MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. – A judge removed a juror from a trial in suburban Detroit after the young woman wrote on Facebook that the defendant was guilty. The problem? The trial wasn’t over. Hadley Jons, of Warren just north of Detroit, could be found in contempt when she returns to the Macomb County circuit court Thursday.

Jons, 20, was a juror in a case of resisting arrest. On Aug. 11, a day off from the trial and before the prosecution finished its case, she wrote on Facebook that it was “gonna be fun to tell the defendant they’re guilty.”

Read the Complete Post on Yahoo.com

This highlights an emerging issue in the world of information exposure and control. What you post on Facebook (words, videos, photos, status) can be used for other purposes (good and evil). Take a look at some of the ways law enforcement is using social networking profiles to keep tabs on you.

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1. Facebook: Press 2 For Law Enforcement
2. Facebook Installs a Panic Button for Children
3. Facebook ‘Dislike Button’ is a Scam!

I received an email last night from a well-known TV anchor wanting my input on a new Facebook issue.  He’d read that when calling Facebook Headquarters, the automated attendant comes on and gives you options to reach each department, and the second option was to press 2 for “law enforcement.”

It could seem odd to many, but it’s true. If you call the Facebook Headquarters (650-543-4800) and reach the switchboard, the 1st option is “For customer support, press 1″ and the second option is “For law enforcement, press 2″. Law enforcement comes ahead of business development, marketing, press, and employment verification in the list of options.When you press 2, the next message says: “This message is only for members of law enforcement. Please note that due to a very large volume of incoming calls, the current call back time is two to four business days. For a faster response, please leave your work authorized email address… A member of Facebook’s security team will email in a timely manner.” Which means that Facebook is very busy fielding calls from law enforcement.

The anchor, and the rest of us, want to know why!

Facebook receives all kinds of requests by law enforcement, as it is essentially a diary of each and every user. Don’t confuse it with a typical diary of the pre Web 2.0 era. The modern diary (or dossier, as I more commonly refer to social networking profiles) is a photo journal, video log, friendship org chart, location status, written history, browsing analyzer, that is so effective because it can be so addictive. In other words, the Facebook activity of an average user  is a digital representation of  that user’s identity. So, to net it out, here several reasons law enforcement officers call Facebook:

• Tracking listed sex offenders for inappropriate use of the Internet
• Civil dispute subpoenas (domestic cases, child custody, harassment, etc.)
• Evidence used in the discovery process (establishing intent, state of mind, relationships, etc.)
• Cases of libel or defamation
• Terrorist activity tracking and fundraising
• Background checks for local, regional and federal governmental positions
• Background checks on potential jurors (see tomorrow’s story about a juror who was dismissed because of a Facebook post)

This is a fascinating and under-reported aspect of social networks – they are providing an open book on people (for good and evil) that used to take investigators (and scammers) weeks or months to collect. All you really need is a subpoena, or to friend the person on whom you are collecting data.

John Sileo became one of America’s leading Social Networking Security Speakers. You can learn more about Facebook Safety and how to protect yourself online here. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer and the FDIC. To learn more about having him speak at your next meeting or conference, contact him by email or on 800.258.8076.

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1. How to Disable Facebook Places
2. Facebook Hits 500 Million Users: 3rd Largest Country
3. Facebook Safety Survival Guide

Here is the step by step process to disable Facebook Places:

1. Log into your Facebook account, and at the top right drop down menu under Account click Privacy Settings.Once you are in Privacy Settings you will see this screen:

2. Click Custom (if that isn’t your selection already) and then click below 0n Customize Settings.

3. You should see the following screen, where you will need to make 2 changes – first, to Things I share and then to Things others share. Under Things I share click on the drop-down box next to Places I check in to click custom and chose to make this visible to  Only Me.

5. Scroll down on the Customize page to Things others share:

Under Things others share click Disabled to the right of Friends can check me in to Places.

One More Thing…

There is one last step you should take. You need to adjust one last setting that allows third-party applications (such as quizzes and games) used by your friends to access your location data. Facebook makes it difficult by stating that you only need to “uncheck the new box in your Privacy Settings under “Applications and Websites.” Facebook should have specified which box they were talking about, and they should NOT have turned this on by default. Alas, in reality, we’re not working with what Facebook should do, but what we must do to turn off data leakage.

