Social Networking Woes

Okay, I've just set up a Twitter account for no good reason. I do like that I can keep track of things as well as update posts using Firefox extensions and Adobe's TweetDeck rather than opening a tab to the site it self. I've not been fully satisfied with how Facebook functions, which I absolutely hate, or MySpace, which I can never take seriously although I do like it considerably more than the aformentioned social network. We'll see how long I'm able to keep up with posting information to it. I like it's simplicity but I'd like it a bit more if we could double the character count on posts. I don't expect more than a few posts per week as I would only share something that I think has some relevance to my life and those in it.

So I ask those of you who may be reading this, are you using Twitter and if so, what do you think about it? I know a number of people who are more or less addicted to it but I'm not entirely like them. Thus far the only thing like this that I've managed to use on a regular basis is MySpace simply because I don't feel like I need to take anything I do or say there seriously. Granted, that goes without saying for any similar social networking service including blogs and such but I feel like those others are less conducive to my sarcastic nature opting to share have truths that are more entertaining rather than share how boring my daily life really is.

One thing I wont do is share something private on any of these sites and I personally feel that making one's social network page private and unable to be viewed by the general public completely defeats the purpose of having it. For example, I was searching for an old high school friend on MySpace and all I had was there name to go off of. It's been more than ten years since we had graduated so I have no way of knowing where they are or anything else beside there name so that is what I type into the search. I end up with several hundred people with the same name as it's a big world out there despite what Disneyland would have you believe and I've got no real info from the results page to go off of beside their very small ID image which may not even be of them but possibly their children, significant other, or a group shot that leaves all who are in it unidentifiable. So I click on the links which leads me to their page marked private. Now I receive little more info other than a somewhat larger ID image that may still be useless and if I want to figure out who they are I have to send them a message saying who I am and are they the person I knew way back when? But finding random people from my past isn't that important to me so I never bother to spam people with "do you know me?" mail. I don't want anyone from my past to have to go through that either so I leave all my info open to the public so that I am readily identifiable to anyone who may know me. It's worked too. An old friend from before high school contacted me through MySpace a little over a year ago. He may not have found me if I had my page set to private.

If I want or need to share something private then there is that social network that has been around far longer than MySpace, Facebook or any other such service and that is email. This is the thing that bothers me the most with these networks, Facebook in particular. It seems everyone has their profile set to private and I get random friend and group requests from people I'm not remotely acquainted with. I'm not going to add someone that is a complete stranger to me, no way in hell so I click on the link to their profile and guess what? It's private. So I have no idea who they are and no clear way to find out so I ignore their request.

If you want to protect yourself on a network, be it Facebook, MySpace, or any other such networking sites then go through the account configurations and pay attention to all the available options. It is possible to protect yourselves from the majority of spamers and random people out their without making your entire profile private. My Facebook, which I never use unless contacted by someone, can be found the same way my MySpace and Twitter accounts can be found, by typing my username into Google or the network's own search bar. It's thefilminator just so you don't have to look up from this long, dull bulletin turned semi-rant. If you feel like adding me then go right ahead, just let me know who you are so I can go, "Oh, yeah! They're cool!" -ADD-. I don't discriminate against cool people, and if you actually read this than you are cool in my book, and probably already know me and are already on my friend lists.

I'm just sick of trying to find and get reacquainted with old friends and acquaintances only to be hampered by their ignorance and/or paranoia. Private accounts do not equal safe accounts, just inaccessible ones. Contrary to popular belief, someone that intends to hack into your account will not be stopped or even slowed down by an account that is set to private. All they need to figure out is your username and password, that doesn't change if a profile is set to private and the way such things are discovered or hacked is not necessarily obtained through your page. I imagine most utilize a self written software program designed to go through any number of possibilities given a number of preset variables.

If you want to protect your pages from hacking the first step is to have a sign in username that is different from what you go by on the site. Use a longer password that includes numbers and if the site suports font case sensitivity, capitol and lower case letters, and not something that could be obtained from even a private page like birthdates, names that are familiar to you, or even favorite foods. Try to be as random as can be, like Stone Temple Pilots. Three random words/numbers drawn from a hat that when put together mean nothing but stand out enough to be remebered by you. Mine is Fried Wombat Dew 83vs794life, now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to change my password, again. Oh, and I dare you to figure out what that last part means.