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Jonathan was recently interviewed by John Haven of BlogTalkRadio regarding online personalities and transparency for an upcoming book. John was referred to FindMeOn while researching ‘online trolls’ as an expert on online identities.

You can read about the interview, and even hear it at the following link:

Media 2.0pen

Long story short, Jonathan made a comment near the end of the interview I think is extremely wise and one we should all cleave to asap: “What people need to do more is think…we’re in an (online) era where instant gratification is the norm.” But (and now I’m paraphrasing his words, and Jon, please correct me in the comment post below if need be), we have to remember our digital footprint survives long after our desire for instant gratification or to make our friends chuckle at something we did over the weekend.

In short, being transparent doesn’t mean being careless.

Vauhini Vara of the Wall Street Journal asks: Just How Much Do We Want To Share On Social Networks ?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119621309736406034.html

Facebook users share for a reason. We want others to know what we’re up to. We trade privacy for increased connectedness. But we want to do it on our own terms. This isn’t about the information Beacon collects, but how it collects it — peeking in on us, then asking to report to our friends what it saw.

Beacon asks Facebook users to make ever more-invasive trades for the sake of an ever more-superficial sense of closeness. It may or may not be worth it, but keep in mind: One definition for “beacon” is warning signal.

Cory Doctorow (BoingBoing) weaves in Information Week a cautionary tale about Facebook usage.

http://informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204203573

Cory’s thesis is straightforward - as more people join Facebook, it becomes less desirable as you’re forced to ‘friend’ or ’snub’ random people from your past.

In the real world, we don’t articulate our social networks. Imagine how creepy it would be to wander into a co-worker’s cubicle and discover the wall covered with tiny photos of everyone in the office, ranked by “friend” and “foe,” with the top eight friends elevated to a small shrine decorated with Post-It roses and hearts

An interesting read that was recently fowarded our way:

http://figuringmyselfoutblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/facebook-factor.html

The entire article is worth reading, but this is a very importing line:

I would love to say I will soon be coming out on Facebook. It would be a quick, easy, and relatively painless way to let people know. However, there are several reasons why I’m not:

1) The employer factor—they DO check Facebook, and it’s none of their business.
2) Family-Facebook friends include my sister and cousins…not ready to “go there” with them.
3) It’s impersonal
4) Perhaps most important-is it really the business of every one of my 400 some friends, and thousands of people in my school and regional networks to know if I’m gay or straight?

These four factors alone lead me to conclude that I will not be outing myself via Facebook anytime soon.

What happens when a person’s social and professional life clashes online? A firing.

Facebook
http://www.tradersnarrative.com/facebook-addicted-goldman-sachs-trader-is-fired-769.html
http://www.thedelphian.com/06-11/1282
http://internetducttape.com/2007/01/18/ottawa-employees-fired-because-of-facebook/
http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2006/1/24/facebookNotForEmployers
http://media.www.thebatt.com/media/storage/paper657/news/2006/06/28/Opinion/Fired.For.Facebook-2118962.shtml
MySpace
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,276592,00.html
http://www.wesh.com/news/9400560/detail.html
http://www.local6.com/education/10838194/detail.html
Blog
http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/14/news/economy/blogging/
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/Careers/04/05/blogging/
http://www.news.com/I-was-fired-for-blogging/2010-1030_3-5490836.html
http://www.bloggersblog.com/cgi-bin/bloggersblog.pl?bblog=926071
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2005-06-14-worker-blogs-usat_x.htm

An interesting read that was recently fowarded our way:

http://figuringmyselfoutblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/facebook-factor.html

The entire article is worth reading, but this is a very importing line:

I would love to say I will soon be coming out on Facebook. It would be a quick, easy, and relatively painless way to let people know. However, there are several reasons why I’m not:

1) The employer factor—they DO check Facebook, and it’s none of their business.
2) Family-Facebook friends include my sister and cousins…not ready to “go there” with them.
3) It’s impersonal
4) Perhaps most important-is it really the business of every one of my 400 some friends, and thousands of people in my school and regional networks to know if I’m gay or straight?

These four factors alone lead me to conclude that I will not be outing myself via Facebook anytime soon.

A brilliant intern calls in sick to go to a Halloweed Party- then his boss sees pictures on Facebook.

Valleywag broke the story, with pictures and email copies:
http://valleywag.com/tech/your-privacy-is-an-illusion/bank-intern-busted-by-facebook-321802.php

CNN Covered it, with these word of wisdom “You gotta be careful what you put on personal profiles on sites like Facebook, MySpace… You never know who’s looking”
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2007/11/14/seg.facebook.spying.cnn

We’re really incredibly flattered by the advanced info on Google’s Open Social - there is considerable overlap with the FindMeOn platform and OpenSN (open social networking) project, both of which launched last year and compromise considerable IP filings.

When FindMeOn.com launched in 2006, we were hailed as a step in the right direction - yet too futuristic and forward-thinking for the marketplace. It’s amazing to know that within two years, our vision of social network and identity portability has been accepted by the mainstream.

FindMeOn, Inc. is currently investigating the situation. Unfortunately, we can not comment any further on this matter.

In accordance with our full disclosure policy, FindMeOn, Inc. has learned that an offsite development machine was compromised by a third party. No user information was compromised.

The machine was a development linux server used to test (i) the verification and account indexing mechansisms and (ii) Open ID PHP implementations. The machine contained no user data, was on a separate computer network in a separate physical location (the employee’s home office), and only had a subset of FindMeOn systems installed on it for development purposes. The third party appeared to have exploited a vulnerability in an outdated PHP version, and was primarily interested in using the machine for SMTP spamming services and as a bittorrent node. The FindMeOn employee was alerted to the problem by an irregular pattern in network traffic, and immediately rectifed the situation.

Again, the machine in question was an offsite development server that contained no user information. The FindMeOn main systems were not susceptable to this attack, and are regularly updated with security patches.