitoring social network sites is time intensive. There are numerous programs out there that companies can use to do so.
Technologies to monitor normal citizens with a push of a button are now commonplace. It is no longer science fiction. Check out the video below of a company’s software which allows all your personal information in every single social networking site to be automatically pulled and your private details exposed simply by looking at your face. That man who seems to be admiring you across the restaurant is actually checking your dossier.
Family Court
Law firms have standard procedures to search all social networking sites for data to document arguments in lawsuits and divorces. This has been very successfully used because the searches are not just on the parties involved but on all their friends and interactions. If you are looking for a higher alimony, Linkedin is going to be used against you. Your friends’ Twitter and Facebook gossip about you will be subpoena and used.
Government Agencies
Governments have had procedures to monitor undesirable activities for several years and companies such as Facebook are helping them.
Iranian activists were using Facebook to coordinate protests against the government. When Facebook switched the privacy toggle to automatic release, it exposed these Iranians to immediate risk of retaliation. Some participants are now at risk from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Many have “deleted” their Facebook profile but their information is still on the system and available to the government.
When someone decides to join a group in Facebook or express a like of an opinion or cause, Facebook immediately record this information and sends notice to anyone who might have interest. The company does this because it is promoting advertising services and sell their database information.
It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself-anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face…; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime…” –George Orwell, 1984
The Department of Justice sets this policy for the usage of Social Media:
Utility in Criminal Cases
Evidences from Social Networking sites can
- Reveal personal communication
- Establish motives and personal relationships
- Provide location information
- Prove and disprove alibis
- establish crime or criminal enterprises
Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
The IRS actually has training videos and sessions to teach agents how to use social media to conduct investigations on tax payers. In fact, interviews with the IRS provided the information that Facebook is one of the primary tools that they use for research. The IRS is using social media database just like any other marketer. The agency plans to mine the behavioral patterns of Americans and project what their behaviors toward tax paying will be. If interested you can read more about one of their strategic plans here.
Even law abiding citizens should be concerned about editing their personal information. Do you really want to be targeted because you decided to be a grass root activist in your community about some causes? Will that be misinterpreted as something un-American?
Social Media and networking electronically are here to stay. People enjoy the convenience and connections too much to stop. However, judicious pruning of the amount of information you share will give you some minimal protection. Just keep in mind that once it’s on the net, it’s there forever on a server somewhere. Deletion doesn’t truly exist on the internet.
© 2010 MoneyandRisk.com all rights reserved
Great tips about internet security. bottom line is, our information is out there and we need to be aware of how we spread that around. Every security system is always under firs by hackers. Makes you wonder sometimes, doesn’t it!?
Thanks so much for sharing these different ways to “find” you,
Val
Val,
Thank you so much for checking out my site. I had a wonderful time reading your inspirational articles.
I actually had one more article to post in this series about Social Media Risks but I am debating with myself, staff and friends about whether I would even publish it. It was supposed to be a cautionary article for women to protect themselves from stalking and scams but the information and techniques that I’ve compiled could actually be used as a road map. I’m not comfortable with the possibility that someone may abuse the information from those sources and they found it here.
Just to give you an example: We put in the name of one person who has worked hard for years to keep his information off the net because of privacy concerns. Using just one site, we were able to get his address, phone, family members, who lives in his house, their names (detailed personal information), all his relatives, where they lived, who lived with them, their personal financials, his income, his wealth, assets, his habits, hobbies, associations, organizations, all the places he had ever lived, and the list goes on. For free. With a small fee, you can get even more details. This all came from a simple search of two words, someone’s name.
That’s some real food for thought. It adds a bit of a sinister level to the whole Facebook privacy debate.
Andy,
Great to see you here. Thank you for your comment. The risk is much greater than people think.
I actually had quite a bit of creepiness when I watched Criminal Minds (American TV Show) last night and the plot featured a serial killer who used social networking to stalk and kill women.
I had already made a decision to not publish the last article about protecting yourself from stalkers because of the possible misuse of the information. It was very difficult to watch entertainment imitates life.
Your blog is great, Kim! You’re an excellent writer.
It was lovely to see your face at the end of the article! You should consider changing your BlogFrog profile image to your actual profile. You could always upgrade to a paid membership to get a screenshot of our blog to show along with your posts.
Your participation in the #31DBBB SITSGirls community has been outstanding! Thank you so much for all your support!
Thanks Lynda,
I didn’t know how to do the icons. The BF profile was done for me because the upload of my photo was too large. The photo on my site was hard coded in. I’ll call a photographer friend and ask her how to shrink the file. It’s either that or have someone take a photo of me with the cell phone and hope that it’s a small enough size. All the photos from my sister are massive files.
If you wanted to email me your photo, I can shrink it to a size acceptable for blog frog. Or, for a free service where you could resize your photo easily yourself, you might want to try Picnik.com