Your relationship with social media

Morrus said:

I can't.



I have been robbed exactly 0 times since Facebook launched. I've certainly never had any tell me they got robbed because they posted on Facebook. I wonder if you might be exaggerating a bit? Besides, I'm not Facebook friends with anybody in the local burglar community.



"It" doesn't. "She" did. It only posts what you type!

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On an individual basis, I haven't been robbed either by way of FB. But obviously, I'm hyper vigilant about what I share. Some folks are too stupid to manage their settings and their stuff is wider open. Especially when they have 600 "friends".

Obviously, FB didn't over-share. The trap is that it sets an environment where folks like my friend will over share. Because it's cool to friend everybody. and post constantly. and share everything.

That's why it is a trap. It enables mistakes to happen, where the old ways were sort of less widespread. At least with telephones, you were only blabbing to 20 people. Not 600.

Morrus said:

I'd suggest you may be an outlier. I very, very frequently send short "running late" or "meet at 8" messages which I don't have time to surround with a 10-minute conversation. Or I'll send my wife a question, knowing she's busy working and she'll shoot a quick answer back when she gets a moment.

Email works too, sure. It's just quicker, shorter email centered around mobile devices.

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Oh, I KNOW I'm an outlier. "IME" was used as a qualifier!

I'm not 100% sold on "quicker than email" though- I'm a touch typist with fattish fingertips. It's a LOT more difficult to type on a damn phone than it is on a proper keyboard...or even a tablet.

Janx said:

O

Obviously, FB didn't over-share. The trap is that it sets an environment where folks like my friend will over share. Because it's cool to friend everybody. and post constantly. and share everything.

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I honestly feel that's the person, not the technology. People do silly things in all walks of life. That's your friend's silly thing.

Morrus said:

I have been robbed exactly 0 times since Facebook launched. I've certainly never had any tell me they got robbed because they posted on Facebook. I wonder if you might be exaggerating a bit? Besides, I'm not Facebook friends with anybody in the local burglar community.

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Just to re-center on this point, maybe there's a cultural and crime difference between the US and the UK.

In the US, it is common security wisdom to not advertise that you are going on vacation next week or at a restaurant, or your spouse is out of town on business. I cannot confirm if there were actual crimes based on those kind of posts, but that is the security advice going on. Plenty of folks do it anyway. To me, your comment is as if you'd never heard of this, which boggles my mind. Everybody knows this. It is known.

Nextly, last year, my house was broken in while I was out of town for 3 days and my wife was at home. My truck is normally in the driveway almost all the time, except for then because I had to park at the airport. My wife went out for 2 hours in her car, and that's when it happened. No, I didn't post online about my travel plans, but bad guys ARE observing neighborhoods and noticing patterns (like the one day that house has no cars parked). it can be as mundane as noticing parked cars, but online information also lures criminals in now.

last month, a girl got raped in TX when she went to do a trade with somebody from craigslist. Granted, that's craigslist, den of people I don't trust.

Given that most IT crime is inside jobs (80%) and most sex crimes are somebody you know, just because I think I know somebody on my friends list, doesn't mean I really know them. Or that their friend doesn't have access to the laptop or phone to look for trouble that I can't anticipate. Thus, a key risk social media invites is sharing stuff more broadly than you expect and having somebody who is connected to you decide to take advantage.

The US is chock full of people who do not take my points seriously. But my position is pretty common in the info security world, even if the actual risk is low for normal folks who don't over-share.

Personally, I think it would be pretty fun to take pics of my trip and share them on FB. But my gut tells me the internet does not need that data that I am not home and the pics can wait until I upload them when I get home. It's simply an unnecessary risk to take for something that can wait. like responding to a text while driving.

Dannyalcatraz said:

Oh, I KNOW I'm an outlier. "IME" was used as a qualifier!

I'm not 100% sold on "quicker than email" though- I'm a touch typist with fattish fingertips. It's a LOT more difficult to type on a damn phone than it is on a proper keyboard...or even a tablet.

