How to protect your reputation online

As social sites with user-generated content such as Facebook, Twitter and WordPress continue to grow in popularity, and with Google’s announcement of real-time search, you must be aware of and manage your online reputation carefully now. “Social media has made our lives very transparent,” Laratro says. “If you maintain a professional persona, this can be something positive, but if you’re unaware of comments or pictures online that you wouldn’t even want your mother to see, it can be terrible.”

Several free tools can help you keep tabs on what’s being said about you online. One of the most popular tools is a Google Alert for your name, which will automatically inform you when you’re referenced on a website.

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Father of suicide victim talks about cyberbullies

John Halligan has some advice for cyberchallenged parents with young children: Learn how to use Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Not knowing your way around the Internet, Halligan warns, could have life-and-death consequences.
He knows.
On Oct. 7, 2003, Halligan’s 14-year-old son, Ryan, committed suicide in their Vermont home.

As technology becomes more sophisticated, bullying is moving from the schoolyard to cyberspace.
“Anybody can bully anybody today,” he said. “They hide behind a screen name and go at it.”
Studies show that youngsters are bullied on the Internet at a rate of two or three times the traditional physical form inflicted by the schoolyard bully.

Full Article via Reading Eagle

How Do You Communicate w/ the iGeneration?

Solana Beach, California (CNN) — I dont tlk on th fone. txt im fb me.

I tried to reach my teenage daughter the other day. I left a voice mail, sent an e-mail message and finally texted her and told her to check both and call me back. Seconds later, she texted back one letter: “K.” She is 19 and has been sending and receiving upwards of 3,000 texts per month. One month, she hit 7,500! She is not unusual at all.

Until recently, “communicate” meant to talk face-to-face or on the phone. But both the Net Generation and the iGeneration have turned the concept of communication upside down. The old ways are, well, old. It is now all about texting, IMing, Facebooking, Skype-ing — pretty much anything but talking live or on the phone.

Full Article via CNN here

Reports: Phishing attack hits Twitter

The scope of the most recent phishing attack was unclear Tuesday morning. Bloggers, some of whom have posted photos of their correspondence with Twitter about the scheme, report that fake e-mails and direct messages on Twitter are being passed around to point people to phishing sites.

Online scammers increasingly are targeting social networks since they generally don’t have the same kind of security protections in place as e-mail accounts, said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, a security company.

“This is the next generation of attacks, really,” he said.

“If you receive a direct message or a direct message e-mail notification that redirects to what looks like Twitter.com — don’t sign in. Look closely at the URL because it could be a scam,” he said.

One common scam URL, the post notes, looks like this:

http://twitter.access-logins.com/login [Do not visit this link]

If you are directed to that fake site instead of http://twitter.com, Stone says not to enter your password. Look at the address bar in your Web browser to tell for sure.

The goal of a phishing scheme is to lure a person to give away his or her password information, and then use that information to get sensitive info from a person’s social network, he said.

Social networks allow phishing schemes to spread rapidly, Cluley said, because some people have very large online social networks, and because many people let third-party sites access their Twitter and Facebook accounts to offer additional services.

See Full Article via CNN