Why social networks are a threat to life as some know it

[40hz]

Got directed to this soon-to-be classic article by one of my clients. Talk about LMAO:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/23/sickie_woo/

Skiving Aussie fingered on Facebook

Epic fail for sickie-throwing call centre employee

By Lester Haines

Posted in Bootnotes, 23rd October 2008 09:44 GMT

An Oz call centre employee has become an overnight net celeb down under after an email exchange between him and his firm's workforce manager regarding a "sickie" escaped into the wild yesterday.

The correspondence, currently doing the rounds of Aussie inboxes, concerns a day's leave of absence claimed by Kyle Doyle on 21 August. Read on...

  w00t! 

[Darwin]

That's brilliant, thanks 40hz 

I love the last missive from the errant Kevin, er Kyle...

Trying to defraud the company is grounds for dismissal round here... wonder what became of Kyle?

[40hz]

Me too. I admire any person that can muster a little style as they're going down in flames.

<edit - changed the topic title to remove capitalization >

[Grorgy]

Well, its pretty small beer on the fraud levels, lol, anyway my bet is he is still employed, after all, its not easy to get people to work in call centres, even if they do take the odd unauthorised day off   

Edit - Perhaps they should sack him for being ever so stupid though 

[Ehtyar]

It's made the print edition of the Daily Telegraph at least twice in the past fortnight, and there seems to be a lot more stories available in the online edition. Though I really must say...this guy is epic stupid: 1. Having a facebook account, 2. Having it publicly accessible, and 3. is so obvious even Kyle himself might be able to guess it.

Ehtyar.

[Darwin]

Stupid enough that one wonders if this isn't engineered... But I prefer to believe that it really happened. Makes for a much better story!

RE: sacking. Yeah, probably not enough to get fired over (though someone near and dear to me lost her job at a Movie Theatre in Savannah, GA for calling in sick and getting caught out on the town), but certainly would result in some sort of disciplinary action I should think (no toilet breaks over an 8 hour shift, for example  ).

[f0dder]

Hehe, poor moron

Ehtyar: what's stupid about having a facebook account in and by itself? I resisted for many years, but finally caved in some months ago... it's turned out to be a pretty valuable tool to stay in contact with (and finding!) old friends, as well as doing event planning. Sure, it's data-mined to hell and beyond, but you do choose yourself how much information you wish to expose.

[Deozaan]

There was a news story this year (I think) about a woman who worked for Nintendo who lost her job because she complained (said very nasty things) about her boss on her blog.

I'm not really one who would do such things as Kyle or this woman, but it's reasons like these that I like my anonymity on the internet. :-)

[Ehtyar]

Sure, it's data-mined to hell and beyond, but you do choose yourself how much information you wish to expose.

You may be able to choose how much information you expose to the public, but you don't gt to choose how much you expose to Facebook.

I'm not really one who would do such things as Kyle or this woman, but it's reasons like these that I like my anonymity on the internet. :-)

Couldn't have said it better myself Deo.

Ehtyar.

[40hz]

On the web, nobody knows I'm really a dog!

I like it that way

[Darwin]

On the web, nobody knows I'm really a dog!

Sit, 40hz, sit!

[icekin]

Ah, Social Networking, the new bane of human productivity...LinkedIn seems to be an exception though.

[f0dder]

Sure, it's data-mined to hell and beyond, but you do choose yourself how much information you wish to expose.

You may be able to choose how much information you expose to the public, but you don't gt to choose how much you expose to Facebook.

Sure you do - simply don't enter any data you don't want facebook to know. I obviously wouldn't discuss important/shady/whatever matters through facebook mails or it's instant-messaging system...

[kartal]

Social networks are all scam.

Problem with social networks is that I mean the scale of scam is that, lets say you are a consicous person and understand all this bullshit so you stay away from all those(like me),. But one good hearted friend wants to add you so they put all your information for you(without knowing that they actually expose you, those silly friends) and also they add the email they communicate with you. Next day you wake up, you are on facebook even thou you have never added it yourself. Now you do not need to respond to invitation but yet Facebook manages to collect unclaimed data about you.

I really hope that this economic donwturn hits these web sites so hard that they eat their own tails.

[f0dder]

Heh, why am I not surprised at a rant like that from you, kartal?

If something like that happens, imho your problem isn't facebook, but rather that you should reconsider your 'friends'. Oh, and how would those 'friends' be able to activate the account if they don't have access to your email account? *rolls eyes*

[kartal]

I am not talking about activating the account, I am talking about the invitation part.

[f0dder]

I am not talking about activating the account, I am talking about the invitation part.

