Wired people and social networks have changed everything, even war. The BBC is reporting that the Pentagon is keeping a close eye on the videos that soldiers post to online video-sharing sites like YouTube and MySpace.

From the article –

The Pentagon is keeping a close eye on what its troops post online, with special attention being paid to videos that show the aftermath of combat.

There is no specific policy that bans troops from posting graphic material.

But troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are hearing the message that they should consider carefully what videos they upload to the web.

Sites such as YouTube and Ogrish.com have hundreds or thousands of clips from soldiers, some set to rock music.

At their most graphic, they show the aftermath of suicide bombings and gunfights between coalition forces and insurgents.

Many include troops using foul language.

One soldier who served in Iraq in 2005 told the BBC there was “a tight watch” being kept on video and pictures posted to MySpace, with civilian contractors monitoring the internet on behalf of the Pentagon.

You can read the entire BBC article @ Pentagon keeps eye on war videos.

Prefound.com asks, why should users reinvent the wheel every time they query a search engine, and responds by creating a social search engine where collective human intelligence determines what results are included in a web search and where web sites rank in those results.

Prefound.com is getting a lot of publicity lately for their cutting-edge social search engine that promises to make a typical web search more relevant by allowing human users to determine the results and ranking of web results. Will Prefound become the next Yahoo! or Google? You decide.

You can try Prefound.com for yourself @ Prefound Social Search Engine or learn more about the purpose of the Prefound social search engine on their How To page.

Users of MySpace, FaceBook and other social networking sites should think about the content and pictures they are posting online. You are literally creating an online public record of yourself and your actions that more and more employers and education institutions are using to do background research on you.

A recent article by Matt Annerino at MTV News provides some much needed cautionary advice to young MySpace and FaceBook members.

From the article –

A communications manager at a reputable advertising agency admitted to knowing that her young staff, responsible for screening potential interns, was searching for Facebook profiles based on the names on submitted résumés.

“It came to my attention a short time ago that initial screenings were being conducted with the aid of Facebook,” she said. “While I initially thought this practice was unprofessional and immature, I was later impressed at the savvy of the staff in finding a new way to research candidates. We do ourselves a service when we learn about the people we’re interviewing. Sometimes a carefully and purposefully crafted résumé does not tell a full story about a candidate.”

However, Stephanie Corredino, human resources manager at Edelman Public Relations, is less enthusiastic. “I would have to say that it may cross privacy barriers,” she said. “There are laws that govern recruitment in that the questions and research conducted on candidates has to be job-related.”

Whether or not the use of MySpace or Facebook is an ethical way of learning more about a job applicant, the contents posted online still remain public knowledge and can be seen by anyone with a username and password.

A prepared statement from MySpace reads, “We feel strongly that a critical first step in ensuring users have a safe experience on the Internet is to focus on the education and awareness for MySpace users and the online community as a whole.”

A spokesperson for Facebook relayed similar sentiments, and pointed out that users can limit the number of people viewing their profiles through various privacy settings.

“To give our users even more control over exactly who they want to have access to the information, we have detailed options under the ‘My Privacy’ tab,” said Facebook spokesperson Chris Hughes. “The only way that potential employers or faculty or administration would be able to see students’ profiles is if the students themselves have chosen to share it with them.”

In other words, think before you post, and take the time find out exactly just how “yours” your space on MySpace truly is.

A recent Reuters article discusses the phenomenal growth of the MySpace social networking web site, which is now ranked in the No. 1 spot among all U.S. web sites, topping even Yahoo! and Google.

From the article –

Online teen hangout MySpace.com ranked as the No. 1 U.S. Web site last week, displacing Yahoo Inc.’s top-rated e-mail gateway and Google Inc.’s search site, Internet tracking firm Hitwise said on Tuesday.

News Corp.’s MySpace accounted for 4.46 percent of all U.S. Internet visits for the week ending July 8, pushing it past Yahoo Mail for the first time and outpacing the home pages for Yahoo, Google and Microsoft’s MSN Hotmail.

Hitwise does not provide figures for the number of unique visitors to a site.

MySpace, which dominates social networking on the Web, also gained share in June from other sites that aim to create virtual communities online for sharing music, photos or other interests, Hitwise said.

MySpace captured nearly 80 percent of visits to online social networking sites, up from 76 percent in April. A distant second was FaceBook at 7.6 percent.

