Well, it was bound to happen, and although these guys have been caught, it is probably still happening elsewhere. A recent PC World article describes a gang of thieves utilizing Facebook Places, and a Twitter aggregator, to identify homes with no occupant. Because, the owner had just geo tagged himself elsewhere. Police in Nashua, New [...]
Social Media
URL Shorteners: A Double Edged Sword
URL shorteners are those handy sites that take a really long URL, such as http://www.quantumofgeek.com/2010/08/oh-gr8-i-m-goin-2-hav-2-lern-a-nu-lngwij-jst-2-spk-2-my-kds/ and turn it into a short URL, like http://goo.gl/j9Mr. With the increasing popularity of micro blogging such as Twitter, where your content has a length restriction (140 characters for Twitter), a shortened URL makes a lot of sense. Simply because [...]
Social Media
Facebook Announces Facebook Places: Here’s How to Disable It
Yesterday, Facebook announced a new service called “Facebook Places” which is a geolocation based service for GPS enabled devices, such as smartphones. Essentially, you will be able check-in wherever you go (in the US for now) and the app will tell you if your friends are nearby or have checked in recently. You can also [...]
Social Media
No SSL Support In Social Media
Whenever I log onto a site with a username and password combination, especially when online banking or shopping, I always verify the site is secured using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption. That is, the URL begins with https vs. http, which means all traffic between my computer and the web server is SSL encrypted. Any [...]
Social Media
Businesses Should Embrace, Not Ban Social Media
Are we (IT) cavemen or are our users/employees children to be coddled? I recently experienced a business that decided Social Media should be banned from the workplace, and blocked on their outgoing content filters. The basis for this decision was due to perceived “productivity” problems and security concerns. Frankly, I simply find this position to [...]