(ANTIMEDIA) On Sunday, the New York Times asked its readers if they took part in the latest viral meme — the “10 Concerts I’ve Been To, One is a Lie” post — that swept across Facebook last week.
But the piece wasn’t about the meme itself. It was about the potential threat to personal privacy and security that participating in such games poses.
“It’s all fun and games until someone’s password security question gets hacked,” the article opens.
Speaking about social media, Michael Kaiser, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, says the real danger in taking part in such online games is broad — it’s in all the various types of general information that people voluntarily reveal about their personal lives and their upbringing.
“You are expressing things about you, maybe in more subtle ways than you might think,” he told the Times.
That doesn’t mean you should never participate, says Kaiser, only that you should always be aware of the kind of information you’re sharing.
“People always have to have their eyes wide open when they’re on the internet,” he said. “It’s the way of the world.”
Mark Testoni, who advises exercising “vigilance bordering on a little paranoia” when participating in games like “10 Concerts,” is chief executive at SAP National Security Services.
“We need to understand how we interact can disclose not only specific details but patterns of behavior and often our location, among other things,” Testoni said in an email.
And if cyber security isn’t of particular concern to you, the Times reminded readers Sunday that there are other things to consider, such as the fact that uploading details of your life to social media telegraphs “information about a user’s age, musical tastes and even religious affiliation — all of which would be desirable to marketers hoping to target ads.”
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