interesting results

After googling my name, a plethora of different "steve hurley's" popped up. None of which was myself, not even my facebook or google+ account. What did show up was an apparently pretty famous r&b musician steve "silk" hurley and "adult entertainer" steve hurley. Both of which I laughed at, along with more random people such as photographers, lawyers etc. I seriously went through 7 pages and nothing that was about me. I guess it is because my name is a pretty common one, but I was really surprised to see that my online presence is almost non existent since I do have facebook,google+, and other websites I have created or been a part of.

My situation most likely isn't the most common one, and internet privacy is something that I know people are concerned with. I really think though, if you do not want your information available, dont post it! People should be aware that yes there are privacy settings on some websites, but for the most part, the internet is an immense tool with immense capabilities, some of which make it possible for your information and privacy to be seen even if you dont want it to.

I was happy with the results that popped up after googling my name. I have my Facebook account put on private, so the only thing that’ll show is my favorite TV shows. I have an old LinkedIn account I’ll end up deactivating anyway, and my ancient MySpace page never had any reference of my real name on it. I do think the only reason why my page shows up first is because of my IP address and my location to the servers. Otherwise, as I search deeper for my name, other Peruvian Anthony Bordas in South America populate in my results. I think I’m off the hook for now.

I checked out the articles about Facebook when they had made that change. If Zuckerberg stole the idea of Facebook from prominent rich folks, I don’t think he’d care about my feelings of privacy. I try to keep in mind on what information I post. I have a total of maybe 6 things that I have “liked” through facebook. Fortunately I’m anti-Facebook, I only have the account to keep in contact with people I’ve met through school. If Facebook fell off the earth I wouldn’t care because it runs people’s lives. I’m careful of the internet content I post because anything can be saved and documented. Internet postings could hurt a reputation (Anthony Weiner) or benefit someone ( Phil DiFranco Youtube star). I think users should use the social networking sites to their advantage.

Googling myself

Upon a quick search for the name "Evan Ward", multiple profile accounts for facebook, linkedin, myspace and other popular sites appear, none of which are mine. I do have multiple accounts on different popular websites, but my use of them is extremely limited. My posting is few and far between on any given site as I prefer to have my personal interaction, well, in person. Whether or not someone took the time to actually find any one of my profiles would not matter much to me regardless. When I do use sites like facebook, it's more of checking messages/events more than posting, there is nothing that anyone would be shocked to find out on my accounts. Also, anyone I care to talk to is generally a contact on my phone or I can see them in person.

There is a general amount of security one should have in matters like email, but anything posted on a public site (or private like someone's facebook profile) is out there and anyone with enough doing can see it. Most things on the internet are archived, and people do save things and repost them later. It surprises me when I hear stories of people posting things online, or emailing something and it turning up online somewhere a few days (or hours) later. Absolute privacy on the internet is almost impossible, but you can do a lot to keep yourself secure.

Some of the case studies

There are more than 800 million active facebook users who log atleast once in a day. How many of them actually care for privacy?  If they did they would not have been active users on facebook. But there are some cases wherein the information provided by facebook updates have caused loss of jobs, or divorce in marriage. I read an article by cbsnews, wherein a teacher was forced to resign from the job, only because she had put a picture of hers holding a glass of wine and beer on facebook. A parent complained the principal of school  and it all formed a huge issue.

Ashley Payne: A former teacher

Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/06/sunday/main7323148.shtml

I have also heard of some cases of spam and hacking account. A woman’s account was hacked and messages were sent to all her friends, that she needs money because she is tormented and beaten by her husband and all this increased to a stage which  finally led to the divorce between the husband and wife. Neverthless, most of us have been victims of spam messages sent from our account of weird pictures or messages to our friends. Facebook allows the user's  pictures to be downloaded by anyone, especially the profile picture. But despite this people are ready to keep their original pictures on facebook.

Moreover, the primary information of email address we provide to most people these days can help anyone to track easily, the name, phone number, address and the country of the person. A useful site for this is: http://www.email-seeker.com/. There are sites like reputation.com which help to build a good reputation on the internet. They can delete the unwanted information on the users name on the web. These was primarily used by parents to keep their teenage children’s record clean, especially being concerned of what they post on the social media websites. But now it is used by even adults, especially those who want create good impression while applying for jobs.

