Clearly I offended people by suggesting some details about your life (particularly gory parenting details) should be kept private and not trumpeted to the world via Facebook.
I am sorry.
There must be more to this oversharing thing than meets the eye… I thought. So, being the student of Gonzo Journalism that I am, I became part of the story, and investigated…
Here are my status updates from today – and the comments they generated…
I gave up after a while. I couldn’t handle the heat.
You know what bothers me about Facebook… some people have annoying statuses. PC World has put together a list of common status update themes.
“English professors claim that there are relatively few distinct story plots, and that every piece of literature is just a retelling of one of those narrative archetypes. I’m convinced that the same is true of the things people write in their Facebook status updates.”
The list captures most of them – including my personal unfavourite – “Too much information” update. This is generally perpetrated by parents (or parents to be). Sorry parents. It’s true. People who aren’t parents (not just married people who aren’t parents…) don’t want to hear about
a) the pain involved in child birth
b) the funny thing your child did the point I was trying to make here is probably better summed up by the rest of the points. I’m fine with amusing stories, just not with the expectation that we love your child as much as you do, and not with funny stories pertaining to items covered by points c) and d).
c) Breastfeeding, toilet training, any other milestones…
d) Your child’s bodily functions
e) Your child related bodily functions
f) Running commentaries on your pregnancy
My other unfavourite is the “Christian” update – the bible verse etc – if it annoys me, and I’m a bona fide bible bashing Christian – imagine what it’s doing to your non-Christian friends. It’s not a witness to anything but your own sense of personal holiness.
Me, I prefer writing boring updates about the cricket or coffee, interspersed with occasional bursts of what I think is wit or insight.
That is all.
Wired has a great little feature called New Rules for the Highly Evolved – it features contributions from Brad Pitt.
It’s a feature providing all sorts of tips for how to use social technology in a socially acceptable way. I’m sure there are some rules that I’m breaking. But here are my favourites.
There’s this graph on when it’s appropriate to reveal TV spoilers…
And these great little articles (there are more that I wasn’t really enamoured by…
“The things we forward, tweet, or post send a message about who we are,” Berger says. “And you don’t want the message to be that you’re behind the curve.”
The only way out is to police your wall, even if that’s awkward. Don’t be shy about deleting untoward graffiti, eliminating your name from tagged photos, or even asking friends to remove incriminating pics that weren’t meant for public consumption. “You might damage a friendship,” Donath says, “but that’s one of the costs of the collapse of social circles.” Then again, you could migrate to MySpace. Nobody pays attention to anything written there.
Facebook’s vanity URLs have been launched. Some other Nathan Campbell beat me to the Nathan Campbell punch – so I, as in gmail, am nm.campbell.
It took me a few minutes to realise you had to go to www.facebook.com/username to sign up.
I’m a bit annoyed. I wanted Nathan.Campbell. Robyn didn’t even care, but got her preferred option just the same.
It’s winter. Winter in our house means soup. Soup needs bread. The best bread for soup is Sizzler’s Cheese Toast. The best cheese toast is the stuff you make at home. Here’s a handy guide to making Sizzler’s Cheese Toast at home.
I was a Sizzler employee for some 16 months and gleaned some little bits and pieces of information that will make emulating the trademark toast possible (though it’s never quite as good).
I took these photos with my iPhone so they’re a bit grainy.
Ingredients
Directions
Being a marketer at heart my approach to “social networking” (outside of this blog) is pretty much to relentlessly promote things. To me Facebook and Twitter are pretty much marketing vehicles – though I do read my friends status updates and click their links – because I think that if I expect people to do that for me I should pay others the same courtesy. I will also comment on things that interest me, and chat to people. I’m not completely soulless. But still, I unabashedly use my status to direct people here.
You may have noticed. If you’re my friend on Facebook, or following me on Twitter. 9 out of 10 of my status updates or posts are a shameless piece of self promotion. This is mostly because I see my blog as my most substantive and relationally focused web presence – and because I like the idea of people hanging out on my blog and discussing things – like Christian music – I put a lot more time and effort into this blog than anywhere else online (excluding Tetris on Facebook). The shameless self promotion thing works. Here’s a graphic of visitors to this site and the correlation with posting links…
I’m on a blacklist. The Education Queensland blacklist no less. Apparently…
Tim says:
“Just thought i’d let you know your site has been blocked by eq hierachy. Congratulations on making it to the level of facebook and my blog… the question is now what am i gonna do when i should be working…. hmmmm i wonder if stick cricket can be tracked”
Was it something I said?
