Community Chat

[Burnsite]

People here publish very little traceable personal info.  If everyone stops mentioning anything personal the BBs will be quite dull, imo.  We respond to persons--to personal stories. 

Otherwise the whole forum will be those news feeds that everyone reads anyway--who died, who is accused, etc.

I read the BBs to hear about other people's stories and I don't think most people say too much.  Maybe once in a while about their illnesses, but that is understandable too.

[Moonchilde]

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@dooBdoo wrote:

        Oh, how terrible, @Moonchilde.   I can recall a situation here, a few years ago, when one poster actually stated she had figured out where another poster worked...  and said she was going to call (or visit) there, and it was said with quite a threatening tone.   It's easy for us to become a little bit too comfortable on social media and to forget there are some dreadfully unstable people out there watching.

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@dooBdoo this was to do with self-published authors. There is a huge ongoing battle between customer-reviewers of books and self-published authors.

To try to make a long and complicated story shorter, much of the self-published work is dreck. People would review it as such. The author & their BFFs would stalk the reviewer both on Amazon and outside of Amazon and do whatever it might take, legal or illegal, slanderous or libelous or not, to shut the reviewers, and those who appreciated neither dreck nor strong-arm bullying, up. However and with whatever they could.

Sad to say that when Amazon might have taken even a partial stand, they did not. They threw their customers to the wolves, because all those self-published authors combined make Amazon more money that a few people who were driven offline by psychos.

And it still goes on, every day.

[brii]

The person I'm referring to posts here every day. I don't think she realizes how much personal information she reveals.

[dooBdoo]

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Burnsite wrote:

People here publish very little traceable personal info.  If everyone stops mentioning anything personal the BBs will be quite dull, imo.  We respond to persons--to personal stories. 

Otherwise the whole forum will be those news feeds that everyone reads anyway--who died, who is accused, etc.

I read the BBs to hear about other people's stories and I don't think most people say too much.  Maybe once in a while about their illnesses, but that is understandable too.

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         I think I can  understand what you mean, @Burnsite.   However, we can post personal stories without including details which, when compiled by someone with good or bad intent, add up to exactly where the person is and who they are.   As someone else mentioned, without even trying I know for certain exactly where at least one poster lives, street address and all, and while that's probably okay for some it's not always a great idea.   I guess the point is that if someone is fine with us knowing who and where they are, that's certainly their prerogative...  but it's good to get the warning out there for those who might be unaware of the potential dangers.   Just as some people say they don't care if their email is open to scrutiny, for example, others don't feel that way and appreciate the warnings and advice about protecting themselves.

        (I wanted to add that one of my friends who has an insurance agency has told more than one story about police and insurance investigations into robberies which include looking at a person's use of social media before determining liablility...  making ourselves and our possessions open to the internet-viewing world can be dangerous and costly.)

[dooBdoo]

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brii wrote:
The person I'm referring to posts here every day. I don't think she realizes how much personal information she reveals.

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        Exactly, @brii.   It's not one or two posts that can be a real problem...  it's the cumulative result of posts over time and what someone might do with that information.

[Noel7]

It's easy enough to leave a false trail. 

People think they know something they don't.

[dooBdoo]

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Noel7 wrote:

It's easy enough to leave a false trail. 

People think they know something they don't.

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        This is true, @Noel7!  And no doubt many internet-security-savvy people do that on purpose, either to protect themselves or to mess with everyone's minds.

[Noel7]

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@dooBdoo wrote:

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@Noel7 wrote:

It's easy enough to leave a false trail. 

People think they know something they don't.

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        This is true, @Noel7!  And no doubt many internet-security-savvy people do that on purpose, either to protect themselves or to mess with everyone's minds.

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Absolutely.  And then sit back and watch who eats it up

[Tinkrbl44]

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@chickenbutt wrote:

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@hoosieroriginal wrote:

I haven't seen anyone post anything like that.  I think our posters are smarter than that.

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Yes.   My first thought was 'doesn't everybody know that?'.  But then I had to remember that this board tends to attract a lot of people who are brand new on the internet.

All that said, however, I've also learned that you just can't tell people here anything about internet security or internet etiquette because nine times out of ten you will just get the finger and they go on doing that they're doing.  

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I'm not disputing what you say, but why do you think this?

[NickNack]

I think my sister posts way too much on Facebook.  She has at least 500 Facebook friends.  She posts pictures telling exactly when the family is taking their vacations.  They post while they're at the beach, where they're going to dinner that night, what they'll be doing the next day, just everything.  It wouldn't be hard to find them as they give lots of details about where they'll be staying.

I keep telling her she should take the pictures but not post them until she gets back.  She's telling all 500 "friends" who might tell more friends that they will be out of town all week. I don't feel comfortable with that, but she seems to think it's okay since she knows all of her Facebook friends and has her privacy settings correctly.  I thought anybody could read your facebook page though.  Is that not true?  I don't know how to convince her this isn't a good idea.