Thomas Ryan, security researcher & co-founder of Provide Security created a fictional profile on a Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn under the pseudonym Robin Sage. Even with flawed background detail placing the beginning of 'her' career at 15 years of age, he managed to elicit confidential information in the form of emails and bank accounts (assumedly from the reviewed documents).

"The goal, said Ryan, was to determine how effective social networking sites can be in conducting covert intelligence-gathering activities."

Following this quote it stated that many friends of the fictional Sage freely shared personal information and photos with her, inviting her to conferences, asking her to review documents, and even so much as to consider her for employment. The inherent nature of the social network promotes a false sense of security as most believe it is difficult to penetrate closed social networks. The truth is that to breach a network it can be something as seemingly harmless as a hijacked email account used to validate an account. Once within the network, information is perceived as safe from the public. With the exception of the latter issue of employment (background check), the ease of access to private information and photos on Facebook don't necessarily constitute a conscious action on the part of those hoodwinked. While the auspices of their friendships can be considered shaky at best, privacy controls on the network are notoriously lax and as a result the default settings, as it is a social network, are to share.
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