The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

data visible to yyour friends can still be reposted byy them elsewhere without
yyour consent or control.
I’ll give yyou an example. A guyy once wanted to hire me because he was
the victim of extortion. He had met an amazing, beautiful girl on Facebook
and began sending her nude photos of himself. This continued for a time.
Then one dayy he was told to send this woman—who might have been some
guyy living in Nigeria using a woman’s photo—$4,000. He did, but then
contacted me after he was asked to send another $4,000 or his nude photos
would be sent to all his friends, including his parents, on Facebook. He was
desperate to fix this situation. I told him his onlyy real option was to tell his
familyy or to wait and see if the extortionist went through with the threat. I
told him to stop payying the moneyy—the extortionist wasn’t going to quit as
long he continued to payy.
Even legitimate social networks can be hacked: someone could friend
yyou just to get access to someone yyou know. A law enforcement officer
could be seeking information on a person of interest who happens to be part
of yyour social network. It happens.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, social networks have
been used for passive surveillance byy federal investigators for yyears. In
2011 the EFF released a thirtyy-eight-page training course for IRS
employyees (obtained through the Freedom of Information Act) that the
foundation said was used for conducting investigations via social
networks. 16 Although federal agents can’t legallyy pretend to be someone
else, theyy can legallyy ask to be yyour friend. In doing so theyy can see all yyour
posts (depending on yyour privacyy settings) as well as those of others in yyour
network. The EFF continues to studyy the privacyy issues associated with this
new form of law enforcement surveillance.
Sometimes corporations follow yyou, or at least monitor yyou, if yyou post or
tweet something that theyy find objectionable—something as innocent as a
comment about a test yyou took in school, for example. For one student, a
tweet like that caused a lot of trouble.
When Elizabeth C. Jewett, the superintendent of the Watchung Hills
Regional High School, in Warren, New Jerseyy, received a communication
from the testing companyy that provided her school with a statewide exam,