The Net and nothing but the Net

SOCIAL network sites including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace could be scanned for depressed and “at risk” users under a bold new program to combat youth suicide.

The rise in popularity in social networking could allow authorities to spot users at risk and offer help, researchers believe.

Researches from New Zealand’s Victoria University say they have devised a program that scans posts to identify key words that people aged between 18 and 24 are using.

A high proportion of key words could mean that the blogger is at risk of depression, suicide, self-harm or harming others, the researches believe.

“Our technology picks up words or phrases such as ‘depressed’, or ‘I don’t want to live any more’ or ‘I want to kill somebody’,” Dr Tiong-Thye Goh said.

“We analyse the database of phrases and rank them according to frequency of use – if certain key words are used a lot it is likely that the particular person may be emotionally depressed.”

Read more…Suicide prevention for social networks | News | News.com.au

FAMILIES risk being fleeced by cyber criminals as parents use online
banking facilities on the same home computers that their children use
to chat with their school friends.

Internet fraudsters are using “social engineering” - teens are
tricked into opening emails or links containing viruses that can then
track key strokes – including account log-in details, federal police
said yesterday.

The social engineering scam begins with amalgamation of information children reveal on social networking sites.

Broadband bandits “spear phish’” – conning kids into believing they are a friend via a personalised message.

If the child responds, the criminals install malicious software, or “malware”, which contains the key-logger.

“MySpace,
Facebook … there are hundreds of these sites (on which young) people
are posting a lot of personal information without taking the relevant
precautions,” AFP national co-ordinator of high-tech crime operations Peter Sykora said.

Read more…Internet criminals target families | News | News.com.au

Giving Up Facebook For Lent

Web savvy Christians are putting a new twist on a old religious tradition — giving up something you enjoy for Lent.

It’s one thing to forgo things you’ll never really miss — like vegetables or jogging. It’s another thing entirely to swear off the lifeblood of your digital social life. But that’s what many college students are doing by taking a break from Facebook posts , Twitter tweets and MySpace messages.

Hundreds of Facebook users have joined “Giving up Facebook for Lent” groups on the site, replacing the photos on their profiles with boxes announcing they will be gone for the next six weeks.

Facebook most-visited social networking website

The Internet-tracking firm released social-networking website rankings that show MySpace slipped to second place during the course of the past year while micro-blogging service Twitter catapulted to third place from 22nd.

News Corp-owned MySpace saw approximately 810 million visits in January, while Twitter was visited 54.2 million times, according to Compete.

“No surprise here,” a Compete reader using the online name Bauer said in a comment viewable Wednesday at a chat forum at the US firm’s website.

“Facebook has evolved much better and always has something new to offer. I don?t get Twitter though, I don?t think people care to read live updates on what percentage of my burger I?ve eaten.”

Facebook halts rogue app, MySpace plugs hole

Just in time for the weekend, social networks Facebook and MySpace were dealing with several new security issues on Friday that could expose personal information and communications from friends.

Facebook said it had removed a new rogue application that was spamming users and exposing their information. Before it was halted, the application sent messages claiming that a friend had reported the recipient for violating Facebook’s terms of service and offered a link to click to find out more information.

Users who clicked on the link were providing the app access to their profile and personal information as well as unknowingly forwarding the message on to everyone in their Facebook contact list, according to Graham Cluley’s blog for Sophos.

“Our team disabled this application for violating the Facebook Developer Terms of Service,” Facebook spokesman Simon Axten said in an e-mail. “Some additional versions of it have sprung up, and we’ve disabled these as well. We’re actively monitoring the site for others and are working to block the application completely.”