security and social networking

[jodymeme]

Over the past year or so I've received several invitations from online friends to join various social networking systems that I'm not yet part of (as if the handful I'm already part of isn't a little too much already.) I found it curious, at first, that some of these invitations came from folks I had long been out of touch with, or sometimes

Comments

[luxsmitten]

hi jody!
i too am creeped out about the invasion of privacy and the vulnerability we are experiencing both in our reliance on these social networking tools, and their alterior motives. but i have recently come to believe that phishing can be done through more than just getting your password on a single sight. i believe them when they say they are erased, but there's ways of hacking that i think, or getting into your computer files that save your passwords for you. i think theres something called password safe or password box or something...anyways, i just found out about this. there are security holes in forum software that can allow someone to break in to your computer. do you have a password for your computer? because there are ways to get inside, to all of your files, and even lock you out! I was told one should have an admin log in and a user log in, and don't ever log in as admin. there are probrably many amongst our firends that would know more about hacking then lil ol me. i'm thinking of tempus for some reason. I just cross my fingers and use a program called crap cleaner, that erases all your cookies and other downloaded spammy robots. and i use fire walls and secure internet connections, not floaty wireless for when i' feeling paranoid. i'm glad you posted about this, i'll be reading the other replies.

[jodymeme]

Our computer is pretty secure and has all the standard firewall / anti-virus / spyware / registry cleaner / etc. software, so I'm not worried too much about that kind of thing. I just really don't see the point or the advantage from the perspective of a person using a social networking site to give up their passwords, or to become an unpaid advertiser by spamming all their contacts.

[luxsmitten]

"unpaid advertiser by spamming all their contacts."
fer sure, but whadya expect from capitalism?