What is your experience in resurrecting a compromised account?

NetSafe has had numerous calls from schools recently regarding Facebook pages with abusive content which are linked to schools and contain anonymous posts as well as identifiable student posts.

These pages violate a number of FB terms

3. Safety

6. You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.
7. You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.

4. Registration and Account Security

1. You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.
2. You will not create more than one personal profile.

Report violations
If you come across a profile that violates Facebook’s Terms:
1. Go to the profile
2. Click the  and then select Report/Block
3. Choose a reason for your report (ex: This profile is pretending to be someone or is fake)
4. Choose a report type, if prompted
5. Click Continue to submit your report

FB don’t allow profiles that:
• Pretend to be you or someone else
• Use your photos
• List a fake name
• Don’t represent a real person (fake profiles)

Many of the pages reported to NetSafe don’t represent a real person so need to be reported under that category.
If the page is a “group” then you can go to
Report Group (bottom left of the page) and get these choices
All reports are strictly confidential. What best describes this?
o Spam or scam
o Hate speech or personal attack
o Violence or harmful behaviour
o Sexually explicit content
Is this your intellectual property?

The Facebook Help Centre https://www.facebook.com/help/?ref=pf has all this information as well and much more regarding reporting.

You can also call NetSafe for information on freephone 0508 NETSAFE (0508 638 723)

As NetSafe staff speak with lots of school age children (and educators), we’re often exposed to views that differ from our own, in part due to an age gap, and the notion of privacy has surely evolved for tech savvy teens happy to share their lives online.

Just today, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been quoted as describing Facebook as “the most appalling spying machine ever invented” in an interview with Russia Today.

The New York Daily News story goes on to say he refers to the popular social networking site as one of the top tools for the U.S. to spy on its citizens:

“Here we have the world’s most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other and their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US Intelligence,” he said. “Facebook, Google, Yahoo, all these major U.S. organizations have built-in infaces for US intelligence.

The Saturday Night Live sketch comparing Assange and Zuckerburg:

I believe for many younger people (I’d clump them together as the X-Factor/Pop Idol generation) that exposure to popular TV shows and other media has created the notion that success (and fame) can be gained through building your own personal brand, by getting your name out there and making friends and influencing people.

Now Dale Carnegie wrote the book How to Win Friends and Influence People all the way back in 1937 so can we really say that times have changed?

I believe we can – even 20 years ago publishing as a concept was a top down, centrally controlled operation where newspaper and book editors and TV channel execs called the shots and decided what made the news, got screentime or made it onto the bestseller lists.

In 2011 anyone can share their thoughts and dreams, publish a manifesto and also expose their darkest secrets should they – or others – wish.

Back in 1999 I worked for one of the largest internet companies in the world providing community homepage building services to people keen to build websites about their family, their hobbies and their pets. Modelled on Geocities, this UK start-up let you easily build a simple, template driven website in exchange for displaying banner ads to visitors.

It was perhaps a new (and short lived) business model where ‘citizens’ of this online city were encouraged to cluster around shared topics and themes, publish stuff and connect, kind of like the social networks of today.

1999 was also the year that blogging went mainstream and anyone could create an online diary or weblog to publish to the world.

Twelve years on and a 13 year old child of one of my Facebook friends has taken this process further by publishing a whole array of thoughts, experiences and pictures on the site through an open profile with more than 500 friends and a possible world of watchers.

When I suggested to him locking down his profile, he couldn’t grasp why that move would do anything but restrict the opportunity to make new friends.

It’s something Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg famously commented on back in January:

People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.

The Wikipedia entry on privacy describes the term as being a Western notion, often without equal in some cultures, with the first publication advocating privacy in the United States – by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis – being published way back in 1890.

The concept of privacy as a natural right to “be left alone” has of course evolved since then and new technology has always been seen to have brought with it new threats to retaining privacy.

But in this 21st century world is the concept now dead in the water given the numerous ways corporate and governmental organisations have to monitor our activities and the fact that a new generation of young people seem to be actively avoiding being ‘left alone’?

One Facebooker responding to the Assange story commented:

Every time you use a credit card, log into a website, buy anything on-line or a store you are giving away information about yourself. It’s known as data mining and has been going on for years.

There’s no need to get paranoid about it. it’s a… fact of modern life and we have to get used to it. The only way to get away from it is to live in a cave and grow your own food; but some nosy busybody will have that logged on a computer somewhere as well.

Should we therefore give up and accept defeat? It’s a discussion I think will be actively explored at July’s NetHui.

Updated: A tip off from someone connected with privacy in NZ – The Onion News Network’s tongue in cheek take on Facebook being the CIA’s greatest success

Social networking - how safe are you? Take the online survey

This week is Privacy Awareness Week, an international event designed to promote awareness of privacy rights and responsibilities with a focus this year on social networking.

It’s a topical subject given last week’s data breach at Sony and the need to alert millions of people globally around the dangers of identity theft.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner, which is running the event in New Zealand, is working on two streams for the event:

1. for corporates the issues around offshoring and cloud computing. This is something that will become more mainstream given the rise of centralised software as a service and the storage of customer data outside New Zealand. It’s an issue Rick Shera, the Chairman of NetSafe, will also be discussing later in May at the next New Zealand Information Security Forum (NZISF) meeting.
2. privacy and social networking. Again, a very topical subject given recent media stories on abuse of Facebook profiles and pages and the application of common user behaviour to other social sites.

