My roommate, Eliesa’s, Facebook got hacked last night. A person on one of her friends’ accounts was talking to her on Facebook Chat and asked her for her email address and password for MSN to “play a prank” on her cousin. Eliesa thought it was the girl, she gave it to them, and they hacked her email and her Facebook, since that login information was the same. The person then went through her friends, Facebook Chat-ing (?) her friends, including me, asking the same thing.
This freaks me out on so many levels. We’re using the Internet. We’re usually not aware that a person you’re friends with on Facebook, that you know in real life, could have been hacked, and that person is stealing all your information. Your name, your birthdate, and your hometown are sometimes all you need to steal a person’s identity.
I made my Facebook completely unsearchable except to those in my two networks, and removed all my identifying information. (My birth year, where I live now, my full name, etc.) I closed my Plurk account, Blip.fm account, Webshots accounts from forever ago, and most other accounts I had lying around, completely open but forgotten about. I increased the security with Flickr, and I may possibly make all my photos there private (so if you aren’t my friend on Flickr and you want to see my photos in the future, add me.) I made my Twitter private, a move of which I’m not sure I’ll stick with, but one that I’m happy making at the moment due to the fact that I like using it to tell people where I am and what I’m doing.
As for this blog, I’ve tried to make it a little less revealing, but honestly it’s hard to find this on Google by entering my name or anything. I don’t use last names, I rarely use place names, and I’m going to stop writing about when I’m gone and only post my adventures after I get home. Only a certain number of people read my blog regularly, but I really don’t know that for certain given that I don’t track IP addresses or anything. For all I know, some creeper could be closely following my every move.
So there ya have it. Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Flickr, friend me on Facebook, because I’m now concerned about privacy.
Wow, that’s scary. The only site I use my full name on is Facebook and I’ve got all the security they offer there.
Ack, sorry it freaked you out, but it’s a good thing. I’m a sys admin, so I’m annoyed when somebody sends me his password by email telling me it doesn’t work. Don’t tell anybody your password, not by phone, not by email, not by anything. Only if you trust the person and talking face to face and you’re sure nobody else can hear you, then you might share it, but why would you? And make your password complicated, like using 3 instead of an “e” or $ instead of an “s”, etc and mix cases. Can’t be too careful. My ID was once stolen by somebody stealing my snail mail. So yeah, be on your guard.
I’m at the same point with all of my online accounts. I went private on Twitter for a while, but then it just didn’t work right. The scariest thing about it is that even if you block a creeper, they can just log off and continue to follow you. That’s CREEPY! Since I follow a ton of local people, I get really cozy during the day talking back and forth with them. Then at night I’m like, “Shit! What did I say?” I always worry about sharing a picture that will show where I live, or tweeting about a Mutt Run trip and having a creeper meet me there. You just have to work really hard at being conscious of what you share online and keeping the important private information private.
That’s so scary!