Reputation Management, Internet Privacy, and Social Media Quick Hits

Good morning ReputationDefender fans! Here are some of the things that the web is buzzing about this morning.

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Social Engineering Played Role in Google Attacks

An analysis of the Chinese attack on Google revealed that “social engineering” was involved in gaining access to Google’s data. Social engineering is a topic we’ve talked about briefly before, but essentially what it means is the manipulation social media technology to give the appearance that a person is receiving a message from their friend, when it is actually a hacker trolling for sensitive information. These kind of attacks are on the rise and are difficult to stop because they make personnel the weakpoint rather than any technical flaw.

Looking for a Job? Start Tweeting

The New York Times Bits Blog reports on a new Twitter tool called JobDeck, which is a desktop application combining TwitJobSearch and Tweetdeck, has just been developed. Twitter has become a very valuable tool for recruiting and tools like JobDeck will make it even easier for professionals to get their name out there. For more advice on using Twitter as a job-search tool, check out our Twitter Guide to Finding Your Next Job.

Flash-based Twitter Security Flaw Exposed, Then Closed

According to ReadWriteWeb, Foreground Security recently discovered a security flaw in Twitter’s Flash-based website widget thay could have allowed a hacker to access the login credentials of any Twitter user. The widget has been disabled while Twitter looks into the flaw, but early reports suggest it had existed for over a year.

Middle-School Student Suspended For Mocking Teacher on Facebook

A seventh-grade student in upstate New York was suspended from school for setting up a defamatory Facebook page about a teacher she didn’t like. Another 25 students who became fans of the group were given three days detention. Do you think the punishment is excessive? If I were the teacher, I wouldn’t think so.

Privacy vs. Vanity?

Daniel Sieberg of CBS News has an excellent editorial on Internet privacy and how voyeurism and vanity have in many ways replaced our instincts for keeping things private. From his article:

At some point in our digital evolution many of us traded privacy for ego. What I mean by that is that it became more intriguing, more tantalizing, to reveal our selves (or how we imagine ourselves) to the rest of the world rather than internalize our lives a bit more or share them with an immediate sphere of people (guilty as charged, as I’ve previously revealed).

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In the virtual worlds we can receive a broad spectrum of feedback and approval and encouragement in a brief period of time in a way that’s simply not possible in the real one. And it’s worth noting that privacy is not the same thing as secrecy. What we deem unfit for public consumption may still be something we share with our closest (real-life) friend. But our avatar or alter ego saw social networks as a chance to feel justified or accepted or vindicated. And if you think your social network profile doesn’t exemplify some of those tendencies then go through your list of friends and count how many you see on a regular basis or know really well or have ever met in person. Why do they each receive the same sentiments?

Google Is Watching You (At Least Your Google Toolbar Is)

According to a report in Mashable, security expert Ben Edelman has learned that the Google toolbar continues tracking your browsing history even when you have disabled that option. Edelman also notes that Google’s privacy disclosures have gotten weaker over time. For more details, check out Edelman’s full blog post.

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