"Please Rob Me?"

There is a great article I wanted to post here written by Helen A.S. Pope.
It's called: "Your Facebook profile: An open invite to crime?"

It was written a year ago, however it's still relevant and.... shocking.
It talks about social media and crimes, including places like Facebook, Twitter, and a site called "Please Rob Me" which I suspect will disappear shortly.
However, I'm hoping the "Please Rob Me" site hangs around long enough for you to witness the madness out there in cyberspace.
Here's the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35466408/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

Whenever you post on Facebook things like "I'm going on vacation" or  "Party at my place", you might as well leave your front door unlocked and your bedroom door open. Then add neon breadcrumbs to lead the way and a  sign that says "victim this way."

You have privacy settings. Use them. Just go to your FB profile, then "Account Settings." in upper right corner. Then hit "Privacy Settings" and start closing the your doors and locking the windows. It is now time to batton down your cyber hatches.

Avoid all the applications that have spun off the Farmville and Mafia Wars mania. The endless, intrusive apps people post on your wall -- "My Top Friends", "Find Out Who's Stalking You", "So and So sent you flowers, hearts, teddy bears" --  all those apps, they're really traps. Holes in the cyber earth covered by leaves that drop you into identity theft hell.

When you enter the application door or portal.... you allow the app access to your own personal private data. So you might as well kiss your privacy and safety goodbye. Beyond that, you are giving your friends' addresses and private info.  So by entering those portals, you are putting your friends in harm's way.

Here's one case that came across today.
This may or may not have been discovered  had privacy settings been adjusted...
however it does proves a point I like to make when I can.
Social networking  keeps the wheels of the criminal justice system greased and rolling.
You can diminish the odds of your becoming statistic, a cyber victim, by changing your public ways.

Today, please think about your Facebook wall, read the article I linked you to above.
And know this: the number of FB friends you let in your door has NO reflection on popularity or true friend count.
You can count real friends, in real life, on one or two hands.
The ones who'd take a bullet for you... are even fewer.

So today's social media message:
Be smart. Be ever-vigilant.
Accept the fact there there are a whole lot of evil idiots out there.
And some could be studying your wall.
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Pa. teen admits trying to hire hit man on Facebook

Associated Press

Posted on February 12, 2011 at 11:06 AM

WEST CHESTER, Pa. (AP) — A Chester County teenager faces 11 to 22 years in prison after agreeing to a plea agreement on charges he used Facebook to try to hire a hit man to kill a woman who had accused him of rape.
Nineteen-year-old West Chester, Pa., resident Corey Christian Adams accepted the plea agreement Friday on charges of rape, criminal solicitation of murder and other counts.
In July, a 20-year-old woman who had accused Adams of raping her after a party called police to point out a posting on his Facebook page offering $500 for "a girls head." In a later posting, police say Adams said "he needed this girl knocked off right now."
The Daily Local News of West Chester reports that neither Adams nor his attorney commented outside court.