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11-06-2012 15:28 Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites can be used to make friends, plan events, and maybe even find a relationship... if you know how. We got a great student video asking how a social awkward student can use social media sites to make friends. Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks and John Iadarola give him advice on how to use facebook to make friends... and whether that's even the best way to go about it. Do you think Jonathan should focus on using sites like Facebook and Twitter to plan events and find friends in college? Or should he use more traditional means like clubs, parties, etc? What advice would you give him? Have you started any real friendships or relationships online? Let us know! And if you liked this video, hit that Share button and "like" it as well! 🙂 Subscribe to TYT U for more ? Submit a video to TYT U! We love hearing from students and faculty Follow us on twitter! ?

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How do You Use Social Media to Make Friends? - Video

Social networking site LinkedIn has revealed details of attempts to increase security in the wake of 6.5 million usernames and hashed passwords being published on a Russian hacker forum.

A blog entry by director Vicente Silveira revealed that LinkedIn has not received any reports of unauthorised account access in the wake of the security breach.

The company also revealed that passwords of the service's users are now salted as well as hashed. "That transition was completed prior to news of the password theft breaking on Wednesday," Silveira wrote.

Ty Miller, chief technology officer of penetration testing firm Pure hacking, said that although the salting of password hashes has been around for a long time, "we find that many Web applications either do not hash their passwords at all, or use common hashing algorithms, such as MD5, without a salt".

"Social and professional networking sites such as LinkedIn are major targets for hackers," Miller said. "Combining this with the complexity of these types of web applications, the chance of a critical vulnerability being present is likely. This means that a defence-in-depth approach should be a necessity for LinkedIn, which includes protecting passwords with strong cryptographic methods."

Miller said that social networking services such as LinkedIn store a wealth of personal information about their users and have a responsibility to implement a very high standard of security, with security measures, such as salting password hashes, implemented as part of application design.

Salting a password makes it less likely an account will vulnerable to hackers using rainbow tables, which are essentially dictionaries of hashes that allow someone to discover what a user's unencrypted password is.

"Salts are designed to ensure that the generated hash is different even if the same password is being hashed," Miller said. "The larger the salt, the more different hashes exist for the same password. This generally means that Rainbow Tables are not a feasible option for cracking salted hashes because there are too many combinations to create.

"This means that attackers have to rely on dictionary-based password attacks, which has to calculate every possible salted hash for each password in the password dictionary. This means that weak passwords will be able to be cracked easily, and stronger passwords are more likely to remain secured."

Rohan Pearce is the editor of Techworld Australia. Contact him at rohan_pearce at idg.com.au.

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LinkedIn: No account breaches in wake of hack

Skout, which offers a social networking app for iPhone and Android devices, has suspended temporarily access to its teen community, after three cases of alleged rape involving adults posing as teenagers on the network were reported.

The app helps users to flirt, find a date, or discover new friends "at the local neighborhood bar, at a concert at Madison Square Garden or on a bus tour in Barcelona."

Skout said in a blog post on Tuesday that it had set up its teen community for people aged under 18 about a year ago after it found a number of underage users were entering the community meant for people older than 18.

In each of the alleged rape cases, the men are accused of posing as teenagers in a Skout forum for 13 to 17-year-olds, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

A 15-year-old Ohio girl said she had been raped by a 37-year-old man, while in another case, a 24-year-old man is accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in Escondido, California, the newspaper said. In the third case, a 21-year-old man from Waukesha, Wisconsin, is facing charges that he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old boy.

"We actively monitor and screen to ensure that the two separate communities for users 18+ and for teen users are kept distinct and that behavior is age-appropriate," Christian Wiklund, founder and CEO of Skout said in the blog post.

Skout in San Francisco said it uses proprietary technology that continuously monitors activity on the network to identify users whose behavior appears "unusual, inappropriate or suspicious." Users are banned for inappropriate or suspicious behavior, and Skout's location-based apps provide general rather than specific location information, giving each community member the choice to decide if, when and where to meet in person.

"However, it's become clear to us that these measures aren't enough," said Wiklund, as in recent weeks, the company has learned of several incidents involving a "few bad actors trying to take advantage of some of our younger members."

Skout plans to keep its under-18 community shut until it can design better protections.

The company said it was working on building better safeguards, including mechanisms for age verification, and is partnering with a risk management advisory firm to strengthen its current security measures.

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Social App Skout Suspends Teen Community After Rape Allegations

RALEIGH-DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL,NC, June 13, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Socialworkhelper.com is a free resource directory with an active social networking community of practitioners and students from helping professions. People often envision social workers as a woman going into a parent's homes to take their children away. Although child protection social workers, who include both men and women, are not popular in our culture, they do provide a necessary function in protecting children from abuse and neglect.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120613/CG23557)

Many are unaware that child protection social workers only represent one area of practice within the social work profession. Not all teachers work in elementary schools, and not all police officers work on college campuses. However, social workers, teachers, and police officers are all struggling to provide quality services with limited resources while being understaffed. In the past, media outlets have often reported on the struggles of teachers and law enforcement when discussing today's economy. However, the social work community appears to be far removed from the discussion despite the increased demand for services and child protection issues as a result of the economic recession.

