The 2009 Application Usage and Risk Report from Palo Alto Networks that analyzed web use and traffic patterns on over 200 networks globally showed that business use of social networks, social media and collaborative software exploded over the last six months.

Findings from the report include:

- Twitter use grew by 250 percent from the 2009 spring report.

- Facebook use grew by 192 percent and Facebook Chat was found to be the 4th most commonly used instant message application, beating both Yahoo! IM and AIM.

- SharePoint use and collaboration is ubiquitous – bandwidth consumed by SharePoint, specifically the documents component, increased 17-fold from the previous report in April.

- Business use of blogs and wikis grew by 39 times.

In August, Google announced that it was reworking its search engine to make it faster and more efficient. The new project is called Google Caffeine.

Google Caffeine is billed as an effort to improve Google’s indexing speed, power and accuracy.

Google’s own Matt Cutts discusses more about the Google Caffeine project in the video below:

Google has been the target of much criticism lately regarding how much information they record on people who use their search engine and other web services as well as how they use this information.

In an effort to make their personal data more public, Google has launched a privacy dashboard for users who want to find out exacly what information Google has collected about their online activity as well as control their privacy settings for Google services from one central location.

Google’s privacy dashboard covers personal information collected from over 20 of Google’s services services, including Gmail, Google Docs, Search History, Orkut, YouTube.com, Picasa, Google Talk, Google Reader, Google Alerts, Google Latitude and more.

The Google dashboard can reveal just how much personal information and online activity data you’re providing Google when you use their search engine and other web services.

You can watch the video below for more information on how the Google Privacy Dashboard works:

Cell phone technology, mobile applications and social networks make a powerful combination for tracking people. Ironically, most of the people being tracked do so willingly through their own use of these technologies.

Google’s announced that it will offer turn-by-turn navigation to users of the Motorola Droid, showing the precision with which cell phones are now able to pinpoint a person’s location.

Prosecutors can now use cell phone GPS records to prove a defendant has been near the location of a crime scene. Divorce lawyers have used cell phone records to prove a spouse has been cheating. Services like Loopt and Google Latitude allow people to find the current locations of friends and family in their networks.

Although these mobile people tracking services can be handy for users, they can also be abused by people with bad intentions.

Last June, an Arizona man claimed that hist Twitter posts he made while on vacation may have helped a robber who stole expensive video equipment from his home.

Services like Loopt let people share their locations online with other approved devices. Loopt provides safety and privacy tips to users, but the decision of how much personal information to reveal is up to individual users.

Private investigators and attorneys are now frequently using phone records to prove guilt in both civil and criminal court cases.

A 1999 FCC law required all cell phones to come equipped with GPS technology by 2005 to assist with emergency calls.

Some phones still rely on satellites for tracking, which makes them less accurate than other navigation tools such as a Garmin, which can find its location within a few meters. Environmental conditions can also limit the accuracy of tracking devices, like cloudy weather or being indoors.

However, mobile technology will only more precise and potentially invasive in the future.

Source: CNBC.com

Pete Cashmore, founder and CEO of Mashable.com, has written an interesting opinion piece on social media and the death of privacy for CNN.com.

Cashmore lists and discusses numerous developments in social media that threaten to blow away the idea of personal privacy, including the SenseCam – a personal camera worn around your neck that will capture an image every 30 seconds to record “every moment of a person’s life”.

While the SenseCam has great potential for people with Alzheimer’s or Dementia, it brings with it significant privacy concerns.

Cashmore states –

“It’s easy to see the associated risks of a life-logging device. From stalkers to identity theft, recording such information (and to unlock its true value, posting it online) makes us vulnerable to all manner of bad actors.

But what about the cost of not sharing? In the online realm, that might mean you simply don’t exist. ”

This idea of Cashmore’s seems like a utopian reach. It is understandable that Cashmore might feel that not sharing every aspect of your life online could mean a virtual non-existence since he has built a respectable blog empire promoting the new era of social networks and social media, but what about the problem of billions of egos worldwide sharing every moment of their lives in blog posts, camera captures, profile feeds and tweets?

Several problems come to mind, including: 1) millions of individual real-time reality shows and, 2) a billion big brothers running around recording every moment of their lives and yours.

Not to mention the pathetic people who are already starting to miss out on living because they are too busy recording their lives with constant personal updates on social media sites. What is next, personal stage-management services for these social media addicts?

Cashmore goes on to make some very good observations about social media sites like Flickr, Twitter and Facebook, noting that all of this public photo sharing, tweeting and social networking is contributing to the growth of the real-time web and a whole new way of sharing, searching and finding information.

Another good observation by Cashmore is how social media has opened up mass communication outlets for people who would not have been given the time of day in the old media world, noting that “the more content we share, the more connections and opportunities open up.”

In addition, Cashmore notes that we are living in a time where attention is the new currency and privacy is obscurity and, by inference, a form of poverty.

However, if enough people start walking around with SenseCams, no one will be able to “opt out” of the brave new world of social media.

Source: CNN.com

Your social network profile on Facebook may remain long after you’re gone.

Facebook has announced that it will “memorialize” people’s profiles after they die, if their family and friends request the service.

Memorial profiles will differ from normal Facebook profiles.

Facebook will delete contact information from memorial profiles and block people from logging into the deceased person’s account. In addition, memorialized profiles will not appear in the “suggestions” part of the Facebook social network. Also, only the deceased person’s network of Facebook friends will be able to find them on a Facebook search.

Facebook has grown to become a go-to social network for more than 300 million people worldwide to stay in contact with family, friends, classmates and coworkers.

