With our Blog we try and provide information to college students that we wish we knew way back then. We also try and help you stay safe in all of your internet endeavors. We tried to show you how to download safe in our article about music piracy. Now I want to try and stress the importance of your privacy settings on all of the social networking sites you use.
After reading an article from ecampusnews.com about a new website called PleaseRobMe.com, I needed to share this. If you twitter and use a new wireless location app called Foursquare you might be in trouble. Through Foursquare you can “check-in” to a location when you arrive there then give recommendations and other things that can be matched to your location. People use this service to let their friends know where they are and to find and post reviews about businesses. PleaseRobMe.com matches twitter status updates from foursquare enabled devices and creates a list of “Recently Empty Homes”. The site provides a link to the person’s destination’s page on Foursquare and how long ago they left home. While it doesn’t show the person’s actual home address the site is trying to make a point. People disclose too much information. Be careful about how much you put onto your profiles or how much you tweet, it could come back to haunt you when your laptop and XBOX360 go missing. This doesn’t just apply to foursquare and twitter though, try and keep public address fields private or empty, you can always email or text someone where you live if the need arises.
For more reading on the matter check out Internet Insecurity: Why Your Privacy, Security, and Safety Are at Risk and What You Can Do About It.
SeanJohn
I’m reading Organic Chemistry