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If you're an outlier, then so am I. For example I don't see the need for two technologies that do the same thing. Especially so when they are both essentially as fast and one is significantly more flexible than the other.

Morrus said:

I honestly feel that's the person, not the technology. People do silly things in all walks of life. That's your friend's silly thing.

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Of course it's the person.

The technology has changed such that it enables a silly person to make a bigger mess of things.

As the old adage, to err is human. To really screw up takes a computer.

20 years ago, the worst you could do is play chinese whispers on the telephone and get the gossip wrong. Or forward a bad email to your boss. Or look at porn and get a virus on your PC.

Today, what you post sticks around and in the case of FB has your real name on it. And last year's foolishness gets found in a search result because your privacy settings were too open or FB changed their engine again. People have gotten fired or not hired in the US based on FB and google searches. DMCA had to get invoked to bar employers from requiring you to share your FB password with them on condition of job offer (they were logging into your account to look at your stuff).

I have one friend who complained about work or a co-worker, and was friends with a friend who got word back and started trouble. Obviously, the starting lesson is watch what you say. But in the old days, a phone conversation isn't proof you said anything, whereas people take screenshots with their phone to forward as evidence to get somebody in trouble. NextDoor.com (a neighborhood closed social media site I'm on) has a policy that expressly forbids that, for that reason.

Where I'm coming from is that culturally (in the US at least) young folks are fearlessly over-sharing in ways that have been starting to impact them negatively. Hopefully the consequences will curb the trend, but it's pretty different that us 40+ year olds just don't share as much as the 20/30 year olds.

Tangent: I got into a long discussion about why I don't use Craigslist. Here in Texas, we have at least one violent crime of some type- including murders- associated with it per month.

I don't care how good the deals are, I'm not taking that risk.

The pro-Craigslist posters were agog at my "excessive" caution.

It wasn't until just a few days ago I learned that someone pegged the odds of being victimized that way are roughly equivalent to the odds of being struck by lighting while golfing in the rain.

...something else I refuse to do.

Dannyalcatraz said:

Tangent: I got into a long discussion about why I don't use Craigslist. Here in Texas, we have at least one violent crime of some type- including murders- associated with it per month.

I don't care how good the deals are, I'm not taking that risk.

The pro-Craigslist posters were agog at my "excessive" caution.

It wasn't until just a few days ago I learned that someone pegged the odds of being victimized that way are roughly equivalent to the odds of being struck by lighting while golfing in the rain.

...something else I refuse to do.

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golfing in the rain is a really good chance to get "Ionized "

I got a simalar response from my brother and sister in law

The point is, humans aren't good about risk assessment in daily life. Most people won't play golf in the rain, and will ridicule those who do...but I got a lot of chiding for not doing something similarly risky.

I find that I can't stand those hyper-vigilant people, to me it's like why do you even brother having a computer that's connected to the net,if you're that worried?

My mom who is almost 60 only has family and close friends on her FB,not even co-workers back when she was working.


As with Morrus, I honestly don't feel worried getting robbed due to FB, we got robbed once before long before FB was even thought of.

Now I picture Janx sitting on a chair yelling at people younger than him "dang nabbit kids get off my lawn with your crazy hair and music" lol


EDIT: After clicking on one of those threads that enworld recommends due to topic title i found the following :

Morrus said:

I find myself wondering what's next. From the hardware front, I think smartphones will give way to wearable tech (whether that's glasses, watches, patches, wristbands, etc.) The software is, I think, going to get more and more sharey before it gets less so.

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Psst..wanna buy an apple watch?


Here's the old thread from two years ago if anyone else wants to take a look http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...edia-and-our-info-out-there-on-public-display

EDIT II :

Bullgrit said:

Is this an "over 30" paranoia? With growing up in the FB/Twitter/etc. society, are the younger folks more accepting?

Bullgrit

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Yes