I’m doing this week’s readings early, as I know for a fact I will forget to do this next week during Thanksgiving.
That said, DATA PRIVACY! Wheee! The first article talks about employers asking for your Facebook password. The simple answer for me is no. Or, more politely, along the lines of the first suggestion it offers, “please feel free to look at the public page the way it stands now.”
This gets me feeling like a sticky wicket. On one hand, as a social media marketer, my goal should be to bring the entire company into lockstep for the public face. That said, I really don’t want to work for Big Brother, and I would probably sue my employer for wrongful termination if they fired me based on what I said on my private page to a privately controlled group of people. Obviously public messages are a different story, but what I say in the “privacy” of my page should remain that way. The same way that a man with a window can add blinds to increase his privacy.
It occurs to me that Freedom of Speech plays into this as well, if an employer accesses my account and sees that I am a member of the private group “BUNNIES SHOULD BE EATEN!!!!” and the employer has a rabbit, was I not hired based on my beliefs?
The second article ties in more with the reading from last (two weeks) ago, with data aggregation. With so much available online about someone, how do we keep that information secure, and used properly? The Personal Data vault they suggest is a good start, but creeps me out.
A Wired article released the day of me writing this makes me increasingly nervous about my online data. Having been a victim of identity theft (it’s always fun to be woken up by Feds asking if I bought fertilizer in New York 12 hours earlier), I’ve been paying closer attention to what is online about me. I’ve actually bought a “burn phone” in cash that I use for both password recovery and as part of my passwords (10 digit phone numbers are a great addition to a password if it’s a number impossible to trace to you).
Questions for the reader:
1. Are you worried about a boss asking for your social media?
2. Are you worried about/taking steps to prevent your identity ending up online in a bad way?
christopherglaw 
There is so much great fodder for debate in the reading for this week. No, I would not give an employer access to my passwords for my social media accounts – and I would seriously question working for an organization that feels it has the right to that information. That being said, I still have to do my part in portraying myself as a professional, competent, mature, and conscientious woman consistently in my daily dealings. There is a quote from “To Kill a Mockingbird” about Atticus Finch: Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets. That is important to me.
I am always worried about identity theft, but I also worry about 1,000,000 other things in life that might happen. I do everything in my power to avoid it, but it’s not guaranteed. I did have my credit card number stolen and used for purchases at a Target in Orlando when I was enjoying a day with my family in Tampa, but luckily it wasn’t a devastating incident. With so much information available, I’m still on the fence about whether I should keep my webcam covered with a sticky note (a la Anfrew) or take the “whatever happens, happens and I’ll deal with it then” approach and keep my membership in B.S.B.E. (Bunnies Should Be Eaten).
You will have to explain more about being woken up by the Feds for your fertilizer purchase.
I would not give someone my Facebook password, or any password for that matter. My boss and I are friends on Facebook though, so she can see everything I post. Although I don’t think I would post anything that would offend anyway (I don’t get out much), being friends with people from work is also why I am careful about what I put on social media.
Ugh, Matt Honan’s story just makes me sick to my stomach with anxiety. I remember reading about all that when it happened, and all the coverage afterward… I just can not imagine. I can’t. I don’t want to.
I immediately started taking steps to secure my accounts. I’m not going to disclose the details of that process here, for obvious reasons, but the biggest one: two-step verification in every available account. My e-mail addresses, my Dropbox, my financial accounts… Those were the big ones. Two-step verification requires both a password and access to a device you’re physically carrying. It’s not COMPLETELY secure; those devices can be stolen. But it’s worlds harder than just hacking a password.
There ARE ways to make hacking you very difficult indeed, but there is no guaranteed way to hack-proof your information. It can’t be done. Infants’ identities can be stolen long before they’re online; imagine how much easier it is to hack someone who’s already loaded all kinds of private data onto the web.