I've never liked the idea of Facebook purely from a security point of view. If you have a FB page or are thinking about getting one, there have always been several things you should be aware of and they've always seemed to me to be very good reasons not to sign up. Now all that paranoia is coming home to roost. If you do FB, I sincerely hope you've not been bitten by this yet. Whether you have or not, I hope you can see the writing is now plainly, er, on the wall.
Like a lot of people, I signed up with its spiritual forerunner, FriendsReunited.co.uk, way back when this kind of networking was a novel idea and despite niggling privacy concerns, because I simply had to know what became of all the nutters I went to school with (they're all either accountants or dropouts now, predictably enough) and signing up was the only way to find out. It actually felt quite "safe", with its double-blind email and school-register-type format. Still, I avoided giving away any real information about myself and I'm glad I did, as it's since been sold to ITV.com and (ab)used for other purposes. Unlike classmates.com, the US site that inspired it, FR never really followed up on its early success. Classmates.com now gives us all a clear indication of what would have happened if it those Other Purposes had been allowed to flourish. Not pretty at all.
Anyway I'll not harp on about it any more. Just be careful what you post up on these sites and be even more careful what you respond to there. Facebook in particular is now so huge it's just begging to be targeted by spammers and scammers who will look to exploit the friendly bonhomie there, first and foremost. When it happens, as with all these things, the more you give away, the more you stand to lose.
[/rant]
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