Carol H Tucker Passionate about knowledge management and organizational development, expert in loan servicing, virtual world denizen and community facilitator, and a DISNEY fan
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beladona Memorial Be warned:in this very rich environment where you can immerse yourself so completely, your emotions will become engaged -- and not everyone is cognizant of that. Among the many excellent features of SL, there is no auto-return on hearts, so be wary of where your's wanders...
There was an incident on Friday that troubled me – I received what purported to be a Mothers’ Day card from her, with her picture that she uses in a profile. When I clicked through, it asked that I agree to let the application use my Google contacts, and yes I agreed. Then the page came up “not found”
Of course I assumed it was a problem with the website getting along with the security filters at work and tried again later at home. Only after it failed there did I email my daughter and found out it was bogus. Sometimes I have to castigate myself for not being the brightest bulb in the lot, I’ll admit.
It was a very targeted phishing ploy that used my daughter’s photo and the holiday to sail right past common sense precautions -- and it worked. But it brings up a couple of interesting questions:
Just how “secure” is the information that we keep in our Gmail contacts?
Do you need to control who puts you in a “circle” on G+? Twitter doesn’t let you control who “follows” you either, for the record. Neither does Pinterest, for that matter. Facebook has security settings, but I am informed that mine are inadequate because I let “friends of friends” see things.
And, more importantly, if you are posting or writing or blogging for the general public, are you somehow endangering not only yourself but everyone around you?
For example: My daughter and I have finally agreed to disagree about posting pictures of her family anywhere online. I obviously am very proud of my family and would love to share photos of her and her family, especially as my granddaughter grows. Both my daughter and her husband are very convinced that my doing so is an invasion of their privacy that is at best reckless and inconsiderate and at worst downright dangerous. Things came to a head a few months back when I posted a picture of my granddaughter’s shirt [a picture cropped to take out her face and the surroundings] – and I capitulated – her family, her rules for one thing. And the other thing is a concern that they might be right.
[Please note that I am hardly starved for pictures of my granddaughter. They send pictures by text now and then, and share on Facebook quite often. They give me a lovely book album every six months, share school pictures, upload to a family site in Shutterfly.]
Another example: my friend has remonstrated with me over posting such information about myself as I did last week about my employment history, stating that I was damaging my professional creditability. While I disagree with her, and it certainly is not the kind of story I would share in a professional network such as LinkedIn, her question touches on an aspect of office politics that I have never been good at – how do you manage others’ perceptions? My answer has always been that I don’t, I let ‘em make up their own minds, but I have to admit that once a perception is created, it is well nigh impossible to alter or even modify.
Am I being naïve to think that being open makes for a more interesting and engaging internet? Have the trolls and phishers and spammers already won? My heart says no, but then I see that targeted message and wonder if I am about to be taken for a fool….
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