Earlier this month, a Twitter user named PembsDave started a hashtag "game" with #twitterpornnames that encouraged people to post the name of their pet and the street they grew up on. In itself, this was probably innocent enough but the fact that so many put their information out in public just goes to show how little awareness there is surrounding personal privacy.
Information such as the name of your pet is often used for resetting passwords for online accounts. If any so-called game, like #twitterpornnames, asks for information that you use with anything online - don't share that information - you never know who will see it!
What you post on Twitter or on Twitter-related sites is aggregated by search engines and can be used to build a personal profile. Twitter and other social networking sites may feel safe and friendly, but once data has been posted it is available to be mined and might just be used in ways that were not anticipated.
I scared a friend recently by pointing out that between his Facebook profile and Twitter messages, I knew his name, date of birth, pet's name, partner's name, address, mother's maiden name, and where he worked.
You have all heard of identity theft - right? Don't make it easy for others to steal your identity!
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{ 2 comments… read them below or jump to the comment form to add your thoughts }
I am constantly nagging at my friends to take ownership of their online profile, and particularly not to use publicly know personal information as passwords (or worse than that! as the "secret" answers to those password-reset question/answers. jezus!!)
Of course it always begs the question; how does a non-techy person take control of their online profile?
Yasni is one tool I point friends to. Its a profile mining tool online that people can use to find out all about you, but likewise you can use it to see exactly what everyone in the world might know about YOU.
Another freaky gadget is Xobni (I think that's what its called anyway ..) which is an Outlook email data mining plugin. When you click on an email it goes off and data mines the web for that person's profiles and shows a summary in a little panel. Very freaky indeed!
Just last week I was contacted by a new business associate and Xobni led me straight to the poor unsuspecting young woman's PUBLIC Facebook profile. Needless to say she has quite an exciting after-hours life and that photos ... well ... the photos taught me to be less nosey! :p
A great reminder. Thank you.
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