Internet security expert uses fictitious character to show risks of social networking

Washington, July 25 (ANI): Internet security specialist Thomas Ryan, who invented the character of "Robin Sage," has demonstrated some of the risks of social networking and will attend the 'Black Hat Technical Security Conference' in Las Vegas this month to share his findings in a presentation titled "Getting in Bed with Robin Sage."

Ryan hopes his experiment would prompt the national security community to take a hard look at the social networking policy.

"I think it will change policy. It will probably help provide a guideline. My company is working on a policy to share with everyone." Fox News quoted him, as saying.

Ryan utilised the fictitious character of "Robin Sage" to extract information from various sources through social networking sites.

"There is a lot of information leaked people don't know about, "There is so much information leakage out there. People don't understand what they are putting out," he said.

"If you use an iPhone, it will give the exact location where you are, the name of the person who owns it and the version of the software, different information like that," he added.

During the 28 days that Ryan ran the experiment, Robin gained a total of about 300 friends on LinkedIn. Her Facebook profile collected 110 friends, and the Twitter account gathered 141 followers.

Connections were also developed with officials in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Agency, an intelligence director for the U.S. Marines, a chief of staff in Congress and several people in the Pentagon. (ANI)