Go back to the main privacy page (above) and under the heading, “Applications and Websites.”click on “Edit your settings.” You should now be looking at a screen similar to the one below. Click on the “Edit Settings” button across from “Info accessible through your friends.”

You should see a pop-up window (like the one below) that lists a variety of identity information from your profile including biography, birthday, hometown, current city, and so forth. Any of these items that are checked off are available to third-party applications used by your friends.

Find the checkbox called “Places I check in to,” and uncheck it (if you don’t want third-party applications that your friends use to harvest your check-in data). While you are here, uncheck any other data that you don’t want your friends sharing with corporate America.

TIP: Third-party applications you use personally can gather your geographic data only if you authorize that application to do so. The downside is that if you don’t want an application to access your location data then you won’t be able to use that application.

These steps will help tighten your security and minimize the amount of location tracking data that is stored and shared. Facebook, however, will always reserve the right to collect and utilize this data internally, but that’s the price you pay for using Facebook. Although this disables Facebook Places now, it is best to stay current on the changes that Facebook is making and always check your privacy settings to make sure that you are protected.

John Sileo became one of America’s leading Social Networking Security Speakers. You can learn more about Facebook Safety and how to protect yourself online here. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer and the FDIC. To learn more about having him speak at your next meeting or conference, contact him by email or on 800.258.8076.

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1. 6 Abuses for Facebook Places
2. Facebook: Press 2 For Law Enforcement
3. Facebook Privacy: Videos, Photos and Status Updates

• Help people share where they are in a social context
• See which friends are near by
• Discover nearby places and new places through friends’ profiles

But, by default, it also allows your friends to tag and publicize your location for you. It’s like being tagged in a photo, except the other person gets to share your location instead of your picture (even if you don’t want others to know where you are, and even if you are not there).

Here are some of the rarely discussed ways that Facebook Places will be used (now or in the future) that you might want to think about before checking in:

1. Facebook will sell (share) your current location and profile to stores in your vicinity so that they can server you hyper-targeted advertising (e.g., here’s a coupon for the store you are about to enter).
2. Friends who aren’t actually your friends will be able to check you in to questionable Places even when you are not there (the practical jokes for the Check Friends In feature are limitless)
3. Facebook will compile and analyze your Places and then sell this profile to companies that would like to have you as a customer. If you “check in” frequently while in Casinos, get ready for a healthy dose of advertising from Bally’s.
4. Thieves will track your location to know the best time to rob your home. It happens every day.
5. Your suspicious spouse or boss will have a handy tool to track your whereabouts when you’d rather keep it private (this could actually be seen as a positive use of Places).
6. The police will be able to subpoena records of your location at the time of a crime (again, if you have done nothing wrong and can prove it, this is a great way for law enforcement to establish location).

The solution isn’t to completely avoid all use of places. It’s to customize your Facebook Places Privacy Settings so that you are in control of the flow of data.

Social Networking Safety Speaker John Sileo

Related posts:

1. How to Disable Facebook Places
2. A Facebook Privacy Tool, Finally
3. Facebook Announces New Privacy Settings

Sophos wrote about the scam in a post on Monday,  pointing out that a link to it tends to appear in wall posts that appear to be from the user’s friends (“I just got the Dislike button, so now I can dislike all of your dumb posts lol!!”) but which are actually automated messages from friends who have already been duped. The scam’s purpose is to force users to complete a survey contained in the application, a bit of trickery that has already been known to be perpetuated through scam links like “Justin Bieber trying to flirt” and “Anaconda coughs up a hippo,” the two of which presumably would be enticing to rather different demographics of Facebook users.

As Facebook’s surging membership numbers have blazed past 500 million around the world, its channels of fast social connection and messaging have become a prime target for scammers and viruses.This one’s particularly nasty because a “dislike button,” offering some kind of counterpoint to Facebook’s own “like” button is something that many members have been clamoring for.

Continue Reading the Article

John Sileo is a information security expert that speaks professionally to organizations that want to protect their profits against identity theft, social media exposure and corporate espionage. His recent clients include the Department of Defense, FDIC, FTC and Pfizer.

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A recent segment on CNN discusses the risks that you may be taking while updating your Facebook status. You don’t know who is looking at your private information because it’s really not private – it’s public. Keri McMullen found this out the hard way after she posted a simple status message that she was going to see a band with her fiance. It only took the burglars calling the venue to find out what time the show was starting to know when they could break into her home. The burglars showed up 35 minutes after the McMullens left for the concert.

