Social Networks vs. Network Security

I think you've already answered your own question. If Facebook does pose a threat to the corporate data network, it should be blocked and employees told to do their networking from home.

But of course there is the further complication that many companies are using their employees' social networking activities to promote the company. In that case, there has to be some discipline.

We had the case recently in BC canada when a political party demanded facebook passwords from leadership candidates so they could vet their profiles. The Party is the left wing NDP. Only one candidate refused and as soon as the BC privacy commissioner began investigating the party climbed down and just checked the man's account without gaining passwords. The commissioner (Denham) will continue to investigate because it is a "teachable moment". I was honestly shocked. The party (which has infighting) had their big brother moment and even after extremely negative publicity had to be forced to back down. I was shocked too because if they got away with it, there would have been a line up behind them of businesses looking for MY BLUDDY PASSWORD whenever I applied for a job.

Thirdly, I was shocked that a party would ask this without consulting a lawyer. I mean, Hello, you guys want to run this province and you have that little regard for your own candidates! And I will have to disclose my social security number to a government with that attitude if you win.

I come from Ireland and there is lots of dirty politics there but they are saints compared to the politicians here in BC. Here they conduct their cheating and bullying openly as though we voters are not watching. Like picking you nose at the traffic lights in your car.

A quote from the privacy commissioner is below.

(Elizabeth Denham spoke to Adam Stirling on CFAX 1070 Tuesday

"I think this is a great opportunity to look closely at the practice. I think it has broader implications beyond the NDP party and it's a teachable moment for other organizations that are subject to the privacy law"). http://www.cfax1070.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=381:mainlocal-news-template&catid=45:mainlocal-news&Itemid=155

There is a problem,the problem lies with the hard drives at the source if a blayswith chip can be installed on the network computors between 1251 and the 481 this will keep the people from corrupting the network systems and isolate the potential virus that many so called hackers or lets just say regular people have and dont know it have sent via the send corasponse and the interseeding computors and in due coarse can cause random sequencing in the network systems, however the ability to send a email to the network employees would be inept,so the logic is if u want to send a email do it on your personal computor and dont corrupt the companys files in social networks. E.M M.L.D

Facebook is Evil.

It could have been great if the applications didn't require "access to your friends list" to join.

I saw how this access was misused early on by applications sending message to me that "Your friend <whoever> has challenged you to an IQ test." When the friend had neither issued the challenge nor even taken the test in question.

So now I can't join in any of the "fun" because I respect my friends enough to not put them on lists they are unaware of.

Rufus

Hi RufusVs, I agree with you totally, facebook is not good, and I came off it three years ago, I didn't like it that people would call me a friend when I didn't know them from Adam, then there were the ones that challenged me to various things!

Xanasax

My company blocks a lot of Internet sites, including Facebook, Twitter and other social sites. Also blocks e-mail sites. Anything that corporate IT thinks is not related to the company is blocked.

The employees have to sign every year a non-disclosure agreement that prevents us from posting or disclosing any company-related information.

By doing so, my company tries to protect its "interest" I don't know how successful they are. I do know that some times I have to work at home to get information I need from sites corporate IT thinks are not related with the company business. I also have to take some webinars at home (with my computer in my time) because of this policy. I don't complain, I think for the company is better to be strict in these policies.

As for Facebook I don't like it, I attempt to register a few years ago and didn't want to provide all the personal information they asked for, so I didn't register.

Unfortunately my children are small, and they'll be in age of using Facebook and other social media programs soon, so I'll have to register any way in order to understand how things work there and guide them in the process of learning to protect themselves in the Web.