Avoid
simple names or words you can find in a dictionary,
even with numbers tacked on the end. Instead, mix
upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols.
A password should have at least eight characters.
One good technique is to insert numbers or symbols
in the middle of a word, such as this variant on the
word "houses": hO27usEs!
Leaving Your
Full Birth Date in Your Profile
It's
an ideal target for identity thieves, who could
use it to obtain more information about you and
potentially gain access to your bank or credit card
account. If you've already entered a birth date,
go to your profile page and click on the Info tab,
then on Edit Information. Under the Basic Information
section, choose to show only the month and day or
no birthday at all.
Overlooking Useful
Privacy Controls
For
almost everything in your Facebook profile, you
can limit access to only your friends, friends of
friends, or yourself. Restrict access to photos,
birth date, religious views, and family information,
among other things. You can give only certain people
or groups access to items such as photos, or block
particular people from seeing them. Consider leaving
out contact info, such as phone number and address,
since you probably don't want anyone to have access
to that information anyway.
Posting Your
Child's Name in a Caption
Don't
use a child's name in photo tags or captions. If
someone else does, delete it by clicking on Remove
Tag. If your child isn't on Facebook and someone
includes his or her name in a caption, ask that
person to remove the name.
Mentioning That
You'll Be Away From Home
That's
like putting a "no one's home" sign on your door.
Wait until you get home to tell everyone how awesome
your vacation was and be vague about the date of
any trip.
Letting Search
Engines Find You
To
help prevent strangers from accessing your page,
go to the Search section of Facebook's privacy controls
and select Only Friends for Facebook search results.
Be sure the box for public search results isn't
checked.
Permitting Youngsters
to Use Facebook Unsupervised
Facebook
limits its members to ages 13 and over, but children
younger than that do use it. If you have a young
child or teenager on Facebook, the best way to provide
oversight is to become one of their online friends.
Use your e-mail address as the contact for their
account so that you receive their notifications
and monitor their activities. "What they think is
nothing can actually be pretty serious," says Charles
Pavelites, a supervisory special agent at the Internet
Crime Complaint Center. For example, a child who
posts the comment "Mom will be home soon, I need
to do the dishes" every day at the same time is
revealing too much about the parents' regular comings
and goings.
