Privacy and security: how do you protect your loved ones?

S4per

Hi All,
Newly posting here, but have been lurking for some time. What a great place to share ideas and results!

I have a general question and thought this might be the best place for it.

Here's my situation that I think is common to many: I love taking photos (surprise!) and my most common subjects these days are my two children. I'd like to share many of the photos with more than just my family, but in this day and age I'm very much afraid of 'the dark side of the internet' and all the predators it holds. Consequently, I've locked my entire smugmug site and only allow friends to access it, and have tried to, in general, obscure as much information as possible from the general public regarding my family.

How do all of you think about this? What do you do? Do you have similar concerns? As I click on various signatures, I see many open galleries of your direct family, so apparently many are a bit more comfortable with it than I am?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.

-Per

Richard

S4per wrote:

Hi All,
Newly posting here, but have been lurking for some time. What a great place to share ideas and results!

I have a general question and thought this might be the best place for it.

Here's my situation that I think is common to many: I love taking photos (surprise!) and my most common subjects these days are my two children. I'd like to share many of the photos with more than just my family, but in this day and age I'm very much afraid of 'the dark side of the internet' and all the predators it holds. Consequently, I've locked my entire smugmug site and only allow friends to access it, and have tried to, in general, obscure as much information as possible from the general public regarding my family.

How do all of you think about this? What do you do? Do you have similar concerns? As I click on various signatures, I see many open galleries of your direct family, so apparently many are a bit more comfortable with it than I am?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.

-Per

Hi Per, and welcome to Dgrin . I moved your post to The Big Picture, which I think is a better place for it.

I think this is a personal decision, so whatever you are comfortable with is the right thing to do. My own feeling is that the threat from the Internet is greatly exaggerated. Nevertheless, I keep my own family pics in a private, password protected gallery. I think it's really just vanity--there are some pics in there that are not really very good, but nevertheless are meaningful to my family.

GP Images

I agree with Richard. What is someone going to do with a pic of your family?

Wineman

GP Images wrote:

I agree with Richard. What is someone going to do with a pic of your family?

Its amazing what people can do with just one picture. Some time ago, a friends son was kidnaped, when they sent the ransom note they included a picture of his kid in front of the house they kept him. With just this picture the police recovered the kid in 2 hours. But the same way can be used in your disadvantage. A lot of people post pictures of their homes, family, cars, etc. etc. Some people are paranoid about this because you can potentially have your identity stolen, or worst, a family member.

Me? I keep most of my galleries locked, some I don't care much, I recently took a trip to New Zealand and anybody can see those pictures, since its not the place you could find me... or my family. The photos I have of my family members home, birth day's, etc. are kept "safe" in a locked gallery.

Z.

S4per

Wineman wrote:

Its amazing what people can do with just one picture. Some time ago, a friends son was kidnaped, when they sent the ransom note they included a picture of his kid in front of the house they kept him. With just this picture the police recovered the kid in 2 hours. But the same way can be used in your disadvantage. A lot of people post pictures of their homes, family, cars, etc. etc. Some people are paranoid about this because you can potentially have your identity stolen, or worst, a family member.

Me? I keep most of my galleries locked, some I don't care much, I recently took a trip to New Zealand and anybody can see those pictures, since its not the place you could find me... or my family. The photos I have of my family members home, birth day's, etc. are kept "safe" in a locked gallery.

Z.

Exactly. It's scary how easy it is to get information on just about anything these days including placing people, names, places, etc. There are enough twisted people in the world who probably browse these and similar forums daily looking for potential victims.

Not that keeping pictures of family hidden is the ultimate solution, but security, in general, benfits from defense in depth.

Thanks for the welcome and the feedback! :-)

GP Images

Wineman wrote:

Its amazing what people can do with just one picture. Some time ago, a friends son was kidnaped, when they sent the ransom note they included a picture of his kid in front of the house they kept him. With just this picture the police recovered the kid in 2 hours. But the same way can be used in your disadvantage. A lot of people post pictures of their homes, family, cars, etc. etc. Some people are paranoid about this because you can potentially have your identity stolen, or worst, a family member.

Me? I keep most of my galleries locked, some I don't care much, I recently took a trip to New Zealand and anybody can see those pictures, since its not the place you could find me... or my family. The photos I have of my family members home, birth day's, etc. are kept "safe" in a locked gallery.

Z.

So why could the bad guys not just follow you home from the store, school, church etc?? Seems that would be a heck of a lot easier?

