respect yours. It’s rude to expose information about
someone — including pictures and videos — without
permission.How do you know what information your friends and
family are willing to expose? It’s low tech, but the
only way you’ll know what they want kept private is
to ask them; and the only way for them to know what
you want private is to tell them.Spot How People Expose Others
You may be surprised to discover how much you may inadvertently
expose about others, especially on social networking sites,which host
personal journals that often contain mention of people other than the
author. Figure 7-5shows a public social networking site of a woman
who made her profile anonymous. She didn’t give her name, used a
photo of her cat instead of herself, didn’t provide her age or city, and
mentioned only her state. But three comments by friends completely
exposed her. Read through these postings to her blog and find the
information that was exposed:➟ Her name is Blanche O’Connelly, her birthdate is July
16th, and she turns 66 in 2009.➟ You know where her party is going to be held, where
she lives, and the name of the hospital where she vol-
unteers. (Her state combined with the hospital name
gives it away.)➟ You know where to find her and how to identify her.
(She’ll be with her friend, and you know what her
friend looks like.)➟ A friend has also provided her telephone number.
➟ In addition, all of these friends have photos of
Blanche on their sites — you know who Blanche is
because the photo captions show her name.148
Part II: Using the Internet While Dodging the Risk