About My Project

Social Networking Sites: Threat to Online Privacy and Security

My Presentation evaluates Social Networking Sites (SNS) as a threat to Online Security and Privacy.

Both privacy and security breaches are often intertwined with Social Networking Sites, especially since anyone who breaches a site's security network opens the door to easy access to information belonging to any user.

According to Susan Barnes of the First Journal, "In the United States, we live in a paradoxical world of privacy. Users of SNS reveal intimate thoughts and behaviors online while on the other hand, government agencies and marketers are collecting personal data about us."

Online, the information you post form your identity. Personal data has become a commodity. Once your information is added to the SNS database and users post user content on these pages, you automatically grant the company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferrable, worldwide license to use, copy, publicly display, excerpt and distribute such for any purpose.

Privacy Issues:

• User content are distributed to a worldwide audience
• Defaults settings are set to increase social awareness (by defaulting the public and allowing users to make profiles private)
• These companies record all interactions and retain them for potential use in social data mining and passed to third parties
• Vast repositories of immensely personal data, thus becoming a goldmine of information for marketing companies
• Corporate Espionage
• Cyberbullying, Stalking and threat of sexual predators

Security Issues:

• Vulnerabilities in applications/widgets
• data theft e.g. malicious applications attempt to steal information from Facebook profiles
• Viruses e.g. Samy worm virus
• Cyberscams - cybercriminals increasingly using PDF and Flash files as vehicles for distributing malicious code and for infecting end-user PCs
• Phishing and Spams Bogus emails and malicious apps
• Identity theft

Why SNS are targets of Hackers

• A hacker’s motive: “Hit all Once”
• Because SnS have such large user-bases. If you can infect the [social networking] website you can get to a whole lot of users.
• Hackers find it easy to disseminate viruses or steal identities from SnS

TIPS FOR SAFE SOCIAL NETWORKING:

• Remember that the internet is a public resource. Limit the amount of personal information you post.
• Evaluate your settings. Modify privacy settings to restrict who can access/see your profile information and post on your profile
• Do not disclose too much information, especially your personal sensitive information e.g. phone number, address
• Manage the information you post on your profile. Do not post inappropriate messages where everyone can see.
• Keep track of the type of photos you upload.
• Use strong passwords.
• Use and maintain anti-virus software.
• Be wary of strangers who add you online and be skeptical.
• Be careful with third party applications/widgets.

Privacy & Confidentiality

Although we all benefit from technological advances and new media tools from using the internet, they too, have flaws. They have opened issues regarding privacy and security of users because the internet paved way for hackers and third parties acquire information of various internet users. The following privacy and security are identified problems associated with using new media:

1. Identity theft

Identity is one very serious problem that users of new media should always be aware of. Nowadays, we use the internet for online shopping, entering credit card information to the website that we are purchasing from. As internet users, we want that our information is secured and concealed from unauthorized users access. One way to make sure this does not happen is internet users being aware themselves that websites use Secure Socket Layer to encrypt information that they are typing.

2. Virus, spams, bogus emails and apps viruses

Facebook and other Social Networking Sites now offer various applications that users can play around with to kill time or as forms of entertainment. However, hackers find ways to insert viruses from this apps that can be easily spread to different users that are connected to the user infected by the virus.

3. Access to information by vast amount of audiences and third parties

Unknown to most internet users, Social Networking Sites collect and save information about their users who post profiles on the internet and connect to different users worldwide. They use these collected information to help them promote products and services to different target markets and increase revenues. There may also be possibilities that these collected information are sold to third party companies.

As users of their service, we should be aware of the default settings when we first sign up to these Social Networking Sites. Most of the default settings are not user friendly because they default profiles as public.

4. Cyberbullying
5. Cyber Predators

Advice to Baruch College

Using New Media tools efficiently not only will provide more information to current Baruch College students but also to potential students to want to enroll at the college.

I think one way to improve the college will be by podcasting. Potential new students of the college may want to know more about college life and how competitive it is to go to Baruch. It will be helpful if students of the college themselves will podcast the stages taken to be successful in each major offered by Baruch. These podcasts can be posted and downloaded on a Baruch College (students' representation) website or blog and even in Facebook.

The Baruch New Media Wiki is one good way that Baruch College Students may use as references to a research project or paper. It will be a good idea if not only New Media students are able to access the wiki but students of Baruch in general. Since Baruch is one of the most diverse college in the United States, the wiki can be an opportunity for students to make wiki pages on their own languages/dialects. In other words, making the wiki multilingual will add significance to the college labeled as one of the most diverse colleges in the United States.

Our Class Wiki So Far

This class has made me more familiar in working with Wikis.

More importantly, I have been working on my pledged task to contribute on the topics about New Media and Privacy Issues. I also created the page "Current Legal/Ethical Cases" involved with Privacy Issues in New Media. I have already put particular Legal/Ethical cases that may be of interest to readers because they pertain to either privacy invasion, copyright infringement or revenue losses. I am currently searching for recent cases regarding security risks involved with Social Networking Sites.

Besides my pledged topics on the task list, I started browsing through pages on our class wiki's subtopics about New Media to check for any spelling and grammatical errors.

I also added information on the topic "Peer to Peer." BitTorrent is somehow a redux of Napster. I added in the information on how BitTorrent works and how efficient it is for downloading large amount of files. I decided to add this information because the article that I chose to critique was "The BitTorrent Effect" by Clive Thompson. Creator of BitTorrent Bram Cohen explains how it works yet it raises the issue of illegal downloading. I think this is necessary because BitTorrent is a P2P File Sharing Software.