The Importance of Keeping Your Identity Safe

Dear all,

One of the reason why keeping your identity safe in this digital era is because it is very important - and very easy to get your information easily from Internet.  You don't believe me ? Try to google yourself, and see how much of your information is out there.  Especially when you are active in Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Tinder, Whatsapp, etc).  People can get to know your friends, where you live, where you study, where you work, your date of birth, your hobby, etc from Facebook.  One thing I don't really understand is - why do you people are so "willing" to give out all of those information for free ? Even Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder is working so hard to keep his "privacy" safe.  Read about how he purchase houses surrounding his house for privacy here.  So, if Mark himself values his privacy (by privacy here, I did not limit only physical privacy like your home, but also your identity or information).

Not so long ago, this kind of car sticker that shows your family member and names becomes quite popular in my city :

I mean, come on.  Although this one only shows Dad as "Dad" and Mum as "Mum" without your names on it, but you are actually giving out information to outsiders about how many people are there in your family, their names, and approximately how old they are.  I am not saying that we should keep looking at our back and being anxious all the time like crazy - but you should not give out too much unnecessary information out to "public" or Internet.  There are many kind of people out there (again, I am not saying all people are bad), and you should be picky about who you want to share this kind of information with.

You can start doing these things to protect your information :
1) Know who you are friend with in Social Media (such as : Facebook).  Do not just "friend" with that one guy or one girl that you met in a party last night.   
2) Limit those who can see your information.  Do not assume (Oh, he/she is a friend of a a friend, so it should be safe).  Do you know that some people will just "be-friend" someone as easy as a mouse click away, and that you put the trust of your information (and your family) on top of that friend of yours ?
3) If you are using professional social networking, such as Linkedin - instead of saying : I worked at Goliath National Bank as IT Engineer, you can say : I worked at a Local / International Bank as IT.  That way, it's more difficult for those who wish to find out more about you.  For those who really wish to get in touch with you or ask for references (headhunter, recruitment company, etc), they will try to contact you furthermore, don't worry about it.
4) Your biggest leak is (probably) someone closest to you - your friends or family.  Even you are be very careful about the information that you are posting, when one closest to you "friends" with some stranger, it will be leaked.  
Again, I write this article not to make people paranoid about their social networking.  Just be careful with whatever that you are posting out there. Because once you post it, it will always out there (and probably never get deleted ! ).

Good Companies Are Known By The People It Keeps

I got this quote first time from a colleague in that worked in USA branch.  I was working in the Asia branch, handling the APAC support (Asia Pacific and Oceania) while he handled NA (North America) support.  I am more than happy to put his name and title for this article, but I haven't gotten his consent to use his personal information, so I will keep it out until he is okay with it.

I mean, how true do you think this quote encompasses these days ? I understand that people will always come and go at some point, but it's the people that you know that will give assurance on how things will go (support, communication, etc).  Many times, even company clients will "take off" if the person handling the accounts are gone.  And it's not just because that particular person resigned, but the level of support, responsibility, and peace of mind given when the particular person is there.

I will give you an example : My company is looking for UTM (Unified Threat Management) products that will be able to act as spamblocker, URL blocker, gateway antivirus, etc.  I have come to conclusion to use this product called CheckPoint.  At this point, I will need to contact their Authorized Re-sellers to get their quotation.  CheckPoint has several re-sellers in my country, and at that point, I contacted several of them.  Here's the typical response from several companies :
1) Operator : Sorry, our Sales/Marketing is busy, please email us to abcd@abcd.com, we will respond to you shortly.  Me : Can you pass me their mobile number contact, so I can get in touch with them directly ? Operator : Sure, it's 123456789.  -> straight to voice mail, not pick-up, or something like : "Oh, I am in the middle of a meeting, I will call you back" (and they never call you back).
2) Only can be contacted through email.  Their website put a phone number (that no one bother to pick-up, or the operator said "Our Sales/Marketing is currently engaged.  I can't pass you their contact number, please email us to abcde@abcde.com" (and they never replied your email).
3) etc

When I finally find a company that provide really good sales/support with this CheckPoint product - and want to make another purchase - the really good guy have left (from Support Engineer to their Sales), I am left with new people that completely BLUR about the products they are selling, or the support that they are providing.

Above example has shown, that's how you lose a business.  I mean - a returning customer (beside word-of-mouth or recommendation) is really the best way for a company to make good money.  I understand that people come and go, they move on when good opportunity present itself.  But it is the company (or Management) to keep really good people in the company (and let go of the "bad seeds" - if there is any).

I hope this helps, everyone !