Identity Protection and Personal Security in the Land of Social Networking

{source info retained for poster's protection}

I find that it is so true that the older you get, the more concerned about internet security you are. When you are a teenager you don't really think about such things, but as you get older the dangers become red flags everywhere.
I find this to be especially true for me. This past summer I joined Instagram to share photos with friends. I keep my pictures private and limit the people who can follow me to those I actually personally know in real life.
But I keep noticing more and more younger teen girls who don't take such precautions. I'm sure this comes from a misguided place of the desire for popularity and high follower numbers. But what they don't realize it what easy targets they are making themselves.
So today I want to take a few minutes to show how easy it is for a predator to find you from some basic info you share on social networks and how to protect yourself from this...
The above Instagram photo challenge is one of the biggest red flags I have seen. It seems like harmless fun but those 2 categories I circled are information you should never share online publicly. Your full name is the number one thing predators look for. They can not only locate where you are but they can also steal your identity from it. I do not plan to provide links to sites on how predators do this or links to how I can do this based on your info, because I don't want to teach anyone how. Just know that handing out your name and birthday are no-no's.
That being said, I did a little test on a random girl on Instagram. Like I said above, I won't disclose who or what links but I will share my experience to help warn these girls from what they shouldn't post.

1. I searched profile pics for girls in their mid-teens.
2. I selected one who on her public profile included her age, grade, school, and another location identifier. She didn't post her last name there but photos were public.
3. Because she is doing the above challenge, she had recently posted a photo of her full name. I lucked out that it was an uncommon last name since that makes it easier for me to find more info on her.
4. Using her last name and the location info in her profile, I can do a simple search on a public website to find her home address. This also tells me the value of her home, and her parents' full names.
5. Another search tells me her parents' ages and their home phone number.
6. At this point, depending on your parents' online activity I can find their employers. In this case I found her dad's. This information along with their home phone number, allows me to make a couple phone calls to learn their work and home patterns so I can figure out the schedule of when they are home or not.
7. With the address, I can actually pull up satellite photos of her house and potential entry points.
8. I can also use the other photos in her stream to determine her interests and target her personally if my end goal isn't her home.

Mind you, I did all this in a couple minutes using free public websites and easy to find information. I am also not a professional predator. I am sure they have much more advanced ways of finding your information.
So how can you protect yourself if you choose to have an online presence?
Well this isn't an end-all list but here are a few rules I like to follow...

• Limit the amount of personal information you share. As a blogger that can be tricky business so think of the big picture before sharing specific details.
• Never give away your exact location. My rule is to always list regions not my exact town. If I live in a Dallas suburb, I just put Dallas. Now I just have the RGV but not my exact town.
• If you do need to list your address anywhere for any reason, make it a PO Box. This prevents people from having your physical address.
• Don't use your legal full name. Despite popular belief, I try to avoid doing this at all costs.
• Keep your name out of public records like tax rolls or DMV citation files. This is impossible for home owners or people with ticket violations, but you can view that as another plus if you rent or have another unusual living situation.
• Regularly check your social networks for personal information you have shared. Once it's posted,  deleting it doesn't guarantee your security. The safest precaution at that point is to double check the security features of your other accounts like email and online banking. Make sure your security question answers can't be found on your social networks. Also make sure they can't be found on the sites your friends or family keep either.

I hope these tips and experience help and I hope young people start taking more precautions when they are online.