The Internet is one giant public realm. It is just a matter of knowing how to get from point A to point B. If you do not want something found you should not put it on the Internet at all. The scary part of this recent vulnerability is that it highlights flaws in data portability that many social sights are pushing for. Data portability allows users to share information across social sights. The fundamental flaw with this idea is that each social site is setup differently than the other. Passing data and users between divergent systems such as these is bound to create serious security flaws. It is only a matter of time before such a breach occurs again.
You would think that with all of the bad press that MySpace has received recently about young users, pornography and the like that it would be more aware of the impact of possible breaches in security like this. But, these types of breaches do not seem to phase the social site. There are a lot of predators on the Internet. There are a lot of children that are members of the social site. What is to stop a predator from using one of these security flaws to prey on a child. The question becomes, what is more important data portability or user security.
The idea of data portability, as it is marketed to the public, is that it will allow users to easily traverse different sites. But, the reality of it is that data portability creates an old boy network. What I mean is that users are more likely to stick with social sites that they can use to meet with a majority of friends. If you are a new social site you will more than likely be shut out of the good old boy network. Data portability is nothing more than a marketing gimmick intended to shut out the competition from new and upcoming social networks.
So, I ask the question again what is more important data portability or user security. Obviously, to the user centric sites like Yahoo and MySpace it is less important to protect the user than it is to protect their bottom line. Data portability, is nothing more than a marketing ploy and is flawed at a conceptual level. Until these sites start being concerned more about their users security and privacy than protecting their subscriber base there will be more security breaches and more private data will be made public.
I am not saying don’t use these sites. I am saying these sites do not always have your best interest at hand. So do not trust your truly private information to them.