It is that simple. You post a casual message to your “friends” that could turn into a nightmare where, like Keri, you lose upwards of $11,000 in personal property. They were lucky that they had cameras installed in the home and were able to catch the perpetrators on film. After posting pictures of them on her Facebook page (a good use of social networking), another friend recognized the intruders as Keri’s high school classmate.

This story shows Facebook users that although you may have know this individual at one time, if you do not interact with them and know their character now, then how can you trust them? Remember you don’t have to be friends with everyone you have ever spoken to on Facebook. By keeping your ‘friends’ limited, you are lessening your risk of becoming a victim. No matter what privacy setting you have on your Facebook profile, your posts are public, permanent and exploitable.

Learn more on Facebook safety and child online safety through our Facebook Safety Survival Guide.

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Facebook has the Population of the Third Largest Country

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 marked a big day for Facebook. CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg announced in a blog post that the social networking website hit over 500 million users in only 6 years.

If you take a look at the worlds largest countries in terms of population (as of today according to Wikipedia) you find that China is #1 with 1,339,130,000, India is #2 with 1,184,513,000 and #3 is the United States with only 309,944,000. This would mean that if Facebook were a real country with their population of 500,000,000, then it would clearly surpass the USA for the #3 ranking.

Many believe that Facebook will hit a billion users in less than a year by looking the rapid growth they have encountered since their founding.  With their fast expansion the privacy issues on the website keep mounting as well. Make sure when you are using Facebook you are using it with the best possible protections – your common sense. Click here to learn more on Facebook Safety for users and parents of users.

John Sileo became one of America’s leading Social Networking Speakers & sought after Identity Theft Experts after he lost his business and more than $300,000 to identity theft and data breach. John’s latest book Privacy Means Profit, hit stands August 9, 2010 and bridges the gap between personal identity theft and corporate data breach. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer and the FDIC. To learn more about having him speak at your next meeting or conference, contact him by email or on 800.258.8076.

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2. Largest Identity Theft Ring Charged
3. Facebook: Press 2 For Law Enforcement

Nigerian scams (more accurately known as advanced-fee fraud) have been around for ages and were named because they originated in Nigeria. To create the scam, criminals generally claim that there is a large sum of money that can only be released to a relative of some deceased member of royalty.  Victims are asked to provide a bank account into which the money can be transferred and are promised a large percentage of the money for performing the service. In some cases, victims may also be asked to pay a fee or a series of fees for the release of the money.  Once the victim has provided account information, the criminals will often drain their bank accounts, and occasionally use that information to open new, fraudulent accounts.

If you have never seen one before I highly recommend you read this. They change frequently and recently have been taking more complex forms, but the intention is always the same: to steal your money in exchange for the prospect of wealth that never materializes.  After seeing how they try to lure you into helping them with a compelling story,  you will be able to spot them with ease and protect yourself form becoming a victim.

From: refugee camp (helise)
Date: July 24, 2010 4:11:08 AM MDT
To: john@sileo.com
Subject: Contact Submission [ThinkLikeASpy.com]

===================================================================
Below is a contact request from ThinkLikeASpy.com
===================================================================

Name: helise
Email: refugee camp
Phone:
Company:
Location:

Comments:
Dear friend,
My nane (sic) is Miss Helise Mambo Robert.I am constrained to contact you because of the maltreatment I was receiving from my uncle since the death of my parents. She has taken away all my late father’s treasury and properties from me since the unexpected death of my beloved parents. Meanwhile I wanted to escape to the Europe but he hides away my international passport and other valuable traveling documents. Luckily, He did not discover where I kept my father’s file which contained important documents. So, I decided to run to the refugee camp where I’m in a the Refugee now.
My late father of blessed memory deposited the sum of Fifteen Million five hundred thousand US Dollars.(US$15.5M)some where with my name as the “next of kin”.The money was inherited from my father who was the Chairman of the Zimbabwe Gold Mining Corporation before he was assassinated by the country’s president, Robert Mugabe. However, I shall forward you with the necessary documents on confirmation of your acceptance to assist me receive the fund in your country for further investments on my behalf. As you will help me in an investment, and I will like to complete my studies when I will come over to your country as I was in my 1st year in the university when the crisis started.This is the reason why I decided to contact you.
The money has been lodged with a company, since 2008. I now want to move this money abroad and invest it in Profitable ventures, as the time is now ripe for such move.I was in the school when my father and mother were assasinated (sic) by the president.Our houses and other properties were distroyed (sic).The group pretended to be rebels but we knew that it is the president that sent them because he has disagrement (sic)with him on the issue of killing the white people who are farmers in my country.My father opposed the killing and my father told him that he will expose him if he goes ahead in killing the with farmers.

