Okay, the short and sweet. Due Friday, 300 words on this topic of online privacy. How much of you is on the 'net? Can you find out sensitive information about yourself? (Be sensible about revealing what you can/not find on yourself in cyberspace, please).
The link is here.
Good hunting. Due Friday, 4/9
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Almost anything can be found on the internet today. Which to some extent can be really scary. Personally I couldn’t find much information on myself without knowing some extra personal information about myself. When I fist typed in my name tons of stuff came up because Grace and Johnson are both popular names. A lot of Facebook profiles came up, but I couldn’t find mine since I keep my profile private. Then I tried typing in my name and my home town, and then only my Facebook fan page my friend made for me came up. So the only information I found on myself was what my friend posted on my fan page which is mostly false information. After searching through about 12 Google pages on me, I found an article about the Hudson High School Orchestra that I played in and one on my track team. My dad has had his identity stolen so he has taught me very well how to keep personal information hidden from other people. I also tried using yellow pages online to find myself, but I wasn’t able to even when giving my city and state. I personally think my dad working with the government has to due with a lot of why I’m impossible to find on the internet. My friend actually tried to find me as well and wasn’t able to, but me on the other hand I found out all this old personally information about him. All the information I found on him scared me a little. I didn’t even have to due much searching to find his Facebook page, location, schools he went to, what kind of car he drove, and telephone number. I think that it is insane how much information can be found online about people. That’s why no one should be giving out any personal information unless it is absolutely needed. I never give out my email or name or social security number to anyone, its just too hard to trust people.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the article and Grace about having the ability to find anything on the internet. I also put my name and city I am from in a google search and I was able to find a couple things about me. I was able to find out what tournaments I played and some of the results. It also had an article from the Northern Illinois University's sports home page saying how I was recruited to their team. I completely forgot that there was an article about that before I went on a google search. There is a lot of personal information about a lot of different people in the world. It is so easy to find it too. When looking for a friend on facebook it takes about two minutes to find them. On some people's facebooks it has their phone number, address and sexual orientation on there. When you go on someone’s facebook you do not have to try at all to search for all that information. It is right on their front page. That is a little scary because anybody can see that information if you do not make your profile private and many people do not do that. A lot of people joke about stalking their friend’s facebook by reading their comments and going through all their pictures. That is not a thing really to joke about because there are some strange people who do that to people they do not even know. They can find a lot of information on a person like that. People have to be really careful of what they post online. Anyone can see what they post at anytime. People have to start understanding you can not post anything they want because it is unsafe if strangers start finding out personal information about them.
ReplyDeleteIn the article, “How Privacy Vanishes Online,” Steve Lohr reminds us the dangers of letting out personal information on the world wide web. Lohr goes on to explain about the risks of identity theft and research that has been done to show how easily information about people can be found, simply by using the internet. One may not realize it, but information can be found about you even if you are taking all the privacy precautions available. In social networks for example, employers can find out things about you, despite a private profile, simply by who you are friends with. They piece together things about your social life from your friends and can access much more information than you would think possible.
ReplyDeleteThe title of this article is very appropriate because it is a very true statement, there is no real privacy on the internet anymore. Even regular websites that take information about you from your computer to customize the webpage better for you. These information finders, called cookies, are a big invasion of privacy. Even itunes has the ability to find out what music you like and have been listening to. How much longer before websites will be able to access personal information hidden on our computers?
I did a little google searching on myself and am glad to say it was very difficult to find anything about me, although I think it is due to my name. There are plenty of other Mark Stewart’s out there whose information came up before mine. I found the case to be different for people with less common names. I googled a few of my friends and found it very easy to find some of their myspace and facebook pages, which were full of personal information if they weren’t set to private. In the future we must keep in mind the lack of privacy and use caution when putting personal information on the internet and even on our computers.
