Sharing is good, but not always. Sharing an orange or a piece of good news with your friend is great. However, making intimate photos or personal events public is not so good. We do it every day, every time we open Instagram or Facebook. Do you want to avoid unpleasant problems? Then never post the following information in social networks.
Social networks are addictive. The humankind is slowly beginning to understand it. It would be fine if the matter concerned only the happy hormones secreted by our body after each “like” under our photo. However, your favorite Instagram and Facebook hides many dangers. Your accounts can be a great help for scammers, thieves, obsessive admirers, and other extremely unpleasant personalities. To protect yourself, make sure that you never publish the following information.
1. Home and work address
Oh no, guys, it’s not as easy as it seems. We are sure that you do not type your address in the “information” section. It’s much subtler. When you publish a photo in social networks, you automatically attach geolocation to it. Anyone can easily find your current location on the map in just one click. Besides, you don’t always see an active link next to the photo uploaded. That’s why the most reliable way is to disable the geolocation option in your account settings. Immediately. And ask your friends not to check-in at your home. Do the same yourself.
2. Pictures of your children
There is hardly a mother who will resist the temptation to publish 1001 photos of her child. However, if you decide to share the photos of your kid on social networks, at least avoid the images (or comments) that give a clue about the school/kindergarten your child attends or the playground where you spend most of your time. The world is full of strange and bad people, and the less they know about your child’s location, the better.
3. Details of upcoming holidays or vacations
Everyone posts photos from travels. This is normal and unavoidable. However, you should avoid remarks and comments like “the day after tomorrow we are finally going to Spain for 8 days!” Potential thieves will be happy to receive the exact dates when you are going to be away.
4. Information that can help to crack your password
When you create passwords for most resources (from mail to e-Bank), the system asks you to choose a “secret question” and the answer for it, in case you forget your password and want to recover it. Secret questions usually involve options such as “you mother’s maiden name”, “your favorite actor”, etc. Try to make sure this information is not publicly available. After all, if your security question is “your favorite singer”, and your Facebook account is full of Rihanna’s photos, even a schoolchild will be able to crack your password. So beware. Besides, the answer to the secret question should not be obvious and can even be a little illogical.
5. Intimate photos
It would seem everyone knows it. Facebook won’t even allow you to publish such stuff. However, spicy photos sent to the beloved via personal chat like Viber or WhatsApp can become public. After all, as practice shows, any cloud storage can be cracked. You or your partner can lose your smartphone, and it can end up in the wrong hands.
6. Financial information
Some people publish photos of their bank cards in social networks. We really hope you are not one of them. However, anyone can accidentally share some information that can be used by scammers. For example, you can mention the name of your bank in the post. Combined with completely innocent data like your birth date, this can give an advanced scammer a key to your account. So be careful.
