Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

We use twitter at work - I work in a disaster operations centre - and its a very useful tool for picking up on breaking news stories. Earthquakes and storms are often first picked up by a mix of official bodies and personal tweets, so we can get an idea of how an event is unfolding on the ground as opposed to the official recording on Magnitude Whatever. Its also very useful for terrorist events, air crashes, and other sudden man-made disasters - we've been alerted to major bombings in Bali and India via tweets from people on the ground at the time, for instance, long before anything offical has emerged. Obviously there needs to be some care taken to verify reports before acting on them, but as an initial alerting tool, twitter is now invaluable.

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I watched Birdman yesterday (quite an interesting film, a little dragging in places, but worth a watch) and there were comments about someone not being "relevant" as they didn't have a Twitter account or Facebook page. They are invisible. This was about an ex action star, so a celebrity, rather than an everyday person, however I think some might think the same about themselves, that without these things, and the other items mentioned in the thread they are invisible, or missing out of something.

Twitter is handy for getting certain types of news, as it can be far quicker for someone to tweet something, than to get it on some blog / newsfeed / whatever. Support like stuff "hey, our service is down" is a good example. Could be corporate policy has a more stringent line on how / who posts things to the company blog / Facebook page, but twitter perhaps not to stringent as to who / when.

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Still a bit mystified by this. Pollyanna's post above shows how that would be useful in a work situation. But for anybody else, what are they doing, monitoring Twitter in the event something somewhere in the world breaks and they can read it on Twitter five minutes before it finds its way onto news sites?

It's a bit like listening to a police scanner isn't it?

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I had a Twitter account in 2013 and it was oddly compulsive. Something to do with how frequently it updates I suppose. I also was pathetically thrilled to get responses from 'famous' people ( I won't say who, as I'll sound even more ridiculous). I finally realised how much time I was wasting reading arguments between people I didn't even know, so I closed my account. Then I found BE :blink:

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Its not just for emergencies though. People often notify (tweet) about minor stories or events that wouldn't get reported in the main press. It's basically a way of personalising news/rumour/opinion feeds for your own interests.

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Oh go on, say who!!

I don't compulsively check my Twitter, but when I want to or when there is an event, it's there.

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Regina Transit notifies customers of route changes and delays via twitter, @Regina radar alerts people to street closures, traffic delays, accidents, speed traps etc, CTV, Global, Leader Post, Nahlah Ayed, Susan Ormiston and JoMa Sommarstrom give me the news, attilathestockbroker keeps me in verse and the Dalai Lama sends a little inspirational message occasionally to keep me from going on a rampage. Seinfeld Quotes, Paul Seesequasis and a few friends and relatives round it out; you can follow who you want and tailor what you get to your purpose.

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Ah but that's great fun. You can do that here. ;) I do it on the guardian blogs too. :)

For me that's where the local press comes in. If it's worth hearing about somebody will link to it on a blog or forum. There's not enough time in the day to have everything just come to you.

But what if you don't need to know it? Does it come anyway?

If I'm getting the bus I can take a quick look at the website to check for things like that and to see where the bus is on the route. If I'm not, I don't need to know.
Okay, I'm sold. Where do I sign up? :rofl:

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The bus still comes.

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Ha. Clever.
;)

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:thumbup:

We often pick up smaller events that would otherwise go by without notice as we don't have time to monitor all the possible news sites. Smaller news sites can sometimes have diaster recovery stuff on them that we would mss otherwise, and I must admit I pickup a lot of personal interest stuff that way - I run feeds that pick up news from Bristol and brighton back home, for instance, one cos my family are there and one for friends. I don't have time to read the local papers, but Twitter gives me the important/interesting news.

Ahah! Another Dalai Lama follower ;)

I also used to like the mad Cat Bin lady, but she doesn't crop up nowadays, and Dr. SunWolf - very inspirational at times, that one!

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I googled twitter + squamish and I did learn something that would otherwise not have been known elsewhere, so I can see some interest in it.

Thee fact I learned was from 4p Feb 5th to 4p Feb 7th we received 205mm of rain, for comparison in the same time frame Whistler only received 79mm of rain.

Apparently that is 8" of rain roughly, good lord no wonder the river was so high.

Here is the tweet:

"Storm totals from Feb 5 to 4pm today: Squamish Airport 205.4mm, Whistler 79.3mm, Pemberton 79.5mm, Callaghan 165.2mm"

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

the latest thing it appears..is "swatting" you find out someones real id and address and phone local 911 and tell them there is a man waving a gun etc....and then 8 swat team members burst in.....give me virus laden mail anyday!!

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Same here, although there has been once or twice when I wished for anonymity.