You can read the entire article @ MySpace gains top ranking of US Web sites.

NewScientistTech.com is reporting that the Pentagon’s National Security Agency is researching the possibility of mining the the treasure trove of personal information that people are posting on MySpace and other social networking sites for government national security use.

From the article –

“I AM continually shocked and appalled at the details people voluntarily post online about themselves.” So says Jon Callas, chief security officer at PGP, a Silicon Valley-based maker of encryption software. He is far from alone in noticing that fast-growing social networking websites such as MySpace and Friendster are a snoop’s dream.

New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon’s National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming “semantic web” championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.

You can read the entire article @ Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites.

According to The Exponent a Purdue student was arrested and charged with intimidation with a deadly weapon after his accuser located his picture on the popular social networking site FaceBook.

From the article –

A Purdue Student was charged with a crime Saturday as a result of the assistance of the Facebook.

Justin Vorbroker, a freshman in the College of Engineering, was charged with intimidation with a deadly weapon as a result of an incident that occured Friday night, said Lt. Mike Boesch of the Purdue Police.

According to police reports, at around 10:30 p.m. Friday Vorbroker and several other students were waiting for a bus in front of McCutcheon Residence Hall. Vorbroker began questioning a woman regarding how many animals were used to make the fur collar on her coat and the woman reported Vorbroker exposed a pocket knife and brought it near her face.

The woman reported the incident to the Purdue Police Saturday afternoon after she used www.facebook.com to identify Vorbroker by a photo, Boesch said. Vorbroker was held in Tippecanoe County Jail until Sunday afternoon on charges of intimidation with a deadly weapon.

You can read the entire article @ Facebook aids in arrest after incident.

A recent article on The Register discusses how Colorado detectives used MySpace profiles to find six rape suspects.

From the article –

Detectives in Colorado have used profiles posted on networking site MySpace to identify six suspects accused of a brutal rape and robbery.

The victim, who has not been named, first met the men through MySpace. They subsequently met for a party.

Detective Ali Bartley told Associated Press: “At some point, the victim was no longer aware of what was happening, and she was sexually assaulted.” Bartley said: “Primarily, we pulled up her friends list. It helped us identify some of the players.”

Six men, aged between 18 and 20, were arrested late last month and one is still being sought. They are being charged with various offences ranging from rape to sexual assualt and robbery.

You can read the entire article @ Police find rape suspects on MySpace.

AllHeadlineNews.com is reporting on five teenage boys who created a fake MySpace profile to cheer up a friend and ended up helping police nab a potential sex offender.

You can read the entire story @ MySpace Helps Nab Potential Sex Offender.

Here is another example of how blogs and social networks like Myspace, Facebook, Friendster and others are being used by school officials and law enforcement as a new form of public record to conduct investigations. According to an article on greenwichtime.com, six teenagers have been arrested for blog postings that police believe were meant to intimidate and tamper with a witness in a drug case.

From the article –

A sixth girl was arrested Wednesday and charged with using the Internet to threaten a student the girls thought would testify against their friend in connection with a marijuana bust on campus.

The threats were made on a Web blog on Jan. 6, a day after the drug arrest, school administrators said.

The 16-year-old Greenwich High School student arrested Wednesday was charged with tampering with a witness by intimidation, a felony, as well as single counts of threatening and second-degree harassment.

Greenwich High School Headmaster Alan Capasso said the threats were made on the Internet journal site Xanga.com.

You can read the entire article @ Blog threat probe nets 6th arrest.

Watch what you do, Big Brother is watching your online social activities and blog. BusinessWeek has published an excellent article that discusses how everyone from scam arists and predators to the police and employers could be monitoring your social networking and blogging activities online. The article also discusses some telling personal horror stories and what social networkers and bloggers can do to protect their privacy.

From the article –

Social networker Shannon Sullivan was getting worried. Like all of her friends, she was spending much of her free time chatting, blogging, and sharing photos on the social-networking site, MySpace.com. But soon, the 14-year-old high school freshman had divulged so much personal information online — from her address and phone number to her birth date and names of friends — that she no longer felt she could surf safely. So Sullivan did the unthinkable: she suspended her MySpace profile.

You can read the entire article @ Big Brother Is Reading Your Blog.