We tell parents: Tell your kids to be careful about what they post on Facebook and to watch their privacy settings. Don't tell us where you went to school, where you live. People who know you already know that.
If the privacy settings are loose, if anyone can read the wall, then anyone can steal pictures, even find you, hurt you somehow.
The kids know we're not being unnecessarily paranoid and many are getting the idea. Everything on the Internet is permanent.
But it isn't just the kids, of course, who are vulnerable to social network stalkers. Stalking is growing. It may be the fastest growing way to pass the day for bored, unemployed people looking for a little fun, and profit.
The latest news is about a stalker, a California man who trolled Facebook pages for information that would help him hack into email accounts. Reading the wall, George Bronk learned enough about his victims to answer basic security questions about their cities of origin, schools they attended, etc. Once he hacked into their email addresses it was easy to find nude photographs and videos that women sent to their boyfriends and husbands. He distributed these to entire contact lists. The crime spans 17 states, 117 emails.
Mr. Bronk pleaded guilty to charges of computer intrusion and false impersonation. He says he was bored and unemployed and this was fun.
He had hoped to become a paramedic. Now he won't be doing that. Registered sex offenders can't be paramedics.
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