International Law

PC World and the Washington Post both published stories yesterday on how to social network safely.  From PC World:

Howard Schmidt was reluctant to hop on the social networking bandwagon--a byproduct, he says, of the paranoia he internalizes a security professional. Eventually, though, Schmidt--the one-time cybersecurity adviser to President Bush and itinerant CISO turned consultant--decided the positives outweighed the negatives. He joined not just one social network but three: Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.

"My response to those in the security business lamenting the existence of Facebook and MySpace is to ask them if they've ever been on it," says Schmidt.

Bill Boni, too, took the social networking leap--with gusto. The long-time corporate vice president of information security and protection at Motorola, he has now racked up more than 500 connections on LinkedIn. For him, social networking is all about amplifying his effectiveness as a security executive. He says the site allows him to keep in touch with people and gives him an opportunity to tap into "additional sources of expertise."

Despite the well-publicized security and privacy risks of social networking, both Boni and Schmidt say it's possible to reap the benefits of social networking and stay safe at the same time. You just have to stay vigilant and be smart. Here's their advice.

1. Do Your Homework ...

2. Secure Your Settings ...

3. Be Careful Who You Link To ...

4. Avoid the TMI Trap ...

Read more here.  The Washington Post also has some salient advice:

People often think Facebook profiles and sometimes MySpace pages, if they're set as private, are only available to friends or specific groups, such as a university, workplace, or even a city.

But that's not true if they use applications. On Facebook, for instance, applications can only be downloaded if a user checks a box allowing its developers to "know who I am and access my information," which means everything on a profile, except contact info. Given little thought, agreeing to the terms has become a matter of routine for the nearly 70 million Facebook users worldwide who use applications to spruce up their pages and to flirt, play and bond with friends online.

News Corp.'s MySpace, which has about 117 million unique visitors each month, recently added an applications platform, giving developers access to the profiles of anyone who downloads them. Unlike Facebook, though, MySpace users don't have to include their names on their profiles.

So what do these third-parties do with the information? Sometimes, they use it to connect users with similar interests. Sometimes, they use it to target ads, based on demographics such as gender and age (something Facebook and MySpace also do).

Facebook and MySpace say they hold application developers to strict standards _ and boot them if they don't comply. They also point out that some information, such as e-mail addresses and phone numbers, aren't made available.

But experts who track online security issues think there's too much personal information flying around out there, with few guarantees that it's safe. They also think social networkers have little understanding where their information goes and how it's used _ and as a result, have a false sense of security.

"I suspect that there's a whole lot of clicking without a lot of thinking," says Mary Madden, a senior research specialist at the Pew Internet & American Life Project who studies privacy issues. "So much of this sharing happens in a way that users don't see the consequences. It's kind of a big, black hole."

Read more here.