You can help out the Commissioner and APPA (Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities) by taking the ‘How private is your profile?’ survey online.

And if you’re concerned about identity theft then check out their online ID Theft Tool

I love the time over the new year period – first off you have the joys and excesses of Xmas and then you have that move into a new phase in life with the resultant penitence around those overindulgences that (may) have gone before.

A new calendar year also gives you a chance to take stock of the previous 12 months and come up with ideas, plans and even resolutions for the next 12. I won’t bore you with weight loss pledges though – I’m going to take a brief look at the risks and challenges identified for internet users as 2011 moves on.

Social networking and computer time is not all bad

Let’s start this preview of 2011 with some good news from the latest study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, titled “The Social Side of the Internet”:

That old stereotype that Internet users are isolated and anti-social is getting harder and harder to justify … Internet users are actually more active in voluntary groups and organizations than non-Internet users.

This review of the study in ReadWriteWeb goes on to summarise that:

According to the research, 75% of all American adults participate in some group activity. But the difference between Internet users and non-Internet users is rather striking, with 80% of the former and only 56% of the latter active in groups. The research found that social media users are even more likely to be group participants: 82% of social network users and 85% of Twitter users are, for example.

The study would suggest then that as the number of internet users continues to grow, more good things in the real world could be made possible as groups meet up and take their shared interests offline.

Beware the ‘hacktivist’ and Facebook friend

But new technology always seems to be a double edged sword and as prices fall and more people gain access to mobile internet, reveal personal details on Facebook or share their current location online, there’s going to be new ways for bad guys to exploit these criminal opportunities to cause harm or embarassment.

Bob Sullivan of America’s MSNBC.com has a wonderful summary of Ten things Web users should fear in 2011.

Here at NetSafe, we don’t like to go spreading fear – we want to educate web users of the challenges they face online so please have a read of the article and take some of those points with a double dose of common sense.

After all, the realities of government endorsed hackers writing code to defeat nuclear power plant systems is indeed a reality but not necessarily something you or I can do much about.

I like to think there are shadowy teams of people out there in underground bunkers fully equipped to deal with these kinds of technical threats. In the meantime I’ll keep a cautious eye on URL shortening tricks, suspicious social media requests, be regularly changing my strong passwords and trying to stay off the chocolate.

Happy new year from NetSafe and stay safe online in 2011.

Caroline McNeill explores the positive side of social networking for mothers, particularly the ability to grow a virtual network of friends into an offline coffee group, reducing a sense of isolation and allowing ‘mumprenuers’ to develop business ideas.

NetSafe TV 30 May - 5 June (3m):

Related links:

Hector’s World: new computer security episode ‘Oops’ and music video

Children ‘more likely to own a mobile phone than a book’

National Literacy Trust research

Mums on Top

Mumpreneurs

NetSafe TV 16– 22 May (2m):

Related links:

• Google Street View ’single biggest breach of privacy in history’
• Online list puts street in touch
• Online expert: Shocks will turn to yawns
• MGM v. Grokster

Plus the launch of a new book High-Tech Tots edited by Ilene and Michael Berson which features chapters written by Liz Butterfield and former NetSafe staff member Richard Beach.

Martin also discusses research which highlights the importance of texting and social media to under 25s. Lee Chisholm reviews The Bullying Forum event run by the Mental Health Foundation.

Take a look at the video below and do please comment on this format for a weekly wrap-up of cybesafety themed news and events:

NetSafe TV 2 – 8 May (2m 30s):

Related links:

• Privacy Awareness Week - review presentations from the Privacy Forum: The Future of Privacy event held in Wellington on 5 May 2010
• Media release: New UMR Privacy Survey Results
• Individual Privacy & Personal Information – UMR Omnibus Results March 2010 (PDF report)
• High-Tech Tots edited by Ilene and Michael Berson
•  Is Social Media a New Addiction? - The report from Retrevo Gadgetology Studies
•  Apparently That Text Can’t Wait — Not Even During Sex
• The Bullying Forum videos from the Mental Health Foundation
• Lee Chisholm talks about Technology and Bullying

It was great to hear the success stories from the Peace Foundation and their Cool Schools Programme, and the programme run by Edgewater College.

I was interviewed – see the video embedded  below – and that plus others from the Bullying Forum are available to view on the Mental Health Foundation website.

Our approach this year was a little bit different – we actively sought out people already exploring the boundaries of cybersafety in schools and listened to how they are working to create New Zealand’s digital citizens of the future.

As well as creating a dedicated social networking site to recruit a new online panel of expert advisers, we also put together a poll and asked people ‘What are the 3 most important characteristics of a Digital Citizen?‘

The results of the poll are displayed below. For our thoughts on the event and related topics such as filtering in schools, check out these posts on the main NetSafe blog and our onsite reporting on the Learn:Guide:Protect site.

For those people who’ve never attended Ulearn, sit back and enjoy a 3 and a half minute video guide to the event, hosted by NetSafe’s own camera friendly talent, Martin Cocker:

What are the 3 most important characteristics of a Digital Citizen?