Can Social Media Make You a Victim?

Today's social media world has nurtured a landscape in which a level of camaraderie develops online that normally wouldn't be felt in person. Often, a person's identity and information is available because of their business and their desire to gain new clientele. But, when is too much information – too much? When you're writing about being in the airport on Twitter, the world suddenly knows you're not at home. If any of the "pals" you've made along the way know you're single, live alone, and run a business from your home – the fact that a house with office equipment is empty of its occupant has just been released to the world.

So, how can Twitter, or other social media go really bad? This past week, I've talked about stalking a few times. These new means of instant communication are an easy way for someone with ill intentions to gather enough information, to stalk a person and plan a physical attack, harass them, or vandalize their property.

Here's an easy one, the wealthy business person mentions taking the kids to soccer. A few days later mentions going on a trip overseas — have you seen the movie "Taken?" If not, just think kidnapping or some other harm to the partner left at home. Another scenario: men and women, who discuss their toys: jet skis, motorcycles, convertibles, and then Twitter about being away from the house on a trip, or simply at the kid's recital, soccer practice, baseball game, etc. Bye-bye toys. Finding out where someone lives is not hard to do, Polaris systems make looking up anyone's real estate property easier than looking up their phone number. Plus, with the telecommuting capabilities of today, many of us work from home and use our home and business address interchangeably. Again, it's easy for the wrong person with dark motives to find a victim.

Take a clue from some of the stalking prevention tips I gave out over the last few days. Use a post office box or a package and box rental service that will give you an actual physical address. Many of the newer UPS stores are doing this in lieu of PO Box numbers as they know packages are often undeliverable without a physical street address. Plus, a business looks more legitimate with a street address as opposed to a PO Box.

Most people using social media services and tools, have the right intentions and are using them for business networking purposes and to build a list of potential clients. However, for the small percentage of people with the wrong motivations, these tools also have the ability help build their list of potential victims.

Nemanja Vidic's Ban (Finally Learned What it is..>:(

Well, last blog I'd mentioned that I didn't know yet what Vidic's ban was going to be after his red card and send off from the Liverpool game. Here it is, it's ugly and it actually sounds worse than it is but it's pretty bad when you get to the bottom of my blog. The Football Association's official statement on their website confirms that Vidic is "suspended from all football until the Club have completed 2 first team matches for a Sending Off in a match played on 14/03/2009." Basically, he'll miss one match for his offence against Liverpool - denying a goal scoring opportunity for the visitors' skipper Steven Gerrard - and another because he has now been sent off twice in domestic fixtures this season.
So, Vidic won't play the away game at Fulham this coming Saturday, 21 March and the home game against Aston Villa on Sunday 5 April. If United plays on Tuesday, 7 April in the Champions League, the AV game will be held back a day…either way, the Serbian defender will not be where we need him most DEFENDING our keeper!
He's been getting goals, which has been amazing and it's saved our games more than once. But we really need him on the pitch to defend, especially against Aston Villa. These guys beat Hull. Keep in mind, Hull have been doing amazingly well. They aren't the old Hull, it's as if they've been substituted with some parallel team that look like Hull. (I'm happy for their fans, I've seen interviews and they're proud of their team – it's been a while.)

As far as Vidic's send off goes, I really appreciated how classy Sir Alex Ferguson handled it. (He always is such a class act...thus, the Knighthood--well that's how I like to see it.) Sir Alex said that Vidic made a mistake as people do. The team and he understood why Vidic had to be red-carded. SAF said they would have expected the same response against the other team if we would have been fouled against in such a manner. Vidic's previous red card was also against Liverpool, (are we seeing a pattern here?) in the 2-1 league defeat at Anfield on 13 September. Vidic was suspended for one match at that time, which was United's 1-1 draw away at Stamford Bridge on the following Sunday. Knowing that the next game he wasn't in was a draw doesn't make me feel too good about his not being on the pitch against Aston Villa in a few weeks.

Now, I don't mean to down play what Fulham can do. We beat them 4-0 in a recent FA Cup final berth and before that, we took them 3-0 in a Barclay's. But these guys are so up and down--do they know if they should scratch their watch or wind their butt? Get this: They beat Tottenham once and drew a nil with them, they drew a deuce with Chelsea, and drew nil-nil with both Liverpool and Aston Villa. They have been even more sporadic in their performance than that! It gets worse--They won against the Wanderers but lost against the Rovers—and this was during the Rovers' "rough patch." I'm not worried about them and I can only imagine no one else in Red is either...do you thing Nemanja just wanted the day off? But to take a chance with Aston Villa....
His not being there against AV is really nasty as we haven't seen them since our draw in November when we went nil-nil. (It was a cold, stormy, gloomy morning that lasted all day long.) At least this time, we're having them over to our place at Old Trafford but that didn't make a whole lot of difference last weekend against Liverpool, now did it? The game against Aston Villa will be broadcast live on Fox Soccer Channel, at 11:00AM EST Sunday, 5 April.