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Common enough in "streaming" circles. Eg some professional gamers (yes they do actually earn a real living from it) have this happen. Some clown thinks it's good to call in a threat from the persons address and then gets to sit and laugh as the police show up. Obviously it's all shown on camera as they come barging in.

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I had no idea your surname yet a couple of years back you showed up on my "linkedin" profile as someone I should know :confused: - Been a few bizarre instances like that with my LinkedIn account

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I've had people that I've just met in person show up as someone I should know yet I don't know their email address, etc.

I've also had people with the same name as relatives of mine who are in my address book but I've only rarely communicated with via email. My address book was mined (I allowed it I think) to suggest people.

It also gave me the name of a person in the US who had the same name as someone I knew 30 years ago in Toronto who was charged with murder.

Anbody got any insight on how these suggested links come up.

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It all has to do with email mining. When you upload your address book to LinkedIn for the "find people you may already know", it pulls in your WHOLE address book - and in something like gmail, that is literally anyone you have ever emailed, ever. Also, when you do that with LinkedIn, it doesn't only just remember the email address, but it also remembers the full name associated with that email address.

In addition, when you get to the "people you may know" page, LinkedIn is really sneaky about it.

Have a look at the attached image. I just pulled this up this morning. Blue is someone I went to University with, who obviously is on LinkedIn - it's got her picture, name, job title, company, etc, and then the word "Connect" underneath.

Green, however, is my retired mother-in-law. She does not have a LinkedIn account, she's never even been on LinkedIn. However, it comes up with her full name and her email address, and then "Add to Network" underneath, instead of "Connect". So if I click that, it just fires off something like "Schnooks wants to connect with you on LinkedIn! Click here to accept the invitation." It doesn't make it obvious you're actually SIGNING up, and then after that it's like "See who else you may know! Upload all your contacts!" and the cycle continues.

So LinkedIn is making all kinds of connections about people you may know based on connections that aren't already on LinkedIn. For example, let's say that Atlantic XPat and Partially Discharged also know my MIL. Even if AX doesn't upload his address book, but Partially Discharged does, LinkedIn will put together something like "Hey... Schnooks knows MIL, and Partial knows MIL, so there's a good chance that Schnooks and Partial also know each other. Partial also knows AX, so I'll suggest that maybe AX is also someone that Schnooks knows!" And so on and so forth. It's basically just a big game of six degrees of separation.

I was very amused a few months ago when "Schnooks [Maiden Name]" and a very old email address was suggested as someone I *may* know. :blink:

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Nothing was 'attached' in your post...it doesn't matter. I think I understand it. Linkedin is my only real foray into social media and it creeps me out at times. I got it as LInkedin was the only place to enquire, review and apply to a job I was interested in. Within 5 minutes of signing up, a lawyer I know here in Ottawa suddenly wanted to be my friend (he is one of those 500 + mega Linkedin users).

My mother has shown up as someone I want to connect with and I'm 100% sure she doesn't have Linkein..but she is in my address book (gmail).

It has suggested old girlfriends, my next door neighbours etc.

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Yeah, I forgot the attachment. Here it is.

But yes, when it comes down to it, LinkedIn is just phenomenal at making connections based on who you have in your network, who you uploaded from your address book, and the connections and contacts of those around you.

On separate but related news, Samsung Smart TVs are stalking you now too.

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This forum has a long time fault (at least for me) where I click on forum tools and just as I'm about to click "mark forum as read" the drop down menu disappears and I end up clicking the name of the poster the menu initially covered - usually Siouxie or Gozit.

I hope this doesn't register as stalking. :lol:

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Thanks for the LinkedIn "connections" explanation, Schnooks.

I don't actually use it much, but get all sorts of odd requests/suggestions. 6 degrees of separation would explain that.

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Just checked my Linkedin and had another strange connection. The sister of one of my 80 or so contacts. I have seen her twice (1989 and 1997), I don't have her email and the only connection would be through her brother (my Linkedin Contact). She does not show up as one of his contacts.

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I've just been stalked! Perhaps by someone looking for a beach chair.

I suppose now I'm going to be asked if I know half the population of Newfoundland.

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She's not his contact, but if he ever used LinkedIn's "find people I may know using my email address" thingie, then her email would be there that way, so it would just suggest it as someone you may know.

I just went through my list again. I'd say about 1/3 are people I know from some point in my life - classmate in uni, friend of a friend, whatever. 1/3 are "invite x to join LinkedIn!" type contacts, the majority of which are using waaaaay outdated emails (browneyedgirl @ hotmail . com, for example, not an actual address, but an example of the type - i.e., not CURRENT address), and the remaining 1/3 I have no idea who they are. However I can see how LinkedIn might think I do, particularly the ones that have shared connections. (you can see how many shared connections there are by looking at the number in the bottom right corner of the profile picture.)

