Friday, August 23, 2013

A priva(cy)te concern


Facebook is the new God. Most of the people wake up to it or twitter. Age is not limiting factor here from students to old people fb is a phenomenal success. I am not going to write more about the success story of fb.

I want to stress the need for more concern in what we do in this phenomenally successful venture. We have seen news about governments sniffing in our account and finding our most personal stuff easily. Yeah maybe governments have the key to the secret door to our profiles. But are you really hiding the stuff you post from the people who don't have that key??

Ok. Oru ponnu paaka eppadi iruppa nu I wanted to know. Simple answer fb poda assault ah kedachurumnu friend sonnan. I knew her name so into fb I went, enga college vera, so easy to filter, found her in some 30 minutes. Now I have about seven pictures of her two with her friend’s gang, another one a family trip to Ooty during the semester holidays. Checking more, I knew where her father is working, her elder sister's working place, and sister’s picture. Also I knew why she was sad 3 days back, who her best friend is, her department, the place she last visited, her likes. ‘Alice in wonderland’ book school la padichathellam books I've read nu pottu irukka. So within 30 minutes I could say a lot of things about a person I have never seen.

I am not some detective to have found about her. It’s not like I had a gang of experts to go around her and find out about her. I was vetti enough and I had her name that's all was needed. So if you have time and good internet connection and fb account you could find about anyone. You don't even need a name to find a person whom you have passed by. Just a lot of time. So what can you do to stop this from happening??

I have no idea. We can be extremely cautious and put up several privacy barriers. But as the saying goes "Life finds a way" evil too can find its way in shorter time too. I don't know how to stop a determined person  who wants to know more about you. But we can make it harder for the person to get it. Fb gives you several privacy options where you can control up to the point where you can set the number your friends who can see your post. You can find out about it in the fb help by going to the first tab from which you came here. But certain things can't be hidden like your cover picture which is always public. Yeah the usual gumbal of friends picture you post there is open to all. So be careful about what you put there.

And of course this problem is more for girls than boys. Because if a girl's picture ends up with the wrong people its trouble. There huge number of sites, pages, forums, groups and what-nots which use the pictures of these unaware innocent girls and discuss shit. So if your friend, cousin, brother or anyone who tells you to pull down a photo you have posted it’s because they have seen how shitty those sites are. Or maybe I am telling this because I want you to call me a chauvinist pig.

Yenda ponnugaluku mattum than ippadiya pasangaluku lam pretchana illaya??nu you may think. Aama ivaru Surya, Jeeva maathri aalagu, ponnuglam appadiye ivara search panni paaka poraanga?! Appadiye pannalum they are not going to post about that picture in a place and discuss shit about it. Maybe a personal message to a friend with your picture paari aalaga irukkan. Ithan maximum. Seriously boys have lesser problems and there are not much sites to discuss shit about us. Still there must be an idea in your head that anyone can see it and once it is posted it can be manipulated in any way!

Better think of answer these questions to yourself before you post anything, is it useful to others? Is it going to hurt anyone? Is this publicity really needed?? Am I that much of a jerk to post this?? If you still feel proud of yourself after answering these questions, go ahead, post it. Unna aandavan than kaapathanum!

And remember even if you delete it after posting it, a copy has be made already, permanently and you can't even think of deleting it.

Believe all! Trust none!!


Live life!

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