Social Workers can be found in the public sector located in the court systems, schools, public health, corrections facilities, and law enforcement agencies. In the nonprofit sector, you will find social workers as service providers, community organizers, and case managers in the healthcare industry. Social Workers also engage in private industry such as private practices, managed care facilities, mental health, and as employee assistance providers. Most importantly, social workers engage the political process exemplified by the Congressional Social Work Caucus inaugurated in the US House of Representatives by the 111th Congress. Yet, state and local governments have made and are currently proposing even more massive cuts.

Social Workers are finding it necessary to increase collaboration efforts, sharing of information, and ideas to combat the attacks against underrepresented populations and the professionals who work tirelessly to remove barriers to housing, health care, education, food security, and protection. Socialworkhelper.com also uses a Mobile Web 2.0 technology to allow users to access resources, engage in forums, download mobile apps, check network activity feeds, post to Facebook and Twitter simultaneously while updating their status on the network, and much more all from your mobile phone.

If you are a student, professional, or someone working to help improve the quality of life for the poor and underprivileged, please go to http://www.socialworkhelper.com today!

Media Contact: Deona Hooper Socialworkhelper.com, 9102499399, contact@socialworkhelper.com

News distributed by PR Newswire iReach: https://ireach.prnewswire.com

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Social Work 2.0

KSDK - ConnecTV today announces the largest-ever rollout of a social media platform for television with backing by the leading U.S. broadcast companies.

The platform synchronizes social engagement, complementary content and program promotions with television programming from any source, in any market across national cable networks, regional sports networks and local stations affiliated with ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CW and MyNetworkTV. The coast-to-coast rollout establishes ConnecTV as the most dynamic and engaging social network for television viewers in the U.S.

How ConnecTV works:

-ConnecTV is the only social network that works across all channels and all shows for both real-time and time-shifted television viewing. -ConnecTV delivers a rich content experience that syncs instantly with the show you're watching and delivers complementary play-by-play stats, news, information and quotes that can be shared with friends and followers-all with a single touch. -Viewers can also invite specific friends to join them for "viewing parties" and chat about their favorite shows and sporting events. -Seamless integration with Twitter and Facebook allows users to connect and organize their friends, favorite shows and social engagement all focused on TV. -ConnecTV uses a combination of content recognition algorithms, closed caption and a diverse mix of more than 100 data sources to drive the accuracy, relevancy and speed of synchronization with television programming.

ConnecTV is available as a free download for the iPad from the Apple App Store, or for any PC browser at http://www.connectv.com. ConnecTV will be introducing versions for the iPhone and Android smartphone and tablets in the next 45 days.

"Local engagement is at the heart of all social media, from Twitter to Facebook to Groupon," said ConnecTV Co-Founder Ian Aaron. "ConnecTV is the only social TV network with a true investment in the local viewing experience and an unparalleled strategic partnership with the leading media companies in America."

Viewers of ConnecTV on partner stations beginning with the top 40 markets will immediately receive additional social television benefits that include synchronization of local news, weather, sports and entertainment programming along with social polls. A total of 85 local ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CW and MyNetworkTV stations will be integrated into the ConnecTV experience at launch with plans in place to grow to 215 stations in communities across America.

"Television programming is driving the social media conversation, but those conversations continue to be fragmented across myriad platforms and provide little local context," said Alan Frank, President and CEO of Post-Newsweek Stations on behalf of Pearl. "We see ConnecTV as a way for our communities to come together in a single, standardized digital extension of our broadcast platforms, and engage in dialogue around the information and entertainment most relevant to them."

ConnecTV partners include a consortium of nine leading U.S. television broadcast groups known as Pearl. The companies include: Belo Corp., Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps Co., Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television Inc., Media General Inc., Meredith Corp., Post-Newsweek Stations Inc. and Raycom Media. Together, Pearl broadcast partners represent more than 200 local ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CW and MyNetworkTV affiliate stations in 45 of the top 50 markets reaching 76 million households. As part of their ConnecTV partnership, Pearl will expand and coordinate the affiliate base of participating local broadcasters, integrate local content, deliver on-air, on-screen and on-line promotions and sell complementary second screen advertising that synchronizes with the broadcast.

The combined technical capabilities of the ConnecTV platform provide a unique social and content user experience designed to transform television into a highly interactive second screen experience, in tandem with a live or time-shifted program. While all ConnecTV users will enjoy an extraordinary viewing experience, TV fans who watch along with ConnecTV's local partner stations will have the advantage of heightened benefits, including:

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NewsChannel 5 leads social TV charge in St. Louis