Cyber Sleuthing a new friend – who does that?

 

I am not sneaky neither am I bad friend  but  it was an assignment in class . In the EDTC 300 class this week we discuss Cyber shaming, cyber vigilantism, and Digital footprint. Our lecturer told us to pick a partner (or group of 3) and cyber sleuth each other; then write a post about the experience. I was wondering who I work with because it is an online class, but I immediately remembered Sandra. Sandra and I have talked on the phone  and sometimes chat on Zoom during class, so I decided to send an email to Sandra to ask if it is ok to partner with her. She replied and said yes so, I partnered with Sandra, and although we do not know one another very well, the internet and digital identities will let us discover more about one another. I will outline the things I was able to find out about her below.

I began by searching for Sandra Vincent and I realized there are thousands of people with her name so I decided to add Regina and so I searched Sandra Vincent Regina and now I found her, but all the info is from Edusites. Immediately, I knew I needed to go onto social media platforms. I went on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

• The first thing I noticed on her Facebook page was Today’s her birthday. I immediately sent her a birthday message and she immediately responded. It is lovely that you are doing cyber sleuthing on her and the first thing I saw was is her birthday is today.
• Details on Facebook tell me she works and lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
• She has worked with YMCA Saskatoon from 2022 – till date.
• She rarely posts on Facebook. Her last post was February 2023 which was the only post for 2023. Five posts in 2022, 1 in 2021,1 in 2019 ,2 in 2017 and 1 in 2016.
• She has lots of friends on Facebook and that is all about it on Facebook.
• I do not think that her Facebook page is private, because I can see her posts and I can send her a message on Facebook. She rarely posts but when she does it is just pictures or videos of herself and her husband. I honestly did not see anything inappropriate on her page.

I moved on to Instagram and searched for her name   I found so many people with her name, so I had to ask for her name on Instagram. She gave me her Instagram name and I checked and below are the things I noted.

• She joined Instagram in January 2014 and has seen her presence on Instagram since 2014. She does not post stuff but just her pictures and pictures of her family. Her last post was in December 2023, and she has an AI reel for her birthday today. Lest I forget she has more pictures on Instagram than on Facebook.
• From Instagram, I can read she lived in Toronto, Ontario from 2016 till about 2020.
• I was able to guess her educational background on Instagram, though she did not mention it but putting two and two together I concluded she once lived and schooled in the United Kingdom. She attended the University of Bedfordshire and from her pictures, she graduated in 2016. She also has Cranfield school of management / Cranfield University which is also in the UK.
• Going through the pictures on Instagram I saw so many pictures of when she was younger and a picture of her participating in NYSC. NYSC stands for National Youth Service Corps and is a year of National Service compulsory for every Nigerian graduate. I am familiar with this information because we have the same background and are originally from the same country.
• Based on her digital footprint I trust this person because it looks like she has a passion for her goal and the career she is headed into. She is hitting the sweet spot for sharing things on social media.
• I do not have any advice really for @evaglittering other than to keep doing what she has been doing and using digital resources to further your knowledge in all aspects of your career.
• Finally, I moved to LinkedIn to be more professional, and career-related. I found more information on her education, career, skills, and work experiences. She is the support supervisor at her workplace and all her past work experience has been in education. Her undergraduate and master’s degrees are in Education and has licenses and certifications in education as well.
• My conclusion is Sandra’s social media pages may be public, but she is still private in a way because she is careful of what she posts, and it is the only people that matter in her life that she shares her platform with.

My overall impression about Sandra’s digital footprint is that she has a positive digital footprint. quiet on social matters and she only follows people that are families or with which she is familiar. She also does not post or share rude posts on social media. I can say we are the same on social media except that her social media pages are public and mine is always private. Sandra’s digital platform is clean and clear of any cyber bullying or cyber shaming or people that do that and based on her digital footprint, I am happy to say I can trust Sandra as a friend and I can recommend Sandra to any Organization that wants to hire her or even be her reference.

All I can say is that Sandra can make herself private a bit on social media. Making yourself available online may increase one’s vulnerability to attack. For harmless purposes, such as customized advertisements, targets may gather data about you that, in the event of a breach, could leave you open to cyberattacks. Cybercriminals can help plan an attack by using anything they find out about you. If they know your birthday, the names of your family members, friends, and pets, as well as their birthdays, they may also attempt to guess your passwords for sensitive accounts. Inadvertently leaving too much of a digital trail can make it easier for identity thieves to steal your identity . Below is the link I followed to make my Facebook, Instagram  private.

How to Make Your Facebook Private to Protect Your Personal Info

5 Instagram Privacy Settings That You Should Know – Guiding Tech

Browsing Profiles in Private and Semi-Private Mode | LinkedIn Help

I have also added the link that talks about the steps to protect your digital footprint.

Steps To Protect Your Digital Footprint (10 Ways) (identityguard.com)

I will also suggest we should regularly check our digital footprint to be sure cyber criminals are not using any of our personal details against us or for fraud online .

@0dayctf

Discover your digital footprint with a simple search. Stay safe! #0day #hacker #fyp

♬ original sound – Ryan M. Montgomery