Hi all,
after I have studied a few web sites, I found an interesting article on the homepage of the FTD. The article with the following link is about social networks and their security and can be found in the Financial Times Germany from the 28th of October 2009.
http://www.ftd.de/it-medien/medien-internet/:soziale-netzwerke-hacker-stiehlt-daten-von-schueler-vz/50029390.html
It is incredible, that within a few weeks a second dates theft happened at the famous VZ-networks in Germany. A hacker had stolen over 100.000 dates of the schülerVZ network and sent this information to a public institute. However it was the first time that complete private information, which is only visible for you and your friends, was spied out.
Consequently I thought that the user rate of such social networks would now decline or the increase would be flatter. On the contrary the popularity of social networks reached a new record with 24.6 million active users per month. These are 3.6 million people more, than a year before. Remarkable is the increase in the user’s figures at Facebook. This network tripled the amount of accounts in Germany during the last year.
I am really astonished that it is possible to get all this information. I believed that the operators learnt out of the first attack, what to improve and where the gaps are. I had a profile at studiVZ, but I extinguished it during the last days. Additionally it is very common in Germany that people in human research and recruiting departments of companies try to find your profile and get further information about your behavior, hobbies and friends. I knew this from a friend, how worked for several months in the HR department of a car manufacturer. There are also several articles written about this topic in the FTD, see for instance http://www.ftd.de/karriere-management/karriere/:spuren-im-netz-partybilder-bringen-bewerber-in-bredouille/556430.html
So pay attention, what you include in your profile and to which pictures you are linked ;-)
1 comment:
Two lessons: 1. To give yourself an edge when it comes to finding a job, you need to get your information into an online SN. 2. Don't put anything online that you wouldn't want your prospective employers to see legally or others illegally. Expectations of privacy are a thing of the past.
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