Now I know a little of what all those nasty sites will feel once the clean feed begins in earnest.
My advice for Tim – and for others in the same boat – is just subscribe to my blog using Google Reader – no school in its right mind will block google. You may have to rename the feed.
Facebook is blocked at my work too – but I get my friend’s status updates via RSS.
One of the funny things about the growing popularity of social media – particularly MySpace and Facebook – is the way the mainstream press is now relying on information gleaned from profiles to sensationalise their stories.
Every time a celebrity, athlete or multi-million dollar heiress gets a little bit of media coverage for something the media are quick to delve into their online profiles for compelling pictures and anecdotal evidence to make the case against them.
The same goes for “alleged” arsonists. The name of the one man so far charged over the fires in Victoria has been released.
As soon as the name was released the muckrackers journalists in newsrooms around the country were no doubt scanning MySpace, Facebook and their ilk looking for information. Then you start getting stories like this. Based solely on reactions on the social networks. Then there’s this quote from the Daily Mail in the UK:
“Arson suspect Sokaluk is said to have worked as a gardener at Melbourne’s Monash University, but had lost his job amid rumoured mental health problems.
His page on a social website shows an uneducated man looking for love. Alongside a photo taken of himself in a mirror, Sokaluk writes: ‘Sex sells but love larst for ever.’
Writing about himself he says: ‘I’m a young happy male who wants to meet a young loven female to marrid.’
As to who he would like to meet, he writes: ‘Like to meet my sole mate not some old hag.’
He says his favourite TV shows are CSI, cops, documentaries and ‘histery’.”
No doubt all the spelling mistakes were included to show just how intelligent this guy is. Not very. Clearly. Here’s his MySpace profile. I hate MySpace. He also hates books. They put him to sleep.
Profiling – using ethnicity, assumptions based on the nature of a crime, and psychological profiles, to catch bad guys is one of those murky areas – it works, but it’s not politically correct. Particularly the ethnic profiling stuff. But the profile of an arsonist I posted last week pretty much stacks up with what is in the public sphere about this guy. He even mentions Mother Nature, and is reported to have been rejected by the volunteer firefighters.
“My hero is mother earth – with out her we all would be dead.”
This Tetris inspired street art (in Sydney, from Flickr) is awesome. I would like all my belongings to be Tetris inspired. Moving would be a breeze. Robyn would have to be chief moving consultant though – her Facebook Tetris score is still the best of my 600+ friends.
EDIT: Looks like BOM have removed Ellie’s tracking image thing. So there’s no image for you to watch anymore.
That heading is bad. Really bad. If you didn’t bother reading to the end of my last post, and haven’t been listening to your local ABC today – you may not be aware there’s a cyclone coming for North Queensland. It’s no big deal. Unless you haven’t been in a cyclone before, then perhaps you should tape up your windows, fill your baths with water (unless they’re outdoors – then there’s a dengue risk), buy lots of canned food, batteries and candles (although you should read this first).
What I think is particularly funny about cyclones is what it reveals about the inner psyche of North Queensland. North Queensland is demographically bi-polar. A 50/50 split between “locals” (those who have been here all their lives, or for longer than 20 years) and us “ring ins” who are here for a couple of years of “career progression” only to pull up stumps and leave. Townsville has a massively transient population thanks to the army, the university and the mining industry. It makes for an interesting dynamic all year round – but particularly when there’s a storm brewing.
There are two reactions to a cyclone’s impending intersection with the coast line. The understated approach, preferred by locals, where you insult “ring ins” for making a fuss. Point out “this is only a category one”. We’ve been through much bigger before. Pick up potential flying objects from your yard, and go about your daily business almost as usual.
The other reaction is what leads to mile long lines at the grocery store and a region wide shortage of milk and survival equiptment.
