No Mo Info

We are all aware that some "other people" are occasionally scammed successfully by someone over the internet. Fortunately, most people are now jaded enough to smell spam and phishing from a mile away. There is, however, another aspect to internet security that I think we should pay more attention to.

Many people I know post photos on various websites. The idea is to enable friends and family members to download them and print or develop them. I posted a couple photos on one of those sites before realizing that I don't want any bozo off the street to see my personal pics. Plus, different friends use different sites for the same purpose, so eventually you might have to use half a dozen such sites.

This applies to more than family pictures. How many websites have you purchased items from using a credit card? We commonly use sites such as Ebay and Amazon, but I have made purchases from a number of other online stores. They not only have my credit card number, but my address and phone number, too.

What about other private data? Sites such as Myspace, personal web pages, and even blogging sites collect personal data. This is largely so we can be targeted for marketing, but what happens when this data falls into the wrong hands? (I think the targeted marketing is wrong enough.)

Let us be careful about what kind of personal information we allow to be available on the internet. The world is rapidly becoming smaller, but that doesn't mean we should give sensitive information to every yahoo with a keyboard. Be smart!