I have always found it interesting to google myself and other people. One day, when me and boyfriend first started talking, we joked around and googled each other. I found his whole high school life, and he told me that he didn’t know I was so smart, athletic and involved. This made me curious of how much was really on the internet about me for him to know so much! When I googled myself I found, lots of pictures, one of which is a picture from 7th grade that even I have never seen before! Along with that shows all of my track record times and what meet they were ran at. Pictures of my basketball team, personal stats, and pictures of all of my cheerleading teams. I found my class rank and lots of newspaper ads with my family names and hobbies. Also I found many lists of my involvements throughout life which shows my interests and my personality. I also found a perfessional profile on Linkedin.com that I did not make! It tells my major, my college, my graduation year, and hometown. Check me out on the site I DID NOT MAKE at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jayna-waite/15/106/344. Make sure you click view full profile at the bottom because the main page only tells half of my life!!
ReplyDeleteIf someone really wanted to stalk me, they could easily put together everything, and know a lot of personal information. I didn’t even dig that far into google. There is probably many other sources that displays my personal information. Unlike Grace, my name is pretty rare, so my information is mostly confined. It never really scared me because I’m pretty laid back. But now that I think about it, I’m kind of scared now. It’s amazing how much information about and average person is available online. I feel like there needs to be something done about this, but it’s so far out of control that it’s close to impossible. Hopefully soon, there will be a way to make things more private.
I’ve always realized that online privacy is vanishing quickly. All the new technology doesn’t help the matters either. It seems that even if privacy settings are in place, this information can be accessed. The NYT article was actually chilling, especially the information about being about to predict so much about social security number of so many people just by having access to these online sites and information people give out on a whim. I think most people don’t realize how much can be found out on the Internet about them. Or that they think it’s okay to give out to certain sites when in reality it’s not.
ReplyDeleteUnlike some I have a rare name, both first and last, especially in this country. With having a rare name that has a unique spelling, it is a fair bit easier to find information about myself on the Internet, granted 99% of the sites retrieved from Google were running stats with race times. My facebook was the first thing to come up, but since it’s completely private nothing is sown at all when you click the link. Other then that all the other links were running stats from cross-country and track races when I was in Jr. high and high school as well as a few 5k fundraising runs I have done over the years. Adding my hometown of school brings up more running stats, Conference placings/titles and a few local newspaper articles with times and places of my highschool team.
It’s quite true that almost anything can be found on the internet, that’s why I keep it all private, I don’t give out virtually anything personal on the internet, it’s my personal information anyway. I don’t know how many friends I had told to take their cell phone numbers and address of their facebook pages, those are things not everyone needs to know, especially if almost anyone can access the information. Online privacy is defiantly a growing issue that many don’t seem to know how big of an issue it is.
I found this blog to be more interesting. To think that any information can get online is kind of a scary thought. I was curious to see what would come up if I put my cell phone into Google. I found that my number was on supposedly on a Facebook wall in a group that wanted numbers. I looked at the page because I knew how the person was who started the group and it wasn’t there. I must have deleted my wall post but on Google it is still there for all the people to see. It kinds of freaks me out that my name and number are still associated with the wall post even thought I deleted it. I don’t think that any of us would think that if we searched our cell numbers that they would pop up on a wall post for a “lost your number” group. It never crossed my mind that would happen.
ReplyDeleteThen I searched my name and lots of people came up. Katie Anderson is a very common name so that didn’t surprise me. My Facebook profile didn’t show up since it’s private but others did. Then I put where I live after my name and my name came up. I was in the orchestra when I was in high school and the seating chart was online. There is another Katie Anderson where I live and she showed up at working at a local middle school.
It kind of weird how little privacy people have now. People put almost everything on their Facebook page. It would make it easier for someone to steal your identity and get to know anything about you. Who knows what the future holds for privacy. In a few years or even decades people will not even care that all their business is out there.
None of the information in this article surprised me. I had heard about the social security number study done at Carnegie Mellon University around the time it was published and it didn't surprise me then either. Honestly, I'd expected someone to write a program that could predict social security numbers and am a little amazed that it didn't happen sooner. There was clearly a pattern to the assignment of numbers. It was only a matter of time until someone put together an algorithm to predict them.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to online social networks and personal information, I tend to go by the general rule of only posting information that anyone could get out of me within the first five minutes of meeting me (or stalking me for a day). On top of that, I set my privacy settings extremely high. As I see it, most of these precautions are really obvious. I post nothing on the internet that I wouldn't feel comfortable sharing with an employer or the general public. That being said, I feel that I've done all that I can to protect myself. There's no use worrying over it to the extent that I become paranoid. In today's society, technology and the Internet are essential to daily living, school work, and careers. If my identity is put in jeopardy with what I've done, then that's that. I can't live my life with my head in the sand because of fear.
