Think before you post

ATTENTION! ladies and GENTLEMAN.

If you have Friendster, Facebook, Myspace, etc. KHOW your privacy setting.



If you have a blog, just make sure you think before you post.


Most of us are careless what we post online. We under estimate the power of internet where information really travels from PC to PC.

Say you post the most intimate secret in your life on your anonymous blog. Or you post your most personal picture on your social network. It is immediately (in split mili seconds) pick up by blogsearch.google.com and technoranti. Furthermore, in merely few days, your most intimate photo is cached by image search engines. Your most top secrete information will be immediately known to the whole world.



Yeah, it is scary.

And, do no think that you are so unpopular and no one will border to read your blog or check out your social network. WRONG! You never knows how powerful search engine works.

Just ot illustrate, I know a online friend through MSN. His nick is Smartiehead. (name change to protect privacy :P ) I got his msn email address. What I can do is to use his msn email address to search for all social network for him. If I got him, I read his profile. I read his testimony by the his friend. I see the list of his friends (what kind or type of friends he mingle) That tells alot about him. I flips his photo album. from testimony/profile, I able to know his real name.

Then, I google for "smartihead". It will immediate pick up the forum he usually visit, his blog, google groups, chat rooms, assignment he post online, website, shoutbox, or even his friend's blog post on him, or even the comment he left at his friend's blog.

Immagine the information I can get of a person from the internet. Sometimes it is inevitable. But just remember 9 rules to protect yourself:

1) Think before you post
2) Do not use real name
3) Do not use the same nick name for your forum post, msn, blog, etc
4) Know your privacy setting of your social network (friendster/myspace/etc)
5) If your friend's testimonial review too much of yourself, do not approve them.
6) Don't use rare nickname. Use generic ones. for example, 'smartie' is generic. If you google for smartie, you got millions of search results.
7) Use anti-virus and anti-spyware
8) Do not register/subcribes website that you do not trust.
9) Finally, always be paranoid. Be safe rather than sorry.

Remember, the next time you go for an job interview, your resume doesn't speak out loud anymore. Google speaks louder.

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