The perils of popular Facebook

Facebook is free. This means that anyone can sign up and disguise him/her self to be whoever he/she decides to be. The first thing to
realise is that people might not be who they actually say they are. You might think you are conversing with a certain person age x however in reality this might not be so. Why would people want to do this? There are various reasons why – not all of which are good and therefore any enthusiast of social networking tools (such as Facebook) must be aware of this. Don't trust who other people say they are - and this goes for all ages. The bottom line is that it is a fantastic tool for social engineering which in simplified terms means using the "art of deception" to obtain what is normally personal privileged information.
Pay attention to who you accept as being your friend.

Next, the issue of privacy comes into play. By uploading pictures of
yourself and friends of yours you are publicly saying that these can be shared. For obvious reasons your friend might have not wanted to share some embarrassing photos. Unknowingly you might have even put your friends reputation at stake. It's easy enough to pull pictures off Facebook - but let’s remember that the Internet caches pictures and once uploaded it is difficult to be certain that a previously uploaded picture indeed cannot be found any longer. Avoid mapping your life or that of others to Facebook or similar tools and upload stuff that you feel is safe to share with the world.

Next in line we also ought to be aware that human resources (HR)
departments are now using tools like Maltego from Paterva. Maltego is one example of a tool which can be used to determine the relationships and real world links between people and websites (amongst many other things) and graphically display it. One might have a perfect academic record, however having personal pictures publicly showing off an embarrassing side of you could and probably will reflect badly on your curriculum. So before you 'flame' someone online, remember that if its on the net and there is your name to it, there is a very good chance that search engines will pick it up with a simple search. Remember that it’s becoming common practice for HR departments to cross-reference people before interviews.

Facebook Applications: I receive a tonne of invitations from various
friends of mine to install particular applications that have all sorts of bells and whistles attached to them. Some are cool and fun to have -
others claim to let you know things like who viewed your profile - something which actually goes against the privacy rules of Facebook.
These small applications are third party programs the intention of which is not always good as they sometimes aim to capture some
information which breaches your privacy and usage policies. The issue here is that we get so inundated with requests to install applications that habit gets you accepting them all - the end result being that you're not really paying attention to what sort of application you've actually clicked on and installed. Consider these programs as mini programs which function within Facebook - and there always is a catch - so read the small print before you install any sort of application. Be aware that Facebook does in fact prompt you for your consent to share personal details – so vet them before blindly clicking away.

Last but not least - never share your password with anyone.
Unfortunately passwords alone are a very weak form of security and there are countless reasons one could give which go beyond the scope of this article. The last thing you would want is to have someone else login to your account and change some personal detail of yours to something embarrassing. Alas passwords depend on human nature and being complex it has a lot of design flaws/features therefore its good to keep in mind that passwords can be easily compromised and that they arecertainly not intended to be shared.
It is not my intention to paint a dark picture about Facebook or any other social networking tool, rather the scope of this article is to
promote awareness of some of the consequences brought about by not being responsible when posting or replying to people online. If there is one thing that I'd like you to take away, it would be a typical mindset such as "When online, responsibility is paramount - respect the privacy of others and pay attention to who you trust"