EssayBoard

Social network is big and popular now a day.  People flock to FaceBook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr, and many others in millions.  The usages of social network are mainly for engaging strangers in various topics, online activities, and even personal activities; real friends can also keep in touch and allow online conversations to prosper through the use of social network websites.  Though the intentions for connecting with online friends are honest, but there are scam artists and hackers and malicious strangers lurking on all social network websites.

By using social network carelessly, one could get kill, lose identity, getting trouble with the law, and so on.  “Craigslist Killer” Philip Markoff is a perfect example for the dangers that could be lurking on social network websites.  Some hackers are data mining the profiles from various social network websites to possibly gain valuable private information.  Not to be surprised that hackers may get what they want, because there are many social network users who use real names, list personal information, list pet names, announce their work’s addresses, and other personal information on social network profiles.

Some malicious social network users (scam artists) pretend to be a legit business or claim that they are a legit business with a well known brand, and they trick people in paying them for things that probably are useless.  Imagine this scenario, a real business named X has not created any social network identity, but a scam artist creates a social network identity for business X, and then this scam artist sells fake goods using the brand name of business X.

Identity theft for everyday people and businesses alike is one of the hardest things to combat against.  The less exposure you get the safer you are, but since you want to socialize on social network websites, then this is not possible.  Social network users should use a nickname in place of a real name to combat identity theft.  Listing personal things on social network profiles is inviting the possibility of being hacked.  Just be real careful when you’re using social network websites to protect real damages to your real life.  Business owners should go online and check to see if there is any malicious social network activities that could give their businesses a bad name and a ruined reputation.