The General Wibble Thread

Iceman wrote:That is without even trying. Through the use of Facebook, it is easy to build up a picture of someone.

Am tempted to do it as an example on someone that won't get upset.....snappy?

I have just done this, just with J2ski info, but posted it to the person, so it remains private. I felt there was quite a lot of personal family information, but that if you did not have any additional links, such as linked-in or FB, probably OK.

OTOH, I agree should you be so inclined, it would be easy to build up a profile for personal abuse or criminal use.

The current actions by Lord McAlpine may well reduce the personal abuse/libel aspect, but there remain issues of criminal intent.

..........anyway sorry to be a tad late wishing you a happy birthday. Hope it was a good one. BTW how was the holiday ??

Ok.
Wow.

Crikey, call me naive but I had no idea it would be so easy to use this kind of info. I always thought what I had online such as FB, linked in etc was limited info and didnt give anything away that coul;d be used against me by those who would want to.
Frightening.

Iceman wrote:I find out this afternoon he has been looking at my profile on linkedin.

:lol:

Facebook told me your name way back when, I think because you're connected to Tony?

Actually, both LinkedIn and Facebook are really quite nasty in this respect because they suggest connections/friends for you based on friends-of-friends. People often use the same sets of photos/avatars and often address each other via nicknames (e.g. forum names) when using FB.

So, no, you don't even have to try - FB and LI just tell you! :shock:


NOW READ THIS!

Something everyone should be careful of is their "out of office" settings. We get hundreds of these each week (when sending out the snow mails) and the amount of personal information people put in them is quite alarming.

The most basic ones tell us who people work with ("please contact X Y in my absence"), but also what their phone numbers are (regularly including home and mobiles). We get told who's pregnant, on maternity leave, in court, getting married, going to a funeral... the lot. :shock:

Now consider that those "out of office" replies will get pinged back to every scammer and spammer who sends you junk mail!

IF YOU'VE GOT PERSONAL INFORMATION IN YOUR OUT-OF-OFFICE SETTING; then go and remove it right now!

Tony_H wrote:used against me

It's people getting enough information about you to pretend to be you that you need to be careful of.

The other day, in my bank, I had an awful job to prove that I was me - if you see what I mean. One of the routine security questions was date of birth and for some reason they had mine wrong.
So they asked me a security question to which they had the wrong answer! And I've been with that bank for about 25 years, although it's now called something else. And even though the staff in the bank knew it was me (because they've been dealing with me for years) they couldn't accept my answer, although they knew really that I was right and their records were wrong. They wouldn't accept my EHIC card (which I had on me) and the date of birth on that either. So I had to go home and send them a copy of my driver's license.

It amazes me that a bank could make a mistake like that :shock:

Is there any way of opting out of being suggested as a friend to someone on Facebook?

AllyG wrote:Is there any way of opting out of being suggested as a friend to someone on Facebook?

By being totally miserable perhaps :mrgreen:

But seriously, Adders is correct about out of office and things like that and the whole online presence issue is going to be increasingly important.

One of the diffculties people have is the separation between home/personal life and work life. By blurring these edges all sorts of potential problems can arise.

My answer is to have more than one e mail and to try to keep these two separate; in a way there are two "me's" - one for fun, friends and playing around and one for business. Doesn't always work but at least adds a level of separation.