There are more and more communication channels and network communities set up on internet. There are facebook, myspace, msn spaces, and tons of dating website... people put their pictures and all kinds of other personal information on it. Take facebook as an example, not only you may get to know someone's whole history, such as high school, college, graduate school, employers, birthdays, hobbies...you also get to know their spouses, their families, their friends, and then, you may even know their families' names and history.

 

In a positive way, such internet community brings people all over the world much closer, I get to know what's going on with my friends in China without talking to them, and it's fun to poke them virtually once in a while. If you want to announce something, such as getting married, wedding pictures are ready to show, posting on your personal online page may be the most efficient way to let everybody know.

However, how can I be sure about the security of my information. Yes I can choose whether or not I want my information open to public, but as a person who barely know anything about IT technology, I doubt whether a simple click on "information only open to friends" can provide 100% protection. There are a lot of people who are capable of breaking or bypassing passwords (Hack, is that the word....?). What if someone decides to extort from me, it's possible that the criminal can find my information on some websites, say facebook, where he/she may find some clue linked to other websites where I put some pictures of my family, so even my family is thousands miles away, they are still in danger. Or think about some very extreme pervert cases........well... ok that's too scary, I am being over imaginative here.

 

Anyway, I am just wondering whether people over exposed themselves with the developement of online communities. How can we make sure that our information would not be used for bad purpose by bad people. Here reminded me another question I've been thinking about: what kind of psychology it is that makes some people so passionate about posting a lot of their pictures and personal info online to public?

I just realized that the whole MBA life is a life of searching all kinds of stuff all the time.

 

You search for schools information during application, then search for discount flight, then search for housing, furnitures, cars, internships, full time jobs, alumnies or any other possible networking resources, then at the end search for people to buy your old furnitures, cars, books, and bang, you are graduated.