I also tried digging on Google. Besides the expected link to Facebook, all I found was a mention of my name as a surviving family member in an obituary, some old Taekwondo tournament rankings from middle school, and a forum post for another college class. Nothing completely surprising. However, it was amusing to learn that I have someone who shares my first and last name who loves cheerleading, which is completely the opposite of my personality.
Internet privacy is something that is very important to me, although I feel is not effective what so ever. I agree as many other students have on how frightening it is knowing that someone can simply search your name and gain way more personal information about you than you would prefer. I searched my full name, Cassandra Norrid, on Google and found a newspaper article on a list of students that I graduated high school with and also volleyball statistics. My facebook page surprisingly did not show up. I then searched images and my profile picture from my facebook was available to click. It took you to my facebook page with a list of all my friends, as the article stated that you can be identified solely by viewing what types of people you are friends with. Besides that, I could not find anything when I searched my address and other information about me. But still, there are people out there that can crack any code. There are certain programs you can purchase online to help you find the address, phone number, email and God knows what else by simply knowing one thing about the person. It is really creepy and makes me feel uncomfortable knowing that someone could successfully be stalking me. Purchasing items online with a debit card even makes me worry because a member in my family has had their credit/debit card number stolen which was a huge mess needless to say. Hopefully, sometime soon there will be better online security for people to help protect their identities. I can understand it is difficult because there are so many people out there who can crack any code and steal identities online for a living. It is unfortunate that this happens, but basically all we can do at this point is watch what type of information we provide online and make sure when we do we are on a secure website.
ReplyDeleteOnline privacy is not a new issue in our modern world. I have been urged to remain anonymous online since my family bought their first computer in 1995. Of course, this was far before social networking and mobile internet were commonplace. In today's culture it is difficult to imagine the absence of such wonders. But fifteen years ago people would have shuddered at the thought of making one's personal life public on the worldwide web. The dangers of facebook, myspace, twitter, etc. can easily be overlooked, however. This could be attributed to the fact that nearly everyone does it. I do not mean to pin all the blame on peer pressure, but the need to keep up with what friends and classmates are doing cannot be ignored. Facebook notifications allow us to keep track of birthdays, relationships of friends and acquaintances, and even more useful communication such as homework help or free and convenient party invites. With all of these benefits, it's hard to justify not having a facebook account. It's hard for people to imagine that they are likely victims of identity theft or other predators when there are so many more affluent and attractive people who are doing the same things on the same internet. It is difficult to imagine oneself as a likely victim when there are so many other candidates.
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ReplyDeletePrivacy is very limited now and days. I have my tagged pictures on facebook blocked from people for those reasons and because I do not want future employers looking at my profile. When I google myself I find articles with me stating things in them for when my best friend died. I also find stats from all my sports I was in such as swimming and volleyball and my times involved with them. My senior picture and sports pictures that were in papers showed up in google images. All my blogs pop up and my twitter and facebook. Being a graphic design major, networking is a huge thing. In almost all my classes we have to have a blog and a ning site. My website I designed pops up and many other things. My vimeo pops up which is all my videos i have designed for my classes and all of my projects. I was surprised to see articles from my high school newspaper pop up and my class rank even. It is crazy how much people can find out about you without even knowing you. I would have to say that is very creepy and people can definitely deceive you with some of this information. I didn't find any really personal information, but if I do google my home phone number my address pops up and my parents and brothers name. You have to know my home phone number though which is in the phone book I guess. The biggest thing I hate about no privacy is how much facebook is starting to control peoples' lives. Lives' revolve around it. No one thinks they are in a relationship anymore until they are "facebook official" which is pathetic. About 4 years ago the way those people were acting together would be completely considered a relationship yet it isn't on facebook so they are not dating. It is insane how much people can know about your lifes and stalk and look at your profile and pictures all day long if they wanted to.
