Play safe on orkut

EVERY DAY THERE are more than 15 million hits on the website Orkut.Com. As every coin has two sides, “Orkut” is great program for social networking but it has also given a huge rise to many cyber crimes. The problem with these highly popular community portals is that they become the first target for spammers, hackers, information thieves, spambots, trolls and just-for-fun type freaks. Orkut is being highly misused and the number of fake profiles, cloning of profiles and information theft is on the rise. Let’s look at what orkut offers, what it does not and how to save our info from getting misused.

What Orkut offers?

Profile with personal info: Available to public, some information can be kept private
Tips!

• Never give your complete address in public.
  
• Remember to hide your pin code. As it’s a very easy field if someone wants to pin-point your location.
  
• Also hide your phone number or better don’t disclose it on orkut.
  

Photo on the profile: Available to public
Tips!

• It is always better not to share your photograph.
  
• Even then, if you decide to put one, put a long shot, in group and no close-ups.
  
• Never put your passport size photo. It might be used to make forged passport of some gangster or a criminal who may look similar to you.

Album, where you can post photos: Available to public
Tips!

• No need of filling up the album with your pics that show your friends, family etc. instead you can go ahead and put pics of your pet, filmstars etc.
  

Scrapbook: scraps / notes, your friends write for you : Available to public
Tips!

• Never disclose private data like phone number, email address, postal address etc. on the scrapbook.
  
• Never discuss your personal life, like your family life, your girlfriend or boyfriend names etc.
  

Testimonials (from friends): Read only for public, friends on list can only write.

Tips!

• Accept testimonials only from friends you have seen and you know them personally.
  
• You can even delete an existing testimonial you already accepted.

Your friend list on Orkut : Available to public
Tips!

• There is nothing much you can do with this, as there is no control at your end to restrict the view of this.
  
• Add only the friends you know to avoid misrepresentation of you as well as your profile.
  

Online communities you join or create: Available to public
Tips!

• Even here you cannot control the access to your communities, which is a major drawback. For instance, you are a guy from Don Bosco, Matunga. You shall join the community dedicated to it. This shall reveal your information that you stay either near Matunga and you were in Don Bosco. Even if you have tried to camouflage your information using above steps.
  

What Orkut does not Offer?

• Security to your personal profile from anonymous visits
  
• Security to your scrapbook from anonymous writes
  
• Security to your photographs from anonymous viewing and downloading
  
• Security to your friends lists and joined communities from anonymous access
  
• This means your personal data is at risk and can be misused. Phone numbers can be used for cold calls, email accounts can be spammed, photos can be misused, and personal data can be used to create other accounts and so on…
  

Although Orkut can be fun, it could a place for spammers/hackers/anonymous people to grab your personal details and use against you, you just need to be little careful to avoid your personal data from getting misused.