With all of the social networking/photo sharing/blogging/micro-blogging/video-sharing onine platforms out there, are you worried that people (possibly you) are over-exposed to the public these days?
We all have to admit, the advances in the internet have changed the world. We can communicate with people anywhere, we can see and learn about things we’ve never seen before, and we can make friends with people we may never meet in ‘the real world’. But on the dark side, some of us leave ourselves open to cyberstalking (which can easily spill over to real-life stalking), discrimination, and personal turmoil.
Run a Google search on your screen-name or email address and you’ll see just how OPEN you really are.
Scenario #1
You apply for a job at xyz ,Inc. Your resume includes your email address. All your potential employer has to do is check on Google/myspace/facebook (And believe me, they LOVE to do it) and they’ll see whatever you’ve got posted on the net. There’s nothing to stop this potential employer from judging you based off your profile, your personal thoughts, and your pictures (which could cost you a perfect opportunity at xyz, inc.).
Scenario #2
You work for xyz, inc and had a bad day at work. First thing you do is get home and complain about it on your blog. The page gets lots of hits and the following week, you get FIRED for bringing bad publicity to your company. Think it didn’t happen? Ask the bloggers from dooce.com and ninetyninezeros, and they’ll let you know, it’s DEFINITELY possible.
Scenario #3
You never know what type of person you’re going to be when you ‘grow up’ and those wild photos you’ve got online may come back to bite you harder than you could ever imagine. What if Obama had a MySpae page pack in his wild and crazy years of youth (that’s if MySpace had existed back then). He already admitted that he experimented with lots of things and partied hard…if those photos were available on the web, he’d be screwed (and so would America right now)!
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Written on September 1, 2008 | Posted in
Pointless Foolishness
I must confess, I MUST! I’m a digital pack rat and I seriously need some help! I honestly have a fear of deleting files and it’s getting ridiculous! (Is there a scientific term for this condition?)
Here are my symptoms:
- My Inbox has 2501 messages dated back from 2004
- Even though I use an external hard-drive, I have a lack of trust in it, so I have two or three copies of photo albums EVERYWHERE!
- When designing/redesigning websites, I keep ALL copies of the layouts…even if they’re ugly
- My 8GB Iphone ALMOST at full storage capacity
Maybe Niecy from Clean House can come help?
Do any of you out there share the same issue? Any creative file organizing options you have to offer?
Written on July 28, 2008 | Posted in Uncategorized
- A network administrator has locked up a multimillion dollar computer system for San Francisco that handles sensitive data and is refusing to give police the password, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday.
The employee, 43-year-old Terry Childs, was arrested Sunday. He gave some passwords to police, which did not work, and refused to reveal the real code, the paper reported.
The new FiberWAN (Wide Area Network) handles city payroll files, jail bookings, law enforcement documents and official e-mail for San Francisco. The network is functioning but administrators have little or no access.
Childs, who remains in custody, is accused of improperly tampering with computer systems and causing a denial of service, said Kamala Harris, San Francisco’s district attorney, on Monday afternoon.
“The bail has been set at $5 million, and the exposure in this case if he were convicted on all counts would be seven years in prison,” Harris said.
Harris said it’s unknown why Childs tampered with the system. The Chronicle, however, reported that Childs was disciplined recently for poor performance. Childs worked in the Department of Technology for San Francisco, making close to US$150,000 a year, the paper reported.
City officials told the paper that Childs may have caused millions in damage while also rigging the network so that other third parties could monitor traffic, posing a huge data security risk. He is also alleged to have installed a tracing system to monitor communications related to his personnel case.
(Robert McMillan in San Francisco contributed to this report.)
All I can say is DAMN!
We all may need to go back to typewriters and filing cabinets! If my livelihood is at the whim of some deranged, disgruntled sys. admin, I’d rather revert back to the yesteryear’s frustration of long lines, and tall piles of paperwork. Unfortunately…we are ALL at risk of having something like this go down. Computers are secure, but you better believe that if someone wants to f* up your day, they’ll find a way to. I’m sure we’ve ALL experienced a “free day of solitaire” at work because of computer/network problems (Now imagine this happening to an entire CITY). We can’t do ANYTHING without computers these days! The officials of San Francisco are about to test out some new waterboarding techniques on Mr. Childs. He’ll be squealing with the password in no time.
We all enjoy the luxury of sharing information freely on the internet, but at what cost? Network security specialists, and programmers are more valuable now more than ever… but you better not piss them off! LOL
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Written on July 17, 2008 | Posted in Uncategorized
