So You Have 45,678 Friends! Uh Huh?

As millions swarm to social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Friendster just to name a few. I'm sure many of you hav...

As millions swarm to social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Friendster just to name a few. I'm sure many of you have toyed around with a few of these social sites right? I've personally put them through their paces and found out that a few are good while others are just not my cup of tea. As it stands now, Facebook is my favourite! And it is currently the most popular among its peers. Right now, thousands if not millions of people are so immersed in their online "persona". Sometimes these addicts are so devoted that they forget how danger ours the Internet is!

Chatting with your "friends"?

Experts however have warned that these people are actually putting themselves at risk from dangers such as identity theft and stalking. Frankly I knew a few friends whose online social network accounts have been hacked and compromised. Worse still, some of my pals' Live Messenger accounts have been hacked and abused. How scary is that? So are you being victimised too?

Do you have one of these badges?

Of course, there are loopholes everywhere in today's technologies. But we can do our part to minimise the risk. Here are some basic precautions we can take to avoid any unwanted circumstances from happening in the future. It's better to be safe than sorry right? Remember, they are always watching us...

6 Basic Precautions While Using Social Networking Sites:

1~Check for the website's privacy policy. Do you know that some sites allow unrestricted access to your posted contents. Be it photos, testimonials, messages, comments or even your private data. If possible try to restrict access to your profile so only close and trusted friends can view your information.

2~Omit you private information. Yes! Seriously we should consider omitting our full name, address, phone number, pets' and maiden names or any personal details that could allude to passwords. Some hackers can easily hack our accounts based on our personal information. This is something that bothers me, especially with Facebook. As we all know, we are required to enter our full name in order to adhere to Facebook's T&C. But I believe this could make us vulnerable. Hopefully Facebook will rethink about this.

3~Choose a username that doesn't contain personal info. Try not to use your real name when choosing your username as this might expose yourself making you more vulnerable to those preying eyes. It's better to stay anonymous sometimes.

4~Be aware that personal photos can be altered. Yes. A lot of people are not aware of this. Or they just ignore about this fact. No matter what you have done to the setting to disable from "grabbing" your photos, people can still save your photos. Some sickos might obtain your photos for other reasons like doctored it to defame you, cast a spell on you & stalk you...So do you realize how malicious this could turn out to be?

5~The Internet is open to the public. Yes, it is a public venur people can view what you are doing. And you actually let them do so freely. So bear in mind to only post stuff you don't mind strangers knowing. After all you can't take it back-even if you deleted it. Older versions will exist on other computers, servers and ultimately it will always be circulating in the Internet.

6~Don't believe everything you read online. That's a mistake that a lot of us believe. Sometimes when emotion can the better of us, we will easily buy what other people say. These happens with who youth blatantly believe what some influential figure write on their blogs. It's like everything written is the truth. Some facts may be true but not all. So we shouldn't be so naive or else we will manipulated.

Well, I believe that's all for now. These basic precautions are simple common sense and we should have known about it right from the start. We'd better be careful ok. We are being watched! :(

Then again YOU can do this right now!

~First Commenter~