Source: Associated Press

Tech savvy crooks and criminals are increasingly using popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace as tools for their latest phishing schemes.

Cybercrooks realize that popular social networks contain a wealth of personal information contributed by their growing user base.

Over the past 3 years almost 3,200 account hijacking cases on social networks were reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center. The Internet Crime Complaint Center is a partnership between the FBI; the National White Collar Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Fake profile updates, emails, video and links are used to trick social network users into revealing personal information about themselves on scam sites, including logon IDs and passwords.

Once a person’s social network account is hacked, the criminals can trick their list of friends and repeat the crime on other people. Social networks provide plenty of opportunity to trick more people – the average Facebook user has 120 friends on their list.

The huge growth in social networks has created great tools for cybercriminals. Facebook alone has 300 million registered people.

Cybercriminals are experts at using social engineering to trick people. They can use a friend’s social network profile to trick you into thinking the said person is in trouble and needs financial help, causing some to give out personal and financial information.

A 2005 study from Indiana University showed that as much as 70% of social network phishing scams are successful.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 72,000 complaints about Internet fraud in 2008 that amounted to $264.6 million in financial loss, with each victim losing an average of $931 USD.

Social networks are responding to this new threat.

Facebook has created computer systems that detect phished user accounts. They can recognize and lock user accounts that send an unusually high amount of messages to friends.

MySpace compiles blacklists of phony user accounts to stop people from clicking on phishing links.

Source: CNN

Due to its heavy reliance on public surveillance cameras, growing public databases and intrusive government power over its citizens daily lives, Britain has become a poster nation for the modern “surveillance society”.

Britain was recently ranked as one of the five worst nations for its record on privacy and surveillance.

However the surveillance of citizen Jenny Paton, a mother of three, by local officials seems especially egregious.

When officials suspected Ms. Paton of lying about her residence to get her daughter enrolled in a neighborhood school, they started a secret surveillance of Ms Paton that included accessing her phone records.

In addition, a local education department official secretly followed Ms. Paton, recording her movements in a log that identified her and her kids as a “female and three children” and her car as the “target vehicle”.

Ms. Paton broke no laws and her daughter has been admitted into the school. However, the case is scheduled to be reviewed by a regulatory tribunal at her request.

The Poole Borough Council maintains that it has done nothing wrong.

A law enacted in 2000 that regulates surveillance by government departments states that it is lawful for local governments to follow citizens secretly. Local governments often use these surveillance powers without oversight from any judges or law enforcement officials to investigate people.

The law is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act ( RIPA ) and it also gives 474 local governments and 318 agencies surveillance powers that were once reserved for only a few law enforcement and security organizations.

RIPA gives local governments and agencies the power to record people with hidden cameras, access communication information such as telephone calls and internet activity as well as using undercover investigators to spy on people.

Sir Christopher Rose, Britain’s chief surveillance commissioner, reported that local governments conducted 5,000 “directed surveillance missions” during the year ending in March 2009 and other public authorities conducted an additional 5,000 surveillance jobs.

Citizens like Ms. Paton wonder if privacy has any meaning in the Orwellian “Big Brother” system that has been created by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

One of the major criticisms of RIPA is that the people being spied on are usually not aware that they are being tracked and followed.

Indeed, Ms. Paton only discovered what had been done to her when local officials met with her to review her daughter’s school application and showed her the surveillance report and a copy of her telephone records.

Source: NY Times

The Flickr photo sharing network has introduced a new people tagging tool that allows users to find a person in pictures by name.

Flickr has also improved their privacy settings, so people can opt out of being identified in pictures. How effective Flickr will be at implementing these new privacy controls is anyone’s guess.

The new people tagging tool lets you identify individual people in photos by drawing boxes around their faces. Flickr then lets you identify each person by name. If the person is a registered member on Flickr, the tagging system suggests the member’s name to you as you type the tag.

Once a person is tagged, finding them in searches is easier. Flickr will now be able to show you where the person is located inside the pictures, which is really helpful in searching group shots.

Flickr currently reports over 40 million registered users on its service.

People-tagging technology is already available on other picture-sharing networks like Google’s Picasa and Facebook.

Flickr’s people search tool isn’t as advanced as Picasa. Google launched its people search tool for pictures in 2008 and upgraded its search last month.

However, Flickr’s people-tagging and search allows more privacy controls for users by allowing them to opt out of being identified in pictures. People who are not members of Flickr can also be tagged in pictures, but they will need to approve the ID before it appears in Flickr’s system.

Whereas on Facebook people often get tagged in an unflattering picture that they didn’t approve of. Once a person is tagged in a Facebook photo, that picture along with your name gets tied to your Facebook profile. The tagged picture then will appear in Facebook image searches, whether you want it to or not.

People who want to monitor the tagging activity associated with their name can review their Recent Activity page. Every time they’re tagged in a photo, there will be a notice in on their Recent Activity feed informing them as to who tagged them, and showing a link to the tagged photo.

Source: Web Monkey

Facebook People Search group now actively looking for members that are looking for a person that they have lost contact with or people who can help others find someone.

The Facebook People Search Group is open to people who want to post information on a person they are searching for or people who can help other people find someone they are looking for.

If you are trying to find someone from your past like a family member, friend, classmate, coworker or military buddy feel free to join our People Search Group on the Facebook social network and post any information that will help others locate them.

Likewise, if you are a skip tracer, investigative professional or a web search expert or amateur internet sleuth, feel free to join the Facebook People Search Group and help others find a person they are looking for.

The more people who join the People Search group the easier it will be for people to reunite with a person from their past.

Thanks.