➟ Never pick a hint with an easily discoverable answer.
Your street name, place of birth, mother’s maiden
name, and even your car model may be easy to find,
whereas your favorite author may not.➟ When all the choices are easily discoverable, ignore
the question and use a word that means something
to you; for example, sunshine. The site isn’t validat-
ing this information for accuracy; if you forget your
password they just want you to provide the same
answerthat you used to establish the account. Enter
whatever you want, but make sure you remember it!Figure Out Who’s Exposing You
Remember that you aren’t the only one sharing information. Use
a browser to search for information about you and consider these
possible sources:➟ Family and friends may post information about you
in blogs, on genealogy sites, and in photo-sharing
sites, for example.➟ Does your employer share information about you on
the company Web site? Review what’s posted to see if
you are comfortable with what is in your employee
bio. If you are working in a big company, you may
also want to be cautious about how much is visible
to other employees on an intranet (a company inter-
nal Internet). When you attend a conference, has
your company provided a bio of you for use in
online conference documents? If your company
encourages employees to leave out-of-office messages
on their e-mail (see Figure 3-8), be aware that these
may reveal when you’ll be away from home and
make you a target for burglary.51Chapter 3: Raise Your Safety Bar Today