ReplyDeleteI'll be honest, after reading this article I took the time to clamp down on some of my Facebook privacy setting and Google myself.
ReplyDeleteNow, that I feel that my identity is a little safer I can confidently say that this lack of online privacy is a problem. A big problem at that, they will continue to grow.
My biggest gripe is this. Why the hell are universities bragging about how accurately they can predict someones identity. Most research done at universities is public, because it's published. According to a course I am currently taking, Audience Analysis and Research, academic research is supposed to be published and purposely created with the intent of the experiments to be replicated. So, with that in mind any one right now, with the right connections could get those studies, analyze what these 'geniuses' did and try it for themselves.
We could very likely have a national security issue in the near future because no one's information is safe.
I know this all comes off as a bit paranoid. I'm not actually as worried as I might come across as, but there will need to be some tougher software developed in the near future to combat this potential issue.
Very interesting article though, but I hope the highlighted problems never effect my friends, family, or I.
Personally, I thought that this article and exercise was very eye-opening. I've always been aware of the risk of putting information on the internet. Whenever I order anything on the internet, I still feel a little uneasy typing in my credit card number because once that information is entered, I have no control of where those numbers go, whose eyes can see them...etc. When I entered my name into the Google search engine, I knew what would show up. Most of the hits were results from swim meets, posted by the OHSAA and USA Swimming. I was astonished to see that there was a blog post by a UNLV student journalist, who had done an article and blog post about my recruitment to their school. I hadn't met with anyone affiliated with the campus's newspaper publications so that was a little weird. Personally, I don't think that the 'public' in itself has too much control of what goes on the internet. For example, look at celebrities. I'm sure that they don't like being photographed 23 hours a day and being added onto gossip magazines and web sites. So where are the boundaries? I think there really aren't any. Anyone can pretty much post whatever they want on the internet, if they really wanted to. I think even though the internet flirts with the First Amendment, there needs to be more constriction about what someone can post on the internet.
ReplyDeleteI've never been very skeptical about online privacy. I just spent a good thirty minutes researching myself online and the only thing I could find was a High school TV production website. Apparently I was student of the week in February 2006, news to me. Not only is my name extremely common but it is comprised of two first names. I've had a blog, myspace or Facebook since 9th grade but have always been extremely careful about deleting them when I was through. I went through a paranoid phase of making my Facebook completely private which has helped me out in retrospect to my work. Since I work for a government organization I have to be extremely careful about what I'm being associated with, we're not even allowed to buy alcohol with our logo on. This has helped me to think more cautiously about how much of my information is online and who can be viewing it.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to having your identity stolen, I'm not even sure of the precautions taken to avoid that. I've heard stories of people having their identities stolen who barely have any information online. The article spoke about social security numbers, how can we assure that they will not be stolen if there are so many miscellaneous things that our numbers are used for? I feel like anytime I'm calling a bank or my doctor I'm repeating my ss #. It doesn't seem that hard to steal if I'm dropping it left and right. I've even used it online, which seems extremely naive now. I feel as if there is a vulnerability to the internet that is too hard for us to avoid.
This was an interesting article, that did not surprise me the least bit. My business teacher always said “whenever you post something on the Internet, just know it will always be there for the public to see.” With this word of caution, I am always hesitant to put up any type of information. With social media websites and blogs overtaking the web, it is hard not to put up information you normally would not give out to someone. I remember seeing something on the news about a lady who updated her Facebook status as “going on vacation for a weekend” and was surprised to come back to her televisions, computers, and valuables missing from her home. This innocent update and ones like these can lead to major consequences.
ReplyDeleteUpdates are not the only thing that can lead to serious consequences. Lets not forget about those party pictures with underage drinking and beer pong set up in the background. You think your employer won’t look at those? Wrong! Even when your Facebook is set private it seems that anyone can find a way to view your seemingly “private” information. You do not want to be that person who does not get hired because of your sketchy Facebook page.
With cyber stalking and harassment to well known in this day and age, it is kind of scary to see every ones information available at your fingertips. “Google-ing” my name exposed a lot about me; even though it was not personal it made me wonder what other type of information is out there that I could dig up? It made me think about celebrities, no wonder there are people stalking their premises and calling them up!
