Yes, you read it right. Scientists claim that your online photos may help someone extract your friendships! As reported by ScienceDaily on Dec. 9, Cornell University computer scientists have, after comparing locations of photos posted on the Internet with social network contacts on Facebook, Flickr etc., found that as few as three “co-locations” for images at different times and places could predict with high probability that two people posting photos were socially connected.

What the heck it means to the common people, the ‘mere mortals’? It simply means that it has ‘serious’ implications for your online privacy. But, as usual, the researchers suggest a quantitative answer to a very old psychological question: What can we conclude from observing coincidences?

Here are the excerpts from ScienceDaily report:

The researchers used a database of some 38 million photos uploaded to the Flickr photo-sharing website by about a half million people. The time and place where photos were taken was provided by GPS-equipped cameras or by people who used Flickr’s online-interface to indicate the location on a map. Anyone can read this information from a Flickr page.

Flickr also offers a social networking service, and computer analysis showed that when two people posted photos several times from the same locations (often famous landmarks) and at about the same times, this was a good predictor that those people would have a social network link.

“While it’s obvious that a photo you post online reveals information about what is pictured in the photo, what is less obvious is that as you post multiple photos you are probably revealing information which may not be pictured anywhere,” Huttenlocher added.

One way to mitigate privacy risks, Kleinberg suggested, would be to “blur” time and space information in permanent records, making it less precise. This research might offer hints on how much blurring is needed, he said.

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As reported in Times of India website recently, Cisco has warned that crooks have inundated LinkedIn with emails crafted to trick members of the career-oriented social networking service into downloading software that loots bank accounts.

Cisco computer security specialists said the messages at times accounted for nearly a quarter of all the spam email sent to LinkedIn members.

The email is a phony contact request and contains a booby-trapped link that, if clicked on, infects computers with malicious software known as “ZeuS.” ZeuS embeds itself in the victim’s Web browser and captures your personal information,” such as online banking credentials, and is widely used to criminals to pilfer commercial band accounts.

What you need to do from being affected?

It’s Simple. The US technology firm advised people to delete such contact requests, especially if they do not know who they are from. Stay away from spam friend requests…