protect your facebook info and privacy

privacy:  freedom from the intrusion of others

There I was, lurking over a friend of friends' page !  envious a little at their wonderful FB life.  You know who you are !  Ones who posted countless pictures of themselves at some far far away land, with the wind blowing through their hair, the sun kissing their perfect skin, and them indulging in some amazing food !  SANS kids pulling on them at every directions !!!  It's great that we're not "friends" and I still have access to all their albums and personal info such as birth date, address, and phone number.  It surprises me how many people set their page on public mode !  I noticed they posted up their birth date and their home address (set their event invite to public view).  Anyone in the business of stealing identity will be jumping for joy, because frankly, careless people like these make it quite easy for them to.



All that aside, yesterday I went into my Privacy Settings just to see if FB did any updates behind my back :-)  Nothing changed.  Then when I went and check on my Active Sessions (in the Security Settings tab), I saw that I currently have an active facebook session in Edmonton !  I never been to Edmonton !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Needless to say, I quickly click on End Activity, reset my password and click YES on logging me off all active sessions.

I feel uneasy knowing someone has access to my account.  The hacker didn't post anything < which is smart because if they did I would have known right away my account was hacked.  What I learned from this is that:  ALWAYS LOG OFF YOUR FB ACCOUNT !!!  I always forget to log out :-(   Learn from me, always log out !!!  Especially if you use free wifi from coffee shop or restaurant.  Actually, you should avoid login into any account on public wifi.  This is because if the hacker is on the same network, using free public wifi as you, they can easily hack into your session.  Avoid it if you can, and if you can't, remember to Log Out to end your activity.  Also, you should change your password every so often too !

After I changed my password and added my phone # for account verification, I decided to look through my privacy settings AGAIN to ensure I got all bases covered.  If you want to protect, want to make your personal info, posts on timeline, pictures/tagged pictures and comments avail. to you or your friends only, here's what to do:


>  Privacy:  Who can see your future posts?  Change it to Friends, if you want the world to have access to your info then leave it as Public.  I don't want stranger to look me up on fb, so I set the Who can contact me? to only Friends of Friends.   Who can look me up using my email address ?  Friends !  no stranger should have my email address.  And I don't want search engines to link to my timeline so I turned it Off


> Timeline and Tagging:  Who can add things to my timeline ?  I don't want stranger to post on my timeline (my page) so I set it to Friends.  And I also only want Friends to see posts I was tagged in.  I went the extra mile and turn ON the Review any posts that I'm tagged in, before it can appear on my timeline.   


> Blocking:  You can set up a Restricted List of people you don't want to see your post.  IF you do use this option, MAKE SURE you set the Who can see my stuff? (in the Privacy tab) to Friends.


> Apps:  I deleted all the apps !  You probably have a few in here, if you play games, entered in a contest or like a page or use Instagram, etc.  All these apps have access to your personal info, the pages you like, groups you belong to, etc.  I don't like giving companies my info. so I deleted them all.



> Ads:  I set it to No One on sharing my personal info. to Third Party Sites or Ads & Friends (another word is Advertisers).  I don't need my friends AND stalkers to know what restaurant I eat at or where I like to shop ! 

There you have it !!!  Keep your info. private people !!!

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