In order to protect your identity is to make sure you don’t give out any information you wouldn’t give a stranger. Limit your profile to your name and general state. When putting up pictures choose with caution because you never know whom maybe judging your character based on your Facebook.
This is such as good subject to discuss with the ever increasing popularity of the internet and web sites like twitter and Facebook.
ReplyDeleteI took Prof. Parsons advice and did do some search of myself on the internet. There was some surprising result. Without getting into too much detail let’s just say that what I found most disturbing is that I found address of everywhere I've lived and other stuff some people might consider personal. I didn't find anything like an ssn# or anything but it made me wondering how in the hell my address where I lived became available to the world on the net. This may be due to no fault of my own but it does make you wondering.
Also people do need to be very careful with websites like twitter and Facebook. The attitude of today’s generation to update their status carelessly with things like “going to Mexico for vacation for 2 weeks” or opening e-mails from unknown e-mail addresses asking to update account info can have important ramifications. Even though most web servers do have privacy settings to limit what you want to allow others to view, as with anything there are ways around these settings. Any hacker worth their own weight in salt can and is able to change the programming code to view things like account billing and sensitive information. With this information they can get credit cards in your name or withdraw money from your bank account leaving you penniless. Then you get stuck with the mess of having to pay, with what little money you do have, to cancel the credit cards and to try and reestablish your accounts.
So here is the most important lesson to learn here. Do not put anything on the internet that you do not want to be viewed by the whole entire world.
It is scary to think that by just goggling your name someone can find out when your birthday is what high school you went to and where you live. In the constitution there is no mention of Privacy. It is your responsibility to protect yourself from identity theft and not give away your credit card number or any personal information over the Internet. I hardly shop or line or buy anything off line.
ReplyDeleteEven if you do everything to protect yourself from the internet like put your face book profile on private so people who aren’t your friends can’t see and don’t put any thing on your profile that you wouldn’t want your boss to see. Like in the study they predicted if they were gay or not by judging what kind of friends they have. I know personally I am friends with people I hardly know and I would not want my future boss to judge me by the friends that I barely know. Your friends can also post pictures of you that you wouldn’t want your boss to see and even thought you can delete them from your facebook profile they are still out there in the Internet.
These days you have to be so cautious and rethink everything you do. People can dig up anything from your past if they want to because everything is on record now. Sometimes it feels like you are always walking on eggshells. If you do make a mistake and you change and put it you’re past it will haunt you for the rest of your life and you are responsible for your actions. Instead of living in the moment stop and think about your actions.
Privacy Online
ReplyDeleteI ended up spending a lot of time researching my name online. I went straight to Google to begin my research. As soon as I clicked search my name and personal information flooded the screen. Old statistics of my high school, middle school, and AAU basketball career popped right up. My class rank and other clubs and organizations I was involved in high school were made available to the public as well. These then in return gave direct links to my former school district and county paper, which never holds back providing the county with peoples personal lives and information. All these links could be used as a tool to find directly where I live, to find who my family members are, and other personal information. My high school website provided my middle name, which could help narrow me down when searching for my personal information. Like most of my generation I have a Facebook page and often update it. Normally when I sign on it is just to chat with friends, update my status, and accept event invitations. For this blog I decided to check my information and privacy settings for my page. I knew my Facebook page listed my networks as Kent State University and Teays Valley High School, which I was fine with. My information tab gave my birthday, email, and cell phone number. I was a little unnerved for my email and cell phone number to be listed, but I wasn’t too worried because my friends are the only ones who can see it. At least this is what I thought before I looked at my privacy settings. Apparently for two years now I have had all my information completely open to anyone who has access to the World Wide Web. As I continued to search on Google I kept finding more information about my life, it was like my own personal scrap book. I became frustrated because I felt like the information provided by a Google search was beyond my control unlike my Facebook. What concerned me the most was the fact that someone could use the information provided on my Facebook alone to steal my identity. There is a program provided by the website Intelius.com where just by entering a cell phone number or name all information regarding address, other contact information, average income, home value, historical info, and family members are accessible by just a click of a mouse. All clearly enough to steal someone’s identity, and even their family members. The internet will never be a place of privacy with so many using social networking sites and programs being designed such as Intelius.com.
