Social networks lead to an increase of fraud

As the competition between social networking sites is tough, all the companies commit themselves to develop new function to attract audiences. For instance, Facebook launched “Places” a couple of weeks ago. However, it is no longer safe for people to surf in the internet and share information on social networking sites. An article focusing on the booming for criminals’ intent on fraud is really on time to inform social networking users of the privacy. This story was fully covered by SMH on October 18, 2010.

Started with describing the serious satiation that criminals are stealing Australians’ identities by the information they post on websites, the article is well- structured and widely quoted. And then it presents the warning from the chief executive of the Crime Commission and the interview with Mr Lawler who organized crime conference in Melbourne this week. After that, the author focuses on the cause of this issue that is Facebook ignored warnings of international child pornography. In this case, audiences then clearly form the process of the development of this issue. Also, the author mentions a typical fraud example to fetch out the solution. Finally, it comes out that “Most senior police in state and federal agencies privately believe that Australian policing agencies lost focus in the fight against transnational organised crime due to competing priorities, including terrorism”.

This article is neither too long nor too short. It presents the while story with the cause, development and the suggested solution. Also, it is widely used the quotations from different experts, showing the wide range of opinions.

Source:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/social-networking-sites-a-boon-for-criminals-intent-on-fraud-20101017-16p6e.html

Australia net plan

The Australia government has come up with new internet privacy solution to address the increasingly severe privacy problem. Indeed, the new plan has derived highly admiration from US government. This article mainly presents how the new plan came up and the response of Obama government, publishing on October 17, 2010 on SMH.

The article is quite short, while presenting sufficient details that can be illustrated to the story. It is well-structured and simple to be understood. Started with briefly introducing that the US government reviews the Australian program, it says the benefits of the internet program specifically, and then followed by showing the attitude from the US government. Discussions are widely coming up about the Australia plan, saying that it is the way to help the public and small business better protect them online. Finally it pointed out the provision of the Australia plan.

However, this news does not include any reference and quotes, as well as pictures. The only thing it mentioned is that “White House cyber co-ordinator Howard Schmidt said the US was looking at a number of voluntary ways to help the public and small businesses better protects them online”.

In response to the internet privacy problem, I suppose this story will be targeting the entire internet user as the privacy is getting important in people’s daily life. Therefore, this news is valuable and worth reading.    

Source：

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/us-admires-australian-botnet-plan-20101016-16oih.html

How young is too young on Facebook?

Is Facebook acting as a friend or an enemy? The word “Frenemy” caught my attention because I did not know what it means. Frenemy is combined of friend and enemy, which usually indicates that the relationship can be seen as friendship as well as adversarial relationship. The author, Jim O’Rourke, uses this special word to describe the relationship between Facebook and Kids. The story was fully covered on SMH on October 3, 2010.


Concerns come up with the wide spread of Facebook that police and teachers have warned parents about the security problem with their children who are using Facebook. The fact is that there are many children having the Facebook account who are below 13 years old.

Well-structured and widely used of quotes and references is easily can be seen in this article. First, it presents the research result and the interview with Ms Treyvaud, showing that the serious situation for young children on Facebook. And then some reasons are followed why it is harmful for them on Facebook. It is reported that the greatest harms comes from their peer group rather than dodgy online stranger or predator without parents knowing it. Indeed, more examples are showed to illustrate how dangerous it is on Facebook. Finally, parents are suggested to teach their children to do outdoor exercise instead of online safety.

The interview with experts and some related research results are presented in this article. However, I suppose the points from parents are equally important to indicate that parents have no idea about the unsafe internet environment. Moreover, it is useful to motivate parents to pay attention to their children’s online life problem.
Source:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/facebook-frenemies-most-likely-to-hurt-kids-20101002-161vb.html

Will you share your location on Facebook?

Four weeks ago, the privacy problem of Facebook led to unexpected hot argument when Facebook first introduced “Place” function to the public in USA. Now this debatable new feature of Facebook has been launched in Australia. It was reported by news.com.au on September 30, 2010.
The author, Peter Farquhar, is a technology editor, using his professional angle to present this story. The image of new feature of Facebook application is presented at the very first of this article, giving the audience the concept of what this function is exactly. Then it simply introduces how to use “Place” on Facebook, clarifying that it is different from Foursquare by fully using the quotes from Facebook Places product manager. As I mentioned previously, the privacy issue may be led by Facebook Places product is an irresistible topic. The author also presents the debatable privacy issue by providing the quotes from Facebook that the default privacy setting would be to share with “friends only”. Finally, it largely emphasize on the strengths compared with other software, including Foursquare and Gowalla.

I suppose this is a good piece of news with well-organized structure, useful content and clear expression. However, for me, it is more like an advertisement to promote the new feature and attract public for wide utilization. In terms of public relation strategy, it is more focus on the publicizing product itself rather than public interests and news value. Another weakness can be seen is the length of this story. It runs too long with too many quotes and references. It may confuse the audience as hard to distinguish the point the author tries to convey clearly.

Source:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/facebook-launches-places-in-australia-not-identical-to-foursquare-at-all/story-e6frfro0-1225932299348