An article in The California Aggie discusses how campus police are using the popular social networking site to hunt criminals and cyberstalkers.

From the article –

Lt. Nader Oweis, a detective with the UC Davis Police Department, insisted the officers are not using their Facebook accounts for the purpose of staking out students or farming incriminating party evidence.

Oweis said the police are using their accounts in order to investigate campus cases of threats, harassment and cyberstalking – serious crimes that may become a dangerous part of the Facebook experience.

“It’s real simple,” Oweis said. “We have had some investigations where we have had victims receive threats and we had to log in.”

Oweis, however, admits the idea of the police logging onto a student-oriented website might be disturbing to some users.

“I can understand people being a little nervous,” Oweis said. “I can definitely see where they are coming from.”

He said the UCDPD simply doesn’t have the resources to try to evaluate the number of students online, and then try to surmise which of those students may be participating in illegal activity.

“Yes we are on the Facebook, and yes we are on some other sites out there,” Oweis said. “We are not Big Brother looking over your shoulder. We are on there to conduct investigations.”

You can read the entire article @ Policing the Facebook.

The Washington Post has a lengthy article on the growing alarm among school officials on the use of blogs by teens and the personal information and pictures that they routinely post on popular social network sites like Facebook, MySpace and Xanga.

We have discussed on this blog in the past that blogs and social network sites are becoming a new form of loose public record. Although less official than a government public record source, these new digital records can be much more personally revealing and psychologically insightful for researchers, private investigators, skip tracers, law enforcement officials and government agencies. A young man was recently convicted of a heinous crime that was originally thought to be an accident, based on an online confession in his blog that was discoverd by prosecutors. Unfortunately, these online records can also be used by sex offenders and stalkers, to name just a few.

Now school administrators are warning parents and students on the academic, professional and privacy dangers of publicly publishing their personal thoughts, activities and pictures online. Some private schools have resorted to banning the use of Facebook with school computers and email addresses. Others have expelled students for particularly offensive blog postings.

You can read the entire Washington Post article @ Teens’ Bold Blogs Alarm Area Schools.

The Harvard Crimson is reporting on the use of FaceBook, the popular student social network, by employment recruiters to get information on students and prospect for employees. Is there any doubt that these new online social network profiles are a new form of public record?

You can read the entire article @ Facebook Profiles May be Monitored

With over 41 million registered users, and growing, it’s easy to see why social network sites like MySpace are fast becoming a valuable new tool for free people search and skip tracing, especially if the person you are looking for is in the thirty-something and younger demographic.

As we have mentioned before on this blog, MySpace, Friendster, Xanga and other social network sites, along with blog search sites, provide a new source for people search and unofficial “public record” searches. You may have to modify your people search strategies when searching these sites, since most members do not post their last names on their personal pages or blogs.

People will, however, post their first names, nicknames, age, hometown, interests, current city/state along with photos and other personal information – all of which should be considered when searching these sites. As a result, these pages provide a new type of searchable, albeit unofficial, “public record” for a large number of these social network users.

While you are not likely to find a phone number or address listed for someone on these sites, you will probably find a lot more personal detail in the information posted than a typical free white pages or public record search.

The Friendster social network has over 21 million ( and growing ) user profiles. Friendster has a free profile search on their web site to search people profiles. Friendster users post everything from name; hometown; email address; schools and universities attended; personal pictures and job history on their profiles, making it a great free people search.

You can search the friendster site by name / email, school or hometown. Unfortunately the friendster search does not make it easy to search multiple criteria or keywords at the same time, but there is a possible workaround using Google.

Say you wanted to search Friendster for someone named Joe Shmoe who graduated from Duke University and his hometown is Atlanta, GA, you could try the following Google search: Joe Shmoe Duke University Atlanta site:friendster.com. This search would search all the Friendster pages that have been indexed by Google where the words Joe Shmoe Duke University Atlanta appear on the page.

You can access the Friendster people search half way down their log in page at Friendster

Here are some interesting statistics from a December 12, 2005 Business Week cover story on the “MySpace Generation” –

The percentage share of 24 million U.S. teens ( age 12 – 17 ) who do the following:

Use the internet: 87%
Instant message ( IM ) : 65%
Go online everday: 44%
Keep several IM conversations going at once: 29%
Have more than 50 “buddies” on their regular IM list: 29%
IM people in the same room: 25%

With the growth and advance of networked people; search engine technology; blogs; online people searches; online public record locators and social networks like Friendster, MySpace and FaceBook, people will become easier and easier to locate, even as existing public record laws become stricter.

Mix a little vanity along with the ease of publishing online biographies, resumes, pictures and other personal information and you now have more options than ever for finding a person on the web without the use of paid professionals and fee-based databases.

You can read more about the “MySpace Generation” in Business Week @ The MySpace Generation

With the rapidly increasing popularity of online social networks like MySpace, Friendster and FaceBook, along with the recent trouble that some college students and others have gotten into for their online communications on some of these sites, it is time to stop and review some excellent tips for protecting your privacy and keeping your online “paper trail” to a minimum.

The North Lake Tahoe Bonanza has published an in-depth article for doing just that.

From the article -

Let’s take a minute to talk about online safety. The Internet is a great place to chat, do research, and have fun. Despite all its usefulness though, it does have its “dark” side. Knowing what and what not to do online can save you a lot of grief!

You can read the entire article at Safety Tips For Using Online Social Networks

Some colleges and universities are disciplining students for improper postings and activities on the popular FaceBook social network directory that is popular with high school and university students. United Press International is reporting that Fisher College in Boston, Massachusetts expelled two students, after they allegedly conspired to get a university police officer in trouble in a sexual-assault setup that was discussed online with their FaceBook accounts.

The article reports that –

At the University of Missouri-Columbia a new task force is addressing potential problems that may arise from student’s involvement with Facebook. “We want to educate the students that the information they post is not private,” said Donell Young, coordinator of student life and judicial coordinator at UM. The proactive initiative hopes to help students avoid future problems with either disciplinary or potential employment problems. If administrators are alerted to serious claims in violation of university policy on the site, Young explained they will not hesitate to investigate.

You can read the entire article on UPI at Facebook connecting more than students.

The Pacific News Service is reporting on a story of a California teenager who posted his suicide note on the popular social network site MySpace. The MySpace posting encouraged readers to contact the local police and gave the address and location of where his body could be found.

The online suicide notice was read and commented on by millions of MySpace users, showing the power of these popular social network sites to reach a large number of people quickly.

You can read the full article at Teenager Posts Suicide Note on Myspace.com.

Although the FaceBook site was just launched in 2004, it is already ranked (as of today) at 105 among all internet sites on the Alexa index of web sites.

FaceBook is a social network site for college students; high school students; alumni; faculty and staff to network and keep in touch with other people who have ties to the same school or university. Registration is simple and free. To find out more about FaceBook, you can visit their site at FaceBook.