I completely agree with the author, anything and everything about a person can be found online. Whenever I get bored at home, all I have to do is type my name into Google and just read away. My friends Myspace pops up because my name is mentioned in his profile. Even my private Facebook site will show up, because of my name. All my high school sports articles will appear and as recent as last month, my Kent State articles about USG will show. Anybody can get a hold of my birthday, City, School, College and year of graduation. It is scary knowing that this information is out there and that there are people that can crack my Social Security number all by online information. What worries me the most is online hackers. Last year I was watching 60 minutes when they did a special on online hackers and how there is a worm out there in the internet world that once turned on, could crash over millions of computers and steal millions of people’s information. This is why it is so important for people to have firewalls and computer security in order to protect their information. Everything is turning to an online form, so with millions of people now using online banking, online payment plans, online tax helpers and many more online forms that require social security numbers and other personal information, if one hacker hacks their computer, their life is pretty much ruined. The online is a very useful and amazing place where billions of users can search whatever they desire and come up with positive results, but it can also be the scariest place on earth. Take the new Millennium for instance. Billions of people were afraid the world was going to end because we were sure if the computers were going to get confused on whether the year was 2000 or 1900, so people prepared for the worse. This could be a constant fear if the internet fell into the wrong hands.
ReplyDeleteWhen I googled my name it was scary to find that there was enough information online to figure out my age, high schools I attended, my awards, exams I took and even what the State of Virginia refunded in regards to taxes. There were a few Facebook similarly names here in there however, because mine is set on private I couldn’t find it, thank god.
ReplyDeleteThe article was very disturbing, but even though I know this it’s amazing how we still do the things we do. We put pictures up that range from innocent to extremely inappropriate that may can easily cost someone their job, education and or even future career goals. I found it to be very scary that some experts (or people who steel identities) can almost with no effort figure out very personal information about me or anyone else. Things have also gone to extremes such as suicides, cyber bullying and among other things-- these things happen because of personal exposure like pictures and information. Now if young people can figure small things out such as getting an email address or finding a phone number, you can only imagine what kind of things people will be able to figure out once the technology begins advances some more. Social networks are becoming very popular and in some way, shape or form are changing our culture.
We demand for privacy yet we make it easier for people to become apart of our lives whether we want them to witness it or not. People don’t like that our government can get hack into emails or listen in on our phone calls, but with personal profiles like this, it becomes easier for the government to gather information. Not only can the government use it but so can employers. People have to be careful with the type of content they put on their profiles because it can either break or make your career opportunities.
There is access to so many different things online. It is actually pretty crazy in what you can find out about people just through the internet. I am very happy to say I found next to nothing about me on google. When I typed in my name and high school I found something about my cheerleading squad on the town’s newspaper website. Other than that nothing really came up. However, there are many people that have the same name, and if not the same very similar. My first name is very common along with my last. My last name is also the name of a street in Brecksville and I noticed that came up a lot for addresses. When I typed in my name with my hometown, nothing really showed up either, not even my facebook page. However, many other things from different states had come up too. I try to keep everything I put on the internet private so that most likely has a major thing to do with it. I just think it would be scary to know if someone could find everything about you on the internet. As I was reading some of the comments others have left, I am very glad I kept everything private and really nothing can be found out about me.
ReplyDeleteI once heard of an ad on television where you could background check someone for free online. I thought it was strange but I suppose the idea could be true. On social networking sites, we put our information up there freely. We share pictures, likes and dislikes, and our political views and views on life in general. Although this allows people to get to know us, yet how much information is too much?
ReplyDeleteI know when online, certain viruses can attack your computer and steal most if not all your information. This is a scary thought and one may hope that you got all the latest anti-virus software, but is it enough?
I don't put anything online that I don't want anyone to see. I even share passwords with a couple of my closest friends, I know they would never privy that information to other people though. However, when I Google myself, I come up as a white lady on charges of the most heinous of crimes and also a singer of opera. I use nicknames most of the time on social networking sites so I'm not too much of an easy find.