Google, Forums & *YOU*

Asslamo Allaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barkatuh,

A few brothers brought this issue to my attention with technical expertise from a very good brother from Sunniforum and may Allah (SWT) give him the best of success in this world and the next (Ameen).

A practising brother and sister decided to get married a few years ago. They were on the Sunnah so there was no flirting, no exchange of emails or messages, the brother made Istikhara , proposed and she accepted.

Sister abruptly backed out of the marriage and they parted ways without discussing matters and closing the issue. Just before that the brother had accidently googled her details and accidently came across her posts on a forum (not Sunniforum) which made him curious and he discovered that she wasn’t who she claimed to be (as far as Islamic practise is concerned) and actually had a completely different life online to what she had in “real “ life.

This Sister was leaving enough “breadcrumbs “ unintentionally in her forum posts for someone to follow to actually piece together her real views and opinions.

This could actually happen to anyone and ruin their life; once you start including snippets from personal life into your posts Google won’t leave you alone, consider the possibilities

Never post your Email address or contact number or residential Address or Name
Never upload any of your photos online
1. A well known American Sister went to a Sisters only event and years later had a falling out with another Sister, her pictures were released as a vendetta and can still be googled, she actually tried to commit suicide due to this (fortunately failed)
Never describe your personal life on the Internet

All public comments, post and likes can be easily searched. How?

Just search for a name or email address or contact number within double quotes e.g. "email address"
For search with in a site Eg: site:websitename.com "searchtext"
To search a post by user on yahoo groups site:groups.yahoo.com "name"
To search a post by user on a forum site:forumname.com post by "username"
To search a comment by a user on blog site:exampleblog.com comments by "username"
A text in pdf are searchable it the pdf is not password protected.

On Eid day I got called by a Sister who wanted some advise on the education of her children so I spoke to her and then asked her towards the end, “Where did you get my number from?”

She said, “I got it from the Internet!”

In my case I get so many emails, phone calls, text messages, whatsapp pings from people worldwide that I don’t even ask as to where people get my details from but for some people this may be a massive shock to their systems that they are no longer eligible for privacy!

3 Comments

abu mohammed wrote on 15 Aug 2013

SubhanAllah.

This is very true. Its amazing how people do this, especially when they are in trouble.

I get the same questions asked when I post images on the forum. Automatically people assume that I am speaking out my feelings or that I am mentioning someone else. Little do they know that most of the images are posted due to lecture I may have just heard.

It is silly for people to actually assume such things. They draw a picture of you which is totally wrong, yet at the same time others do exactly that and make the biggest mistake of their life.

SubhanAllah.

O. M. wrote on 15 Aug 2013

I went to the 2013 RSA conference (a major computer security conference) and the CEO of Akamai Corporation said that he tells his children to never allow their photos to be taken. His children know that their photos do not belong on the internet.

Another security researcher (from Sophos) gave a story about how his photo was taken from their website and used to frame him. There was a Facebook group made against him, and he eventually received death threats (against him and his family) even at his personal home address. Despite many complaints to Facebook, they refused to delete the group until he told them his picture was actually copyrighted...

Essentially: Anything you put on the internet (even if you email it to yourself) can be viewable by someone else. It's common for email accounts to be hacked, and thus any pictures you have there could be made public.

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Jazakullah Khairun

taalibah wrote on 16 Aug 2013

Very informative comments made by O.M. nothing over the internet should be trusted, we had money taken out of our bank account via PayPal, which is suppose to be the most secure way of making a payment, what a joke. Even the bank told us it was common practice by criminals. Nothing on the internet is foolproof. Don't believe otherwise!

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