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<blockquote data-quote="Rod" data-source="post: 1583818" data-attributes="member: 204485"><p>cptkrf, you make very good points, there is no doubt that our "public" profile is determined by often erroneous or outdated information. I notice that FaceBook is talking about allowing people to delete old outdated information, posts, photos etc. that would otherwise potentially be publicly available forever. I'm sure many of us may have posted stuff in our teenage years that we might later regret.</p><p>As to security of information I had an unfortunate experience with eBay where a person purchased an iPhone from me. They pressed the "buy now" button on the auction, effectively preventing anyone else from bidding. They then requested I contact them by personal email which I refused to do. They then requested I post the item to an address in Africa when the item was clearly marked for sale in Australia only. I refused this request as well but the item was still <em>sold</em> according to eBay. I had to contact eBay directly in the end to remove the item and relist it but I continued to receive irate emails via ebay from the first buyer. Eventually I had to register a dispute and finally discovered that the original account holder in the UK had had his account pirated but it was now officially cancelled. This whole mess cost me time and money and turned a one week auction into a three week annoyance.</p><p>Only a month ago my wife received an email purporting to be from an old friend who had been imprisoned in South America while on holiday for a crime she did not commit. She was requesting money for bribes and legal costs. We checked with the actual person via phone and confirmed that she was not in South America advising her that her email account was compromised. </p><p>My point is that if people don't take reasonable steps to protect their user names and passwords and even sometimes when they do, their various online identities can easily be pirated and used to scam others.</p><p>I'm sure there are people out there who do not have significant digital lives, who do not use online banking, do not subscribe to many online services and use the same user name and password for everything. It is not until you are the victim of a scam that you realise just how easy it is for people to steal your ID and personal details. This can be done just by systematically going through someone's trash for correspondence from banks, insurance companies and utility providers.</p><p>Personal information is now stored on so many databases that it is impossible to prevent disreputable people from obtaining at least some of it. It is now a valuable commodity. Do a Google search on yourself, I did and found five instances of my name. </p><p>I think it behoves all of us to take simple free steps to secure what personal information we can. Losing a credit card is bad enough but losing an unsecured mobile phone or laptop is much worse.<img src="/mac_images/images/smilies/Straight-Faced.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":|" title="Straight Faced :|" data-shortname=":|" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Rod, post: 1583818, member: 204485"] cptkrf, you make very good points, there is no doubt that our "public" profile is determined by often erroneous or outdated information. I notice that FaceBook is talking about allowing people to delete old outdated information, posts, photos etc. that would otherwise potentially be publicly available forever. I'm sure many of us may have posted stuff in our teenage years that we might later regret. As to security of information I had an unfortunate experience with eBay where a person purchased an iPhone from me. They pressed the "buy now" button on the auction, effectively preventing anyone else from bidding. They then requested I contact them by personal email which I refused to do. They then requested I post the item to an address in Africa when the item was clearly marked for sale in Australia only. I refused this request as well but the item was still [I]sold[/I] according to eBay. I had to contact eBay directly in the end to remove the item and relist it but I continued to receive irate emails via ebay from the first buyer. Eventually I had to register a dispute and finally discovered that the original account holder in the UK had had his account pirated but it was now officially cancelled. This whole mess cost me time and money and turned a one week auction into a three week annoyance. Only a month ago my wife received an email purporting to be from an old friend who had been imprisoned in South America while on holiday for a crime she did not commit. She was requesting money for bribes and legal costs. We checked with the actual person via phone and confirmed that she was not in South America advising her that her email account was compromised. My point is that if people don't take reasonable steps to protect their user names and passwords and even sometimes when they do, their various online identities can easily be pirated and used to scam others. I'm sure there are people out there who do not have significant digital lives, who do not use online banking, do not subscribe to many online services and use the same user name and password for everything. It is not until you are the victim of a scam that you realise just how easy it is for people to steal your ID and personal details. This can be done just by systematically going through someone's trash for correspondence from banks, insurance companies and utility providers. Personal information is now stored on so many databases that it is impossible to prevent disreputable people from obtaining at least some of it. It is now a valuable commodity. Do a Google search on yourself, I did and found five instances of my name. I think it behoves all of us to take simple free steps to secure what personal information we can. Losing a credit card is bad enough but losing an unsecured mobile phone or laptop is much worse.:| [/QUOTE]
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