I subscribe to my friends Facebook status updates via RSS (which is pretty cool because it gets around the workplace Facebook ban) – and I’m thinking that I might collate responses to cyclone related Facebook status updates to use social networking to report impending disaster – that’s the done thing these days. What do you think Facebook friends/blog readers? Is this a horrible invasion of your privacy – I’m looking at you Leah and Stuss.
The amount of information stored about us online – through Google and Facebook and their ilk is incredible. It’s meant to lead to brilliantly targeted advertising with content so compelling that clicking links is irresistible. I haven’t been one to click these links too much. Sometimes I do it in order to penalise the company – they have to pay per click.
Today Facebook tried to lure me to a site for “Liberal theologians” a celebration of liberal theology where fundamentalists don’t belong. Needless to say, I clicked. I feel like I have more in common with atheists than liberals – at least the atheists are logically consistent in their beliefs.
I hope the guy behind that site thinks it’s money well spent. I can’t help but wondering why this guy is paying to advertise his blog on Facebook.
I wonder if my generic “religious belief” was instead set to “intolerant fundamentalist Christian” what sort of ads would pop up? Probably not all those Christian dating service advertisements I’m inundated with. Surely those advertisers on Facebook should be targeting people listed as “single”.
Facebook hacking has now received some mainstream attention with this ninemsn article alerting people to the rampant hacking craze. It seems the hackers will have to come up with a new sob story now that being stuck in London has gone public.
I only wish I’d thought to use this clever Waifs heading during the saga…
A couple of people have commented on my Facebook note regarding the hacker saga (it was imported from a post to my old blog – one of the ways I tried to get the word out regarding the hacker). Scams of this nature traditionally involve someone claiming to be in dire trouble – and asking for money to be transferred via Western Union. In this case the hacker also changed the access email address for my account to something quite bizarre and obviously not linked to me. This same process was carried out with another friend’s account a couple of weeks back – and the best way to get access to your account back, and the way I got my account back, is to notify Facebook immediately. The link is pretty hard to find – but it’s here in case you’ve come to this post via google looking for some sort of solution to your own Facebook hacking saga.
In my case the hacker was logged on at around 2am Australian time, claiming to be from England. It would appear that he had also hacked into the email account he was using to access my Facebook – but that’s pure speculation on my part. To my knowledge he spoke to two of my friends – who both took similar courses of action to verify that it was not me – one rang my mobile, the other tried to get in touch with my parents. Hackers are not smart. The basic premise of the hacker’s story was that I was in London and had been robbed at a hotel. I needed money. My friend Mark had seen me at a wedding three days before this conversation took place:
“1:34am Mark
when did you fly to London?
1:35am Nathan
4 days ago
1:41am Mark
did Robyn fly with you?
1:41am Nathan
yes
we are robbed together
1:41am Mark
you flew out on the 19th?
1:42am Nathan
cant remember the date
why are you asking?
1:42am Mark
why can’t you remember?
1:44am Mark
what day was it?
1:45am Mark
Nathan this isn’t like you what’s going on? when did you fly out of Townsville?
1:48am Mark
Hello Nathan? What’s happening? this isn’t like you what day did you fly out>
?
1:50am Nathan
i told you something
you didnt believe me
1:51am Nathan
what else do you want me to say???
1:52am Mark
you said you flew out 4 days ago, i can’t believe that becuase i saw you 3 days ago
i want to know what’s going on.
?
1:53am Nathan
it was 4 days ago
1:54am Mark
Friday, the 19th was 4 days ago, and I saw you at the Wedding on Saturday the 20th.”
Lesson one for would be Western Union scammers – make sure you don’t contradict someone when they tell you where they last saw you. Lesson one for potential victims – stick to your guns. The scammer then suggested Mark transfer money using his credit card and westernunion.com – when he was told Mark didn’t have a credit card he suggested he head to his nearest Western Union agent. No doubt unaware the Darling Downs (where Mark was staying) doesn’t think highly of 24 hour trading…
“2:12amMark
one problem mate. i don’t have a credit card
2:12amNathan
ok
then go and do it any agent close to you
2:15amNathan
have you gone?
2:15amMark
no i’m here
2:16amNathan
why?
how much can you loan me?
2:17amMark
how much do you need?
2:17amNathan
$800
how much can you afford?
2:18amMark
you need $800 cash?
2:19amNathan
aussie dollars is very loan in UK
2:20amNathan
low in UK
2:21amMark
right i understand
2:21amNathan
when are you going?”
