MySpace site prompts concern about security
By Megan Guilfoyle
IV Leader Staff
What’s the first thing you do when you walk into a
computer lab at IVCC? No, it isn’t to check up on the daily news, or browse your
teacher’s home pages, or even check the latest class cancellations: it’s logging
on to MySpace!
Recently, this trend of having to have a MySpace account has
exploded not only here at IVCC, but around the world.
A great amount of the student population here at IVCC have
gotten acquainted with this “cool and addicting” trend, but what many do not
realize is the hidden dangers behind all of the fun and games.
The one aspect that numerous students here at IVCC are
oblivious to are online predators. Yes, you’re probably thinking to yourself,
“that’s not going to happen to me, or why would I have to worry because
predators do not target people my age, they target people younger,” but that is
not true.
Many on-line predators do not have a preference as to who
they pick, as long as you fit their criteria, you will do.
Have you ever paid attention to the number of times your
profile has been viewed on your home page on MySpace? Come on, you can’t
possibly think that all of those ‘views’ were done by your friends? Yes, it
could happen, but it’s extremely unlikely. What’s a reality is that if you have
no security settings changed on your MySpace, anyone and everyone from all walks
of life can view your profile!
Just think of how many people are on MySpace; it’s over 63
million, isn’t it? Any one of those people could be viewing your profile.
I joined MySpace over the summer because it was a “must have
thing.” I will admit that I was one of the people that whatever information that
I wanted to put on my page, I put it on there! I never ever actually thought
about who looked at my page because I figured that my friends were the only ones
that ever did.
Quickly, I changed my mind. Upon receiving random e-mails
from people from all around the country wanting to become my friend and wanting
to talk with me, I began to rethink the how safe MySpace really was.
Then a few months later, my friend told me that somehow he
found out that his picture was on someone else’s MySpace page. I couldn’t figure
out how that was possible, but oddly enough as it sounds, all of my friend’s
pictures were on this other kid’s profile. What made this even scarier was the
fact that this kid was from Pennsylvania and my friend had absolutely no idea
who he was.
Who knows who could have any of your MySpace pictures? The
process is as simple as getting the code for your picture and copying and
pasting it into your profile. All you have to do is copy it into your picture
and it magically appears. It’s just a few clicks away. That’s not a lot of
security if you ask me.
As long as you have an account, you can access any one else’s
pictures, too. Have you ever considered that your employers, teachers, family,
or other people of authority could look at your pictures and browse your MySpace
page? Now, not all of us have things on there that would be appropriate for them
to see, and quite frankly, those people will then think of you differently if
you have anything that is inappropriate on there.
Another issue that many students at IVCC do not realize is
the fact that your own teachers could look up any information on you in a mouse
click.
There’s the things on you’re My Space that you only want your
friends to see, but the fact of the matter is that anyone can see it.
Not only are teachers and faculty catching on to this
overwhelming trend, but employers can do searches on prospective employees,
which could determine whether or not you get a job off the simple basis of your
MySpace. People are “Googled” everyday; could you be “MySpaced” also?
If there are no security settings changed, then anyone and
everyone can access your account simply by searching your name, age, location,
school, and any other small bit of information that is out there.
Yes, some people do have their security settings changed, but
not many do because the typical response is “I’m fine; nothing’s going to happen
to me.” And the fact of the matter is that you never know.
There is just too much information that is too easily
accessible.
My parents began to hear stories on the news about MySpace
and how unsafe it was and began to hound me to get all of my things off of
there. To say the least, I started to catch on and I also started noticing
information on the news regarding people getting kidnapped or kicked off of
basketball teams because there was too much information on MySpace.
After seeing all of this and considering the consequences, I
did change my profile a lot, but it still wasn’t enough. People can still do
searches and still find out information about you.
To make a long story short, after debating with them about
it, basically I ended up making the decision to just delete my MySpace because
it wasn’t worth my trouble anymore. Yes, it was fun to talk to my friends on
there, but that is what a telephone is for, so I began to just forget about
MySpace and now it doesn’t even bother me not to have an account anymore.
What everything boils down to is that MySpace is not safe;
yes, partly that is my opinion, but it is a fact. Someone, somewhere, not likely
at IVCC will get in trouble or have something else worse happen to him/her. All
that will take is time.