A social network service focuses on the building of online social networks for communities of anyone who shares interests , or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. This can range from families to finding friends locally, nationally or internationaly.
Choosing one is up to the individual. Outside of viewing the site’s layout, one should consider other issues. Popularity of the site can give you an idea of how many people you know are already on the site, or how many new friends you hope to meet.
Security seems to be a BIG issue with any of the social networking sites. MySpace , one of the most popular, seems to have a wide variety of security issues popping up almost daily.
States are starting to demand the release of information on registered sex offenders with profiles on MySpace, due to criminal activity involving adults across the country who use MySpace to prey or attempt to prey on children.
Another problem with social networking seems to be advertising, ads, viruses, malware and hacking . When you pick a profile layout, a slide show or other Misc. grahics to use, one needs to learn how to tweak those codes and remove the advertising. One of the biggest mistakes an user makes is not removing the profile layout URL from the code they decided to use. This causes a visitor clicking on their “home” key to take them to the layout site URL instead of their home page. Plus it leaves an ugly advertisement banner somewhere on the user’s profile also.
Another popular trend seems to be using a code to hide your friends and comments. Anyone using Mozilla Firefox can tell you that you are not really hidden. A firefox user can go to “View” then to “Page Style” and then Click on “No Style” to see your page in full. In such cases, using the “No Style” or basic setting may allow page content not otherwise viewable to be displayed, using only the HTML layout.
Social Networking covers a massive area of chat rooms and messengers also, as a way to keep in touch. One of the largest is Yahoo Messenger. Yahoo messenger seems to attract hackers who are constantly looking for ways to exploit vulnerablities within the program’s format.
There are several thing one can do with the files installed on their own computer by messengers. Messengers leave a wide variety of files on computers. Setting all image files left by Yahoo Messenger, in your Temp folder, need to be set to “read only” under properties.
Next:
These files need to be set at “READ ONLY” so yahoo and the network stops logging yahoo messenger activity!
C:..Program Files..Yahoo!..Messenger..logs
billing_Owner.log
client_Owner.log
network_Owner.log
Also:
If you use yahoo messenger, say like at work , and you have chosen to archive all chat logs, the conversations are located in a folder here:
C:..Program Files..Yahoo!..Messenger..Profiles
All your conversations are logged and every person you talk to, along with the conversations are listed and can be read by anyone on the network, or anyone who has access to your computer~!! This is where the DELETE key comes in very handy!
Also a really neat program that overwrites the Recycle Bin should also be used. Never just delete…you need to ERASE!
Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
Works with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Windows 2003 Server and DOS.
Eraser is Free software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License.
You can download ERASER here:
http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
