Slashdot | MySpace Private Pictures Leak

[jason]

Originally published at Lemmingworks. You can comment here or there.

I’ve talked a lot about protecting children’s information online; particularly the notion that anything can be hacked, and that what you put online is probably going to be there forever. This has a big impact on teens who post pictures of themselves on various sites which can then be googled when they’re older and looking for jobs. Even if they mark an image as private on, say, Myspace, someone they know can copy the image and post it publicly. Parents and educators should be aware of similar potential problems.

Sure, share pictures online, but think about it. If you’re comfortable with anyone seeing the image, even though you’d rather they didn’t, then fine. But if the thought horrifies you in relation to a particular image, then you’d better choose another image to share.

This problem with MySpace is a bleak reminder.

Slashdot | MySpace Private Pictures Leak
“We all heard about the MySpace vulnerability that allowed everyone to access pictures that have been set to private at MySpace. That vulnerability got closed down pretty fast. Unfortunately though (for MySpace) someone did use an automated script to run over 44,000 profiles that downloaded all private pictures which resulted in a 17 Gigabyte zip file with more than 560,000 pictures. The zip file is now showing up on popular torrent sites across the net.”

And here is the longer article: Pillaged MySpace Photos Show Up in Massive BitTorrent Download on Wired.com

Comments

[nwilliam.livejournal.com]

Among colleagues within our board we have made a personal decision not to have personal photo’s of ourselves on facebook, myspace ect. However, that being said we are aware also aware that we have limited control over what others post. (We’re a little bit older and alot less bolder than we used to be..Bob Segar)It is possible that your past may come back to haunt you; and poses the question "Who is Big Brother?" The V.I.P. program offered by the York Region Police Association touches on this point with grade 8 students who are so often desensitized and naive (living in the now). Would a preteen be embarrassed by an infant photo of them in the buff from 12 years ago? Will they be embbarrassed by a photo of themselves today 12 years from now?

[complicittheory.livejournal.com]

That's very much a good question regarding embarrassment. My friend blogged baby photos for the first 5 years of her child's life, but then was asked, by the child, to stop it.