Mark by this time had called me – and decided it was time to give the hacker a moral lesson. He didn’t like that much.
2:28amMark
why, well i’m interested, when did you got a new email address?
2:29amNathan
is that your business?
why would you need that to help me out in a situation like this
2:29amMark
and how’s the weather in Nigeria?
2:30amNathan
which Nigeria?
2:30amMark
and finally how can you ask for money from well meaning people?
2:30amNathan
you are nut
2:31amMark
i am nut
?
2:39amMark
does not appear so
2:39amNathan
sure
2:40amNathan
have a nice day
bye
bye
not to meet again
At this point I logged in to Robyn’s Facebook account to try to initiate dialogue with the hacker – he ended our Facebook friendship. But not our Facebook marriage. He also went very close to convincing friends of mine who were in England at the time to help – they offered to drive north to London to rescue me – which is nice. But all the hacker wanted was my money.
I was left with no access to my account, some confused friends, and an email address for the hacker. I decided to take matters into my own hands. The hacker’s email address was an address at verizonmail.com – which is a domain sold by mail.com. I sent them an email complaining about the misuse of that account.
Then I got in touch with the hacker.
Magor,
If that is your real name… I am willing to pay to get my account back under my control. Please forward your Western Union account details. I would be willing to pay $US250 to have my account returned.
I’m not advocating this sort of behaviour in normal circumstances – but this hacker already had my email address, and various other pieces of information from my account, so it was not a hard decision to make.
Lesson one for people with lax online security – you know how they say make your password hard to guess and don’t use the same password at multiple sites – this probably saved me losing access to my gmail – which thanks to its wonderful archiving system would have allowed the hacker access to my passwords for multiple accounts on multiple different sites.
I received a response to my generous offer…
“RICHARD Vincent is the name
Location is London,Uk”
I intended to use as much information I could get to try to get into this guy’s email address – his secret question was “pet name” – I would suggest never using an obvious answer to your secret questions (ie don’t use something people can find out by googling you). Anyway, I also tried a couple of sites that let you reverse search an email address – one of them suggested an IP address somewhere in the US – but I figure that was for the Mail.com servers.
I wanted as much information about the hacker as possible so I went fishing (or phishing… almost)…
“Australia has increased regulations for Western Union money transfers – to combat fraudulent transactions. I also need to verify your date of birth and occupation.“
His reply:
“august 6th 1976……
what should i make the password of the box??”
I wanted to stall him while I waited for Facebook to restore my account – or to get access to his email… which is probably not the most ethical way to go about it.
“Is this offer acceptable to you?
I don’t know how I can trust that you will in fact relinquish control of the account – how would you suggest proving that you can be trusted?”
That’s right hacker. Make me trust you. Someone who’s proven untrustworthy already.
So he responded with a little bit of pathos. A happy birthday to me. And a revelation that for him at least – it’s all about the money.
“so today is your birthday?
i can swear with my life that you will get the account back immediately you send me the money.Thats all i need.
am sorry for doing this,but i need the money.The choice is yours”
I decided to see just how dumb he was. If he reset the email address on my account I could have a password reset form emailed to myself… but this email bounced.
“I’m not sure the word of a hacker is worth much to me.
I think perhaps if you change the email address on my account back, send me an email notifying me of the change. When I see the email on the account has changed I will make payment and we can agree on a password for you to change it to.”
Poor Richard Vincent in London probably has no idea why his email address has been closed down. Or maybe it was just an account set up to swindle unwitting facebook friends out of their hard earned cash.
As I mentioned in an earlier post on this situation – there are lessons to be learned from this experience. Don’t make your password something stupidly obvious. Don’t make your secret questions easy to figure out. Don’t store passwords for every account you have in one email address. Don’t use the same password for more than one site. Change passwords regularly. And don’t expect $800 from your Facebook friends.
Please be aware that my Facebook account has been hacked by a Nigerian Scammer who wants to steal all your money. I am not in London, and I am still friends with my wife.
I will let you know here when I resume control of my account.
If you are still my friend on Facebook – can you view my profile, check the email address the hacker is using – and report it here – http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=report_fake_profile – the user link to report is: http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=100000080&id=572440487