Besides, I even would like to share the case of one of my close friends, who got a job, through craigslist. Initially she was very happy, but since the job was concerned with money transaction she tried to search in detail about the company and figured out that it was a fake company which took money of the employees and put them in serious bad financial condition. Before her, there were many cases of victim and a fbi investigation is going on it.

Undoubtedly the world wide web, has helped us with many sources, but we also have to be more careful than before regarding the information we share on the internet.

Internet Piracy

I had goggled myself before to find out what comes up and my facebook was in the top five of what came up. To make it disappear to a certain extent I had changed my facebook name by making my last name my middle name and I also changed the url to my facebook link so it wouldn’t read facebook.com/britneywallace.  I know that some employers or people in general may find my facebook page so I still keep it as professional as I can but I don’t want it to be that easily accessible.

Now when I google myself I just realized that my twitter also is shown in the results along with my google plus account (which I don’t mind).  I do mind my twitter coming up and I will definitely change that in the near future and would like my linkedin account to come up instead of my social medias. I do plan on using twitter professionally one day and when that happens I will make it accessible again.

I don’t expect to be able to hide anything from people to access because I know it is not rational. Because of this I do not put anything on the internet that I don’t want people to see.

Google / Privacy

I'm happy to say that my public online presence is pretty much insignificant information.  When I google my name the top hit is to my blog and then many other "Monica Sicilia's" appear before I have content again.  There are links to my site and projects I have created, books written for Sadlier, etc. but all-in-all, really not much pertaining to me.  I like it that way!

I think the only reasonable expectation we can have about online privacy is the reality that there are times when no matter what our desire, our privacy may be violated.  I think it's important to keep what you share at a bare minimum, but realistically others can post information about you or, innocently, you can makes comments or postings that reveal information you had not intended.

I believe that online communities, such as facebook, should be held accountable if information is "leaked" through their sites and it is not intended for public knowledge.   I guess another reality check is appropriate here-- we are dealing with technology and imperfect people so "glitches" happen and will continue to happen.  So as wonderful as our cyber world is, there are definate unfortunate realities--hopefully we will learn from these and they will become less in the future.

googling colleen caffrey.

when i was younger, i wasn't really aware of the reach of my web presence. every few years, i end up googling myself, each time for different reasons usually. when i first googled myself, i did not hold any social media accounts. i remember finding other individuals with the same names, but then i also recall finding an online record that was actually me from a town charity walk which i participated in, simply listing my finish time. the next time i googled myself, i was probably a sophomore in high school, and had  quite a few social media sites: facebook, a personal myspace, a photography myspace, a picasa web albums account, and a purevolume account. because i wasn't really supposed to have a myspace account, i thought i had set my privacy settings in such a way that no one would be able to find me. little did i know that those settings only mattered within the myspace search, and not within google. of my five accounts, i remember three or four displaying in the search. i quickly went back and reviewed all settings. i ended up deleting my purevolume and both myspace accounts soon after (or so i thought). the next time i googled myself, i was applying to be a resident assistant. after hearing stories that reslife would search people's social media presence while in the hiring process, i scrubbed my facebook clean so to speak, untagging all incriminating photos and tightening up my privacy controls even moreso. when i googled myself, i was shocked to discover that my photography myspace account was still up, after i believed i had deleted it. i scrambled to remember the email and password i used, and deleted it(after seeing how many requests and spam messages had accumulated). after googling myself earlier tonight, i was relieved to see colleen caffrey the drummer from atlanta coming up most frequently. when i looked at images, i was not very surprised to see my facebook default picture present in the search, as i have that as one of the few things that display when you search for me in facebook. i was however, surprised to see an image i had created and set as my default for a spraygraphic account that i had set up to receive the newsletter, but never really utilized. i traced the image back to the account, and deleted it, yet tonight when i searched, the image still appears. 

growing up in this explosion of social media, i feel as though i have grown to become more responsible for my decisions in posting web content and creating accounts. i have always been somewhat cautious about what i have posted, but i feel as though now i have matured myself, i am even more discrete. i think its sort of related to the generational discussion we were having last class... as a young teenager, you tend to rebel and live without consequences. as you mature, you tend to take more responsibility for your actions, and recognize the consequences each and every choice you make may have on your future.