How do you Facebooker's and My Spacer's deal with it?

[Scott Shepherd]

I'm not on Facebook or Myspace, nor do I have a burning desire to be on either, but my spam filters are getting slammed right now with the same two addresses as a return address.... noreply@message.myspace.com notification@facebookmail.com Being I'm on neither, they are surely someone spoofing email addresses to create garbage or get me to click something. I had about 30 of those in my spam from last night alone. Also getting a lot of them from gmail all of the sudden. I was curious, since I'm not on it, I know it's junk, but for those that are not super geeks and "just know" which one's not to click on, how are the less savvy computer folks on those sites NOT getting into some bad virus', malware, etc. from clicking on those thinking they are real? Anyone else seeing a surge in spam from those 2 addresses?

[Tim Morton]

I do have facebook....but i am on a mac so i don't stress over "notifications"...although on my droid eris "youmail" account i am filling my mailbox with them....i need to find how to turn them off on the phone:D

[Eric DeSilva]

I'd guess the "facebookmail.com" is a spoof. All the notifications I've seen from FB have come from facebook.com. Can't speak for myspace, since I don't use it.

[Chris Kennedy]

I'm on facebook, but I have my settings configured so that almost no notifications are sent to me.

Cheers,

Chris

[Eric DeSilva]

I do have facebook....but i am on a mac so i don't stress over "notifications"...although on my droid eris "youmail" account i am filling my mailbox with them....i need to find how to turn them off on the phone:D

Get a gmail account. You can set up gmail to retrieve mail from another account, and it will apply its spam filters to the retrieved mail. Then you set up your mobile to only get mail from gmail. You can also set up gmail so it looks like your responses come from your original account (I think). Very useful when I went to an iPhone and was bypassing my outlook based spam filters.

[Eric DeSilva]

I'm on facebook, but I have my settings configured so that almost no notifications are sent to me.

Cheers,

Chris

I think he said he wasn't on FB, so this stuff is almost certainly spam...

[Matt Meiser]

I'm getting a lot of spam that's a fake facebook-like or myspace-like address in my work email. Luckily we use a filtering service by Google and I just get one message a day with a list of them. If I don't click the link to send them through, they automatically get deleted after something like 7 days. My Gmail at home is doing a good job of filtering them too if I'm getting them there.

[Scott Shepherd]

Me too Matt. We use Postini on the server level and it's kicking out all of them, so it's just a matter of emptying the trash can every so often, but I did notice a big spike in them. Prior to last week I don't think I'd ever seen one of those from either place. Ruthless people, those spammers. If it were up to me, they'd all be in jail for some sort of crimes against humanity charges :)

[travis howe]

Social Networking sites have taken a major beating lately and for cause. They have become a new source for spam, id theft, social engineering, spyware, etc... It's another good thing taken major advantage of. The minute you put something out there even if you believe it's not personal, you can be had. For example, it's not that big of a deal to share what High School I went to right?

You tell me what High School you went to, I find others that went to that High School, I pretend to be one of those other students you might remember from years ago...next we're sharing close personal data on the social networking sites... next I know everything about you, next I become you.... well, you get the picture, it's a maze of potential opportunity for the bad guys.

It's as much a part of your life now and today as you think it's not... you don't even need to be online, we all have friends and family, it's only time and a desire. It ranges from kids wanting to have fun to organized State Sponsored activities that are closer than you realize....funding terrorist w/ our own activities.

I would encourage you all to take the time to do some research and educate your friends and family.

r/t

[Joe Pelonio]

Oddly enough, though I am on both B and MS, I have never gotten spam through either. I do get a good 15-20 spams caught by filters a day, but they are all coming through my business e-mail and website. I have a personal yahoo e-mail that seems to get mainly "dating" offers", while the business one gets offers for various sign related scams and the usual prescription drugs and inheriting money from my Nigerian relatives.

[Leigh Costello]

Same as Joe here, no real spam from either FB or MS. I would recommend to all that if you don't recognize the addy or the subject, treat as spam. Good luck out there everyone, cyberspace can be scary.

[Belinda Barfield]

The minute you put something out there even if you believe it's not personal, you can be had. For example, it's not that big of a deal to share what High School I went to right?

You tell me what High School you went to, I find others that went to that High School, I pretend to be one of those other students you might remember from years ago...next we're sharing close personal data on the social networking sites... next I know everything about you, next I become you.... well, you get the picture, it's a maze of potential opportunity for the bad guys.
r/t

Funny you should post this . . . just this morning I received the fourth or fifth notification that a particular person has invited me to join FB. I've never heard of this guy, have no idea who he is, etc. Maybe he just has me confused with someone else, or maybe not.

