It is a matter of grave concern that people are increasingly exposing their personal data , more dangerously the individual photos in public forums. Of late, there are many posts in social networks stating “today is my or my daughter’s birthday” and post their latest photos. Just out of curiosity and with academic interest, I pried further into the profile of the author of the post. Though the person is not in my friend list I was still able to have a good look at important features of their whole profile including their location, their previous photos, siblings, family and I could say to a fair extent I had enough data to re-build the person’s profile to my liking. With some more hunting with the latest sophisticated tools, I am very sure the complete profile of the person who is unknown to the intruder could be built.
In another post, I saw a senior person posting his photograph at an international airport stating that he will be away from the heat and dust of India for the next six months. I am concerned that how much of efforts will be required to trace the person’s house in his native place, which was visible in the social network, and what a field day the miscreants would have should they chose to pay a visit to the locked house !
Recently, I was fortunate to attend a lecture by a leading cyber law advocate who precisely but elaborately dealt on how photos in unprotected social platforms could be misused and with what consequences. He detailed that such photos in public forums are picked up methodically every few minutes and then analyzed for their utility (?) values, with the single photo of young women fetching the maximum for obvious reasons and how they could be used to milk further from the hapless victims.
I sincerely wish such people who keep on sharing their profiles and programmes ‘to all’ learn more about the ‘Dark net’ and their activities !! People who frequent social network and boast that they could never live without it should better remember that whatever is posted in such public places are like matters dropped in the ocean and even if it is deleted within minutes, they are already into the hands of those whom you would not like to encounter. Present day technologies offer so much of tools that it is almost possible to recover and bring back anything except lost souls !
Already people in other countries are reported to be avoiding sharing pictures of the children with so many cases of paedophiles in the news.
So dear friends, please refrain from sharing any travel updates or making such begging for blessings and also avoid posting the pictures of children. Cyber world is far more dangerous than the world we are used to and assume to be .
Shared in the public interest of being forewarned than repenting in leisure !!
Blogpost made on 31-Jul-2023 at my blog : Needless exposures
