Quote Originally Posted by K9soul
I also think the dangers of myspace and sites like it SHOULD be explained. A lot of weird stalkers and predators use sites like that to find information on people. Not all kids may realize that and are not careful with what pictures and information they post.

Just an adult's perspective

Well said. But remember it's not just myspace and other similar sites, it's ANY internet page, even pettalk! There is no guarantee that the people who visit myspace, pettalk, or any personal webspace are who they say they are.

As a rule I never post or even PM the following info to anyone I met online whether it's on pettalk, myspace, email or anywhere else....

1) City
2) Last name (first name is reserved for only a very very small select few I've talked with over a year or more)
3) Graduation date and place of employment for me or my hubby (school name is reserved for only a select few if I don't mention teachers/dates)
4) Pictures of my face, vehicle or exterior of my home (barring the few garden pix from the backyard)
5) Actual birthdate and wedding anniversary
6) My normal email address (I have several freebie emails which I use for online friends)

You can NEVER EVER be too safe online.

I once tried like crazy to tell this one girl that posting pix of herself, full name and listing her college was a VERY bad idea. She would not listen to me. So to prove my point, I plulled up her school location on mapquest. She'd frequently posted very revealing info about exact miles to her home from there and a park next door to it. From mapquest in about 10 seconds had her hometown. Since she'd given her full name I popped the last name into switchboard and turns out they were the ONLY people in that town with that last name. Switchboard showed not only the address, but also father's name and phone number.

I asked her if that was correct and she went bonkers! She finally realized how easy it was, and given that she'd posted pix of her face any person in the area (or sick enough to drive to her area) would be able to find her and act as if they knew her from the info she'd already posted.

Once she finally realized the danger in that, especially since the info was so readily available online she promplty deleted her webspace, got a new one with a nickname and in the future did not post face pix or name her school. She thanked me for getting her to realize how dangerous it was.

And heck I'm not even a hacker or use those find people for a fee sites, can you imagine how much info a professional with money to blow could get?

You NEVER know who's reading your sites/posts, always keep your safety FIRST in mind, no matter how badly you want to share with others, you don't know them they are strangers!


**In case you're wondering how I learned all that....
before I got the internet I was afraid of it for those reasons, for over a year after I got a computer I wouldn't get internet, then it took another year before I'd go on message boards or chat rooms. I read ALOT of internet safety things, and all the horror stories that went along with them, as well as the threats of viruses and stuff you can get from sharing email with people you don't know. I learned many things not to do, but also learned that even when I'd like to share more personal info with people, it's just NOT a good idea. Safety is more important than strangers seeing my new car or knowing my name or knowing what I look like.