So, from an invitation, facebook gets your name + email address... how scary. I honestly don't understand your level of paranoia

Sure, could be used for spam - I haven't seen any, though. Perhaps because I don't install all of those useless 'applications' that facebook offers?

So far I've found facebook to be a pretty useful tool. Since most of my friends have an account there, planning events is so much easier than sending out emails, and calling/sms'ing those that don't check their emails regularly. And heck, I've even found people I had lost contact with.

[kartal]

Good for you. bUt none of those things are convenient enough for me to sign up really.

Lets just stop using the word paranoia for now. Because what I am talking about has nothing to do with it. You people are just letting this social sites scam to be part of your daily routine which is fine.

I would like ask one thing thou, how come a big player like Microsoft(I believe it was ms) offered some zillion dollars to FB? Obviously there needs to be some sort of financial return so that MS offered such giant number. Do you think  that MS offered such giant number so that they could operate a public chat room only? You people are naive in my book.

I am not talking about activating the account, I am talking about the invitation part.

So, from an invitation, facebook gets your name + email address... how scary. I honestly don't understand your level of paranoia

Sure, could be used for spam - I haven't seen any, though. Perhaps because I don't install all of those useless 'applications' that facebook offers?

So far I've found facebook to be a pretty useful tool. Since most of my friends have an account there, planning events is so much easier than sending out emails, and calling/sms'ing those that don't check their emails regularly. And heck, I've even found people I had lost contact with.

[f0dder]

Why do you call it a scam?

And I'm not naïve in my use of sites like facebook - I'm very well aware that it's datamined from here to eternity, and that you transfer ownership of any photos you upload to facebook. So what? I control what information and photos (if any) I submit to the site.

I think "paranoia" fits a lot better than "scam"

[kartal]

That is precisely why it is a scam. Scams are not supposed to be detectable. You seem to recognize all the steps that leads  to the scam but somehow cannot connect the dots. Do not get me wrong please this is  not a personal attack. You recognize all the culprits in the system but somehow you think that sum of those culprits are harmless. I would also like to remind you a very very basic rule that governs everything in this life, " a system is more than sum of its parts".

Why do you call it a scam?

And I'm not naïve in my use of sites like facebook - I'm very well aware that it's datamined from here to eternity, and that you transfer ownership of any photos you upload to facebook. So what? I control what information and photos (if any) I submit to the site.

I think "paranoia" fits a lot better than "scam"

[f0dder]

I still don't see it as a scam. If the terms of service didn't state that "all your data are belong to us", I might have been inclined to agree with your. But it is, afaik. And the site is a valuable resource for me, unlike things that I would classify as scams (like the "click here to see party pictures of your friends!" MSN spam worms).

And yes, I do feel that facebook is pretty harmless, since I choose which information I want to enter. So, they know my name and email address, and some of the people I know. Big deal. Of course there's a lot of sheeple who enter a lot more information about themselves, have compromising pictures, and install whatever spam-infested data-mining third-party "applications", but well... I'm not one of them.

[Ehtyar]

I won't get into f0dder vs. kartal, but one of my biggest concerns is that websites like Facebook do what most people would probably consider unscrupulous things with their data, and despite the fact that their TOS mentions it, most people are likely entirely unaware of it. It's similar in a way to 3rd party tracking cookies, it's plain as day that it happens, but no one's concerned about it ('cept probably kartal and I). Anyway, I digress, my concern is that this sort of veiled underhandedness (please don't pounce on that phrase, I use it simply because I'm not sure what else to call it) is becoming more and more common, and people seem to be more and more accepting of it. I worry how soon it will be unavoidable in every day life (think credit cards).

Ehtyar.

[f0dder]

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I enjoy being datamined, and I'm certainly not a fan of the "all your data are belong to us" mentality. And you definitely won't see me using gmail (or any other free mail service, for that matter!) for anything personal/important.

On the other hand, I just don't see the super big deal wrt. facebook. Yeah, you can see it as a downward slope of increasing acceptance (or ignorance) of datamining in general. But as long as there's still cash (as in coins and bills) and I don't have to take on organic chemistry, well... *shrug*

[mahesh2k]

As far Orkut/Twitter is concerned its better not to reveal your personal information,Facebook is much safer than Orkut i think

[40hz]

Yeah, you can see it as a downward slope of increasing acceptance (or ignorance) of datamining in general.

Seriously, is there any other way that trend could be taken? The time to take a stand on privacy is not the day after there isn't any.

I don't see kartal arguing against the whole notion of social networking. I think he/she is raising concerns about the many so-called "social" sites that are really little more than fronts for other business endeavors - endeavors which they try to camouflage as much as possible.