A friend of mine is really into FB. Back in the summer she came to Savannah for a visit. Lots of pics taken - all ended up on her page. I was not happy that she didn't ask my permission before posting the pics for all of her "friends" to see. :mad:

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I get occasional invitations from friends to join FB but haven't.

I haven't felt the need.

[Leigh Costello]

Belinda,
I have a friend who did the same thing to me. I let her know that I did not appreciate the photos on the internet. She said "no one can see it but me and you."

I know this is not true because you can search any name you can think of, click on their profile and look at their photos. Now, keep in mind, there are ways of protecting yourself but most don't.

So if you don't want them on there, make sure she deletes them. As my niece the lawyer has said many times, "Invasion of privacy was and is exponentially abused when facebook and other social networks let us post what we want."

Some folks don't even realize that there are those that don't want their life exposed on the internet. Go figure!

[Pat Germain]

Belinda,
I have a friend who did the same thing to me. I let her know that I did not appreciate the photos on the internet. She said "no one can see it but me and you."

I know this is not true because you can search any name you can think of, click on their profile and look at their photos. Now, keep in mind, there are ways of protecting yourself but most don't.

When you create a photo album on a FaceBook page, you can set the album making it viewable by anyone, by only friends, or by friends of friends. So, you might just ask your "friends" to lock down their photo albums making them viewable only by friends. (Or, you can ask them to just remove the photos.)

I often get FaceBook friend requests from young, attractive women I don't know. I finally realized what this is all about. There's a really rich guy out there somewhere who shares my name. ;)

[Eric DeSilva]

The younger generation has a much different view of privacy than I do. They seem quite willing to trade privacy for "free" goods--whether gmail, wave, google maps, etc. I don't understand it and never will. I've argued with kids about this before, but don't think the true import of privacy is going to be understood by them until they apply for a job and get turned down based on the sketchy pictures of what they did last summer in Cancun or until they get health insurance denied for a pre-existing condition after blogging about some rash or something.

More to the point, however, I can't lay the blame at the feet of FB and social networking sites. People have always been able to inappropriately use material--they could always post pictures on their own websites or whatever. The problem is that FB and social networking sites just made it a lot easier. The core problem was always there, however.

Now, as someone said yesterday, I'm going to go chase those damn kids off my lawn.

[Scott Shepherd]

I've argued with kids about this before, but don't think the true import of privacy is going to be understood by them until they apply for a job and get turned down based on the sketchy pictures of what they did last summer in Cancun or until they get health insurance denied for a pre-existing condition after blogging about some rash or something.



I said it here a year ago in a discussion about online privacy and using real names online and I was blasted for it, but we had a job opening and had many applicants. Many of them emailed me links to their portfolio's and websites. Many had links on those sites to their flicker accounts, and I looked through them. Found several people that were under 21 that had loads of photos of themselves partying like rock stars on their accounts. I was looking for someone that had a lot of that behind them, not someone right in the middle of it all, so they got booted out of consideration because of what they posted online. Right or wrong, they didn't get the job and it was because of exactly what you said.

[Chris Kennedy]

I follow a policy when it comes to privacy issues. The equal opportunity officer at my job makes a simple statement -- never put something in an e-mail that you wouldn't want to have read back to you in a court of law. And that is the guiding principle with Facebook and its ilk. It is pretty public knowledge, and you shouldn't post anything on there that you wouldn't want presented in a court of law.

I have my privacy settings set very restrictively so that only my "friends" can see anything on there, and I make certain anything on there is completely innocuous -- my comments, my pictures, whatever.

Cheers,

Chris

[Carlos Alden]

I'm on Facebook, and I'm certifiable old fart geezer. Will be 57 in a month or so.

I have really greatly enjoyed being in touch with old friends and getting to know current friends better. I don't get spam from anyone pretending to be on facebook, and it's pretty obvious to me that when I see a picture of a large-breasted pouty-lipped tight-shirted female with a message "Hi! I'm Suzi and new in town and that we could be friends!" that she didn't graduate with me in 1971, and is probably not a legit request.

In other words, it's not hard to use and enjoy Facebook safely. I'm just aware that anything I put up is essentially public and act accordingly.

Morning chats with friends far and wide, sharing a cup of coffee as it were, are really great.

Carlos

[Pat Germain]

^^ Good post, Carlos. I agree completely.