S4per

GP Images wrote:

So why could the bad guys not just follow you home from the store, school, church etc?? Seems that would be a heck of a lot easier?

of course they could

now, they're not interested in me, but if pedophilia is their thing, it's about my sons. and if they really like how they look, they may just do some more research..learn their names, where they live, and any other information that is often times too easily available and that will help them in whatever quest they have....and maybe then they'll show up at the store and follow you/them home or somehow catch them after school/soccer/etc. and say 'it's all right Jimmy (and no, that's not one of my kids' names ;-) ), Dad told me to come pick you up, and look I have one of your favorite toys also (that he saw in one of the pictures).

So - I can certainly sense the opinion here and it seems it's split. I haven't, though, heard anything that would make me feel more at ease about having public pictures of my kids in familiar surroundings, and unless someone else chimes in with something that hasn't been touched on, this gives me reinforcement for what I'm currently doing and will continue to do.

Many may think the above are esoteric and unlikely scenarios, and that a simple picture surely won't make the difference, but it does happen a lot, and I won't take any chances. Again, I'll say that security is defense in depth: not one thing will guard the castle perfectly, and not one thing will give it away. You need layers, and the addition or deletion of each available layer will help or hurt your goals. I'll try to use every layer that's available to me. To each their own.

Thanks for the discussion, everyone (and by all means, let it continue!). Rereading the above, I'm sure I sound like I'm on my soapbox and that I'm paranoid, but I firmly believe that in this day and age, you can never be too careful.

Thanks,
Per

Wineman

GP Images wrote:

So why could the bad guys not just follow you home from the store, school, church etc?? Seems that would be a heck of a lot easier?

They don't have to follow you, they can pick you up wherever you are. But most are more complex than just following someone around, they don't pick random people, they have targets, and they get their targets info primarily from the internet. They tend to study their moves and the ones of their love ones. And a great deal of information is gotten from photos. Hey, now a days the exif info of some cameras can even show where you toke the picture.

Z.

GP Images

Oh good grief! Paranoia has struck America and Mexico too!

ShepsMom

I think if someone wanted to kidnapped your child, they would do it without looking for a picture on the internet. In most cases, those are people who live nearby anyway.
More of a concern then kidnapping is a child pornography. Your child's picture can be used to "play with", if you know what i mean. But will you ever know that?

Miguel Delinquento

too many information sources
I have two young kids and totally share your concerns. That said, I think our fears would have been more valid 12 years ago when the Internet was just becoming popular. There is just so much information available today, and for a creep to randomly target an unknown family may be possible, but exceedingly unlikely.
My kids are old enough to have their faces in our weekly newspaper due to sports, school activities, or bake sales. That information too is online. So is the newsletter of our synagogue.
Now on a level, this publishing of everything may appear to be irresponsible, but at the same time it is a function of community. Our social contract is a delicate balance.

If someone is purposefully going to target your loved ones, the data shows that it will most likely be someone in your family social constellation. And they've known where you are prior to your figuring that out. It's those "friends" you have to be mindful of--I learned that when I worked in juvenile law enforcement many years ago.
You are, of course, welcome to take whatever measures to ensure your security requirements are satisfied.

M

Zanotti

Password protect any account that you put pics of your kids in. My SM account was open at first, until I got a PM to ask if I had any photos of my 6 year old daughter in a swimsuit.

The next minute, I had a hexidecimal password on my account and a second account for public viewing.

I was so mad, I deleted the IM immediately. I wish I had kept it and forwarded to SM for investigation.

Its not SM, but the world today. Get an account, but password protect it and give the password to your family.

Z

cornerketch

I had all my galleries open.. But my sons convinced me that I should protect my grandkids.. I should have been doing that from the very begining.. there are just too many perverts out there..

Now my family galleries are not advertised. Any of the pictures I take with young children , my granddaughters soccer game, are also NOT listed and most are password protected..

Only a email to the email distribution list has the access to the galleries..

I didn't like it to begin with but, NOW I feel much more comfortable knowing I have taken the proper steps.. I know that this is NOT fool proof, but it takes it out of the google search engines..

I put the clustr maps on my website.. I see access from the entire world..
THat was totoal unexpected..

My special olympics pictures are still open and hopefully we can continue to work in that manner..

The web has changed the world.. we need to think about it and respond appropriately..

Hank

Justiceiro

Zanotti wrote:

My SM account was open at first, until I got a PM to ask if I had any photos of my 6 year old daughter in a swimsuit.

The thing that is totally beyond me is the mind set behind that sort of question. How could anyone think that is normal? We must live in entirely different moral universes.