Do not leave your purse, wallet, jacket, or other personal items unattended. This includes not asking your friend to "watch my stuff." Pick pockets and purse snatchers are clever; in a busy location such as a club or restaurant, they will work together with someone to distract your friend even more easily than they could distract you.

If a stranger approaches you for any reason, pay attention. This includes employees during those fun bar games that they play. Thieves are aware of the routines in these places, and take advantage of every opportunity.

If someone bumps into you, always protect your wallet or purse. Check to make sure everything is still there, even if seems like a small, casual bump.

If your pockets have zippers or buttons, use them.

Put your wallet in your front pocket. Front pockets are usually deeper , angled, which makes it more difficult to remove items. For men, I recommend the small credit card wallet / money clip combination from Tumi.

Women should not carry their wallet in their purse. Ideally, find a solution that allows you to put your wallet in a front pocket.

Cargo pants pockets are very safe.

Do not assume any person is not a thief, regardless of age or gender.

Myspace.com, probably the most well known social networking site, and most popular among children and teens, has attracted scam artists, hackers, and identity thieves. From malicious worms that hijack your computer and expose your personal files, to profile hackers who use your profile to bulletin spam, Myspace is ripe with opportunities for hackers to take advantage of unsuspecting or uninformed users.

As of today, May 18th, 2008, a Google search on Myspace Security turns up 4.75 million results, of which the top 10 are about security breaches.

And, just so you know, I am not trying to deter you or your children from using Myspace; I would just like to ensure you do it from a position of knowledge and security.

Protecting You Profile From Intruders

There are several configuration settings now available from Myspace which can protect you and your profile. Below we’ll show you a picture of each of the settings pages and below each picture an explanation of each.

At the end of this post, there is also a video which explains each of my recommended settings.

Privacy Options

The most effective is the settings Profile Viewable By. In the past, Myspace only allowed children 13 years old and younger to use this setting, however it is now enabled for everybody. The settings “my friends only” is the most secure, but does not guarantee your information will remain private. Currently, there is bug in this setting which allows people to view all of your Myspace photos.

As a general rule of thumb when it comes to Myspace and your photos: If you wouldn’t want your mom to see it, don’t put it on Myspace. Also, even if you’re careful, I would recommend un-checking the box for allow my photos to be shared / emailed. The only reason to have this box checked is if you were a band or other business doing promotions or marketing.

Better Use Of Myspace Spam Filters

Using the spam filters provide some of the best identity protection available on myspace. For maximum security and ease of setup, just slide to bar to “high” and save all changes. For those of you who won’t more details, here they are:

• 
• Messages
  • Allow Non-friends to send me messages: Disabling this feature is great for securing your profile, but inhibits the ability for you to make new friends, or for your friends to make contact with you on myspace. For most people, disabling anyone from sending you a message is overkill
  • Require CAPTCHA [?] for non-friends to send me messages: It’s very likely that if you’ve signed up for an account on just about any website in the past year that you have seen CAPTCHA in action. CAPTCHA requires users to type in a word or two which is scrambled up in order to verify that they are human. This system will prevent malicious hackers from using programs called bots or other malware from sending you unwanted messages.
• Friend Requests
  • Require last name or email address: This is a great feature for protecting your profile while allowing people you know to find you (or your kids). They must type in your email address or your last name in order to send you the request.
  • IF you enabled require last name or email address (which I highly recommend), there is no need to require captcha
  • Regarding banks,filmmakers, and comedians… Unless you have a career in one of these areas, or have a deep interest in local and upcoming talent, you should uncheck these boxes.
• Event Invitations
  • Set this to “Allow only my friends and:” and uncheck all of the other boxes
• IM Inivitations
  • Myspace isn’t the best instant messaging platform, either for robustness of features or security. I would disable this and use an IM client such as Windows Live Messenger.

Application Privacy

Another great general rule of thumb for protecting your identity on the internet… Never, under any circumstances trust anything written by a 3rd party. In this case, many of these applications are written by third party developers.  You have no control over what information they have access to, nor do you have control over what gets published straight to the internet. Select the option button “do not share data” and uncheck”allow applications to send me messages and comments.”

Video – How To Protect Your Myspace Profile from Identity Theft

Resources

Protecting Your Identity On Facebook

References

http://www.technologyevangelist.com/2007/02/myspace_should_add_e.html

http://www.misunderestimation.com/index.php/2006/12/27/more-trouble-for-myspace-identity-theft/trackback/

http://securitywatch.eweek.com/exploits_and_attacks/myspace_profile_fake_microft_patch_malware_cocktail.html#trackback

http://securitywatch.eweek.com/google/flash_phishing_myspace_passwords_and_hacking_pdfs.html#trackback

http://www.misunderestimation.com/index.php/2006/12/04/myspace-security-alert-a-new-worm/trackback/

http://www.shankrila.com/tech-stuff/myspace-private-profiles-arent-that-private/trackback/

http://cybernetnews.com/2008/01/18/prevent-someone-from-viewing-private-myspace-pictures/trackback/

http://www.masey.com.au/blog/index.php/2006/11/protect-yourself-against-myspace-profile-hacking/trackback/

http://blog.spywareguide.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/178

Social Networks Expose Too Much Personal Information By Default…

Protecting yourself from fraud and identity theft doesn’t have to be monotonous. It simply takes active thought about protecting sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands.

With the ever growing popularity of social networking websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and even file sharing sites such as Youtube, and Flickr, it amazes me to see the information people are making available to the public.

It’s clear to me that many people leave their information exposed on these websites because they are not aware of how easily the information becomes accessible to just about everyone on the internet. I also believe that most people are not aware that the need to take a few minutes to protect their identity on these websites, and have no idea that there are privacy settings available that can protect their identity while still growing their social networks.

Today I am going to start with Facebook. Facebook.com is quickly becoming the number 1 social networking website on the internet. Unfortunately, with this popularity comes a few bad seeds looking to take advantage of people who leave their personal information unprotected. Following the simple steps outline in this article and video will still allow for your Facebook network to grow, while protecting you from scam artists, unsavory marketers, and identity thieves.

Protecting Your Facebook Profile

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Recommended Facebook Privacy Settings:

Settings

Profile

Profile – only friends

Basic info – only friends

Personal info – my networks and friends

Status updates – my networks and friends

Photos tagged – my newtworks and friends

Videos tagged – my networks and friends

Friends – “”

Wall – “”

Education – only friends

Work info – only friends

Or customize and use only me (when you want a network to see you, but not others)

You can block certain people as well

IM screen name – friends

Mobile phone – specfic friends

Land phone – specific friends

Current address – noone

Website – network and friends

Email – only friends

Search

Search visibility (within fb) – choose

Public listing – keep the data out of search engines (uncheck)

How can people contact you. Uncheck your friend list

News and mini Feed

Uncheck relationship status

Remove add a friend

Applications

What others users can see via the facebook platform

Click do not share any information

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