WHAT I ASK YOU TO DO:

1.Firstly to assist me move this money to any stable country abroad.
2.To assist me invest the money in profitable ventures in your country or any other suitable country where you have good connections.
3. To help me re-locate me to the suggested country.
4. To manage the money in a profitable manner, preferably a joint venture deals with you. It is risk free.
Immediately I hear from you I will detail you on the procedure of moving the money to your country.

For your assistance you will get 30% (Thirty Percent) of the total amount.
You can contact me through my e-mail above for more details.
Sincere regards

Miss Helise Mambo Robert
===================================================================

John Sileo became America’s top Identity Theft Speaker after he lost his business and more than $300,000 to identity theft and data breach. His newest Book Privacy Means Profit revent Identity Theft and Secure You and Your Bottom Line is available now. His clients include the Department of Defense, the FTC, Pfizer and the FDIC. To learn more about having him speak at your next meeting or conference, contact him by email or on 800.258.8076.

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3. Facebook ‘Dislike Button’ is a Scam!

The Panic Button will automatically appear on the homepage of users between the ages of 13 and 18 years old. Recently Facebook has been scrutinized because of their relaxed privacy controls and lack of protection for all users, including children. This marks another effort by Facebook  to attempt to calm users concerns and team up with other organizations to offer protection to younger participants. In the US, Facebook is teaming up with the Parent Teacher Association to help keep children informed and safe while using the website.

Facebook vice-president Joanna Shields added: “There is no single silver bullet to making the Internet safer but by joining forces with CEOP we have developed a comprehensive solution which marries our expertise in technology with CEOP’s expertise in online safety”.

It is important to be educated when dealing with any form of social media or social networking website. You should know the ins and outs, pros and cons, risks and rewards to using these online tools.  For more information on Facebook Safety and protecting your children online, check out our Facebook Safety Survival Guide.

Read the Entire Article: Facebook installs ‘panic button’ for children

John Sileo is the award-winning author of Stolen Lives, Privacy Means Profit and the Facebook Safety Survival Guide. His professional speaking clients include the Department of Defense, the FTC, FDIC, Pfizer, Prudential and hundreds of other organizations that care about their information privacy. Contact him directly on 800.258.8076.

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Why Facebook Privacy Settings Don’t Matter

John C. Dvorak – I find it endlessly amusing how so many articles are written about Facebook and its cavalier lack of concern over privacy issues (case in point: Read Dan Costa’s column). A large community is up in arms over the fact that Facebook consistently changes the way it operates and constantly resets the privacy settings of the users to nil, as in NO PRIVACY.

This amuses me because it seems as if the majority of Facebook users don’t even know about or care about the privacy settings. Once in a while some old lady is flabbergasted by the fact that anyone can write on her wall, sure. And once in a blue moon some teenage girl says she “didn’t know” her teachers could see her comments. All the while the users of Facebook are increasing by the millions as the complaints are increasing by the thousands, thus amounting to nothing of consequence.

Now there is a movement to create an open-source version of the social network to address all these concerns, and it may or may not be successful, but it doesn’t matter since most users have so little regard for their own privacy. They’re too busy publishing humiliating pictures of themselves on Facebook, Flickr and elsewhere. It always seems to be a good idea at the time.

And why do Americans continue to do these dumb things? It’s a unique reflection of the short-term thinking that plagues the culture. We always hear about this phenomenon regarding the activities of American corporations, which always seem to be thinking short-term to appease the investors. They do things quarter by quarter instead of thinking toward the long future.

Continue Reading…

John Sileo is the award-winning author of Stolen Lives, Privacy Means Profit and the Facebook Safety Survival Guide. His professional speaking clients include the Department of Defense, the FTC, FDIC, Pfizer, Prudential and hundreds of other organizations that care about their information privacy. Contact him directly on 800.258.8076.

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