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It uses the email account you signed up with and it's history and contacts. It runs the history against it's existing data using predictive algorithms.

The idea, more for them, is that when you try and add some of these people if they are not on LinkedIn it can generate an email and invite them thus expanding the network.

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I get that, I'm just pointing out that none of the emails were current. :)

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I reckon the beach chair line was a bait to see who would search for you on Linked In. Ok, I was that soldier, but then we have met IRL and you know my secret identity already.;)

If you search on LI for someone and actually click onto their profile you get picked up in the "people who are looking at your profile" record for that profile. That is unless you've got a premium LI account which can afford you some anonymity if you so choose. LI is therefore a pretty silly place to stalk someone unless you don't mind them knowing that you are doing so! (Actually if you log out of LI and then search and click on someone's page, they don't get the record of who looked at it. That's what you do if you are a proper stalker. Or so I've heard.)

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LinkedIn has some weird "security" settings.

Last week I was trying to stalk find someone that I haven't spoken to in YEARS. I'd googled their name, let's say it was Joe Smith... the first link was for LinkedIn. I clicked it, then LinkedIn just gave me the page "Joe S. Upgrade to see full name and profile!" and I couldn't see any of Joe's profile. Boo. I tried a few ways to get around it, but gave up.

A few hours later, I decided to try something else - searched for him using LinkedIn's normal search function instead of Google, and bam, full profile, right up in front of me, including the full name.

Genius, LinkedIn. Well done.

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You got me bang to rights, guvnor.

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There are numerous ways around all of their search restrictions.

An individual can never really hide from anyone on LinkedIn.

I'm a master of finding people on it. It's a dull exercise. I have it open 9 till 5 (or 10 till 4.45). I track down people I didn't know existed and build organisation charts. Then you figure out their email address structure and of you go.

It's got to be the least interesting place to stalk someone though. I mean if you're lucky there is a pic and then what? An embellished list of jobs and qualifications?

One is far better pulling up a high chair at Hooters for amusement.

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[QUOTE=JamesM;11560685]There are numerous ways around all of their search restrictions.

An individual can never really hide from anyone on LinkedIn.

I'm a master of finding people on it. /[QUOTE]

Ok - you know nothing about me so for shits and giggles would you be able to find me .

I think with the clues dbd gave i could find his but that's possibly because I am on Atlantic xpats connections list

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Let the doxing begin :D (I am of course saying this is complete jest, would not wish that kind of thing on anyone)

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[QUOTE=nldfc;11560734][QUOTE=JamesM;11560685]There are numerous ways around all of their search restrictions.

An individual can never really hide from anyone on LinkedIn.

I'm a master of finding people on it. /Not at this stage. I'd say I'm one piece of information away from having a chance. I really don't know or remember a thing about you.

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[QUOTE=JamesM;11560926][QUOTE=nldfc;11560734]An acquaintance of mine showed up as one of the three people I should get in touch with today on Linkedin.

I guess he is in my address book. I haven't exchanged an email with him in at least 10 years and probably never directly..he would have been in a group email message for my adult football team.

I ran into him on Saturday. I don't think I've seen him in about 7 or 8 years. He has no common Linkedin contacts with me.

Any explanation for this?

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I browsed around my linked in and apparently nobody I actually know and have contact with use the site and they kept asking me to send an invitation to join, but goodness they must have thought every single person I have ever emailed was someone I knew, page after page of complete strangers that I have never met.

I assume they are people I had sent resumes to over the years.

Other then 1 former manager who is climbing the ranks of management at the company, I was unable to find anyone else I actually knew or worked with.

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[QUOTE=Partially discharged;11570753][QUOTE=JamesM;11560926]Maybe, after he saw you, he typed your name into linkedin?

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[QUOTE=dbd33;11570991][QUOTE=Partially discharged;11570753]Doesn't Linkedin capture every name in your address book, including CC's?

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[QUOTE=dbd33;11570991][QUOTE=Partially discharged;11570753]That could be the case. I can see who viewed my profile and he didn't unless he went into stealth/incognito mode. It is all quite mysterious. I just confirmed and the last email he was copied on that I got was 2008 and he was one of many in that.

With this kind of data mining going on with Linkedin, I'm glad I never got Facebook.

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The difference between Linked In and Facebook in my opinion is that increasingly, professionally, you need to have a public, Linked In profile. Facebook for me at least, is about privately sharing stuff with friends/family. Of course you can, as many do, choose to live your life publically on FB and share the selfies, drunken ramblings and minutae of your life will all. But